The Minotaur belongs to a single Cretan story rather than to a type. Minos withheld a bull owed to Poseidon; the god caused his wife Pasiphae to conceive by it, and the bull-headed child was shut in the Labyrinth built by Daedalus, fed on youths and maidens sent as tribute from Athens, and killed by Theseus with Ariadne's thread to bring him out again. Its name means the bull of Minos and the creature is called Asterion in some sources. The Bronze Age palace at Knossos, with its bull-leaping frescoes, sacral horns and complicated ground plan, has been offered since Evans as the origin of the labyrinth image, which is plausible and unproven.
Facts
Attestation
HistoricityLegendary: known from narrative tradition, not the historical record 1 Legendary Meaning in the Attesting SourceA punishment on Minos rather than a monster from nowhere 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Meaning in the Attesting SourceKept in the labyrinth built by Daedalus, fed on Athenian tribute 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Meaning in the Attesting SourceOffspring of Pasiphae and the Cretan bull 1Tradition: Pseudo-Apollodorus, Bibliotheca Function
Domain / FunctionDomain of the Labyrinth at Knossos, built by Daedalus, where the Minotaur was fed youths and maidens sent as tribute from Athens until killed by Theseus. 1 Cult
Attributes and IconographyThe Minotaur is depicted as bull headed and man bodied, confined by Minos within the Labyrinth built by Daedalus at Knossos, and fed a periodic tribute of Athenian youths and maidens until Theseus, aided by Ariadne's thread, killed it and found his way back out. 2 Origins
Origin of the NameHis name means 'the bull of Minos', combining Minos with the Greek tauros, bull; he is called Asterion in some sources. 1 Practice
LineageThe Minotaur's monstrous birth is attributed to Pasiphae, wife of King Minos of Crete, after her union with the Cretan Bull sent by Poseidon, a union tradition connects to Minos's own failure to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon as he had promised. 1 Learn More
The Bull in the Maze at Knossos
The Minotaur belongs to a single Cretan story. Minos withheld from Poseidon a bull owed in sacrifice; the god caused Minos's wife Pasiphae to conceive by the animal, and the bull-headed child, named Asterion, was shut in the Labyrinth built by Daedalus and fed on youths and maidens sent as tribute from Athens. Theseus kills it and escapes the maze by the thread of Ariadne. Apollodorus and Ovid transmit the tale, and Plutarch preserves rationalising ancient attempts to explain it away.
From 1900 the archaeologist Arthur Evans excavated the Bronze Age palace at Knossos, whose scale, complexity and pervasive bull imagery, the sport of bull-leaping appears in its frescoes, he connected to the labyrinth legend and to a civilisation he named "Minoan" after Minos. The relationship is one of resonance rather than proof: the myth is not a memory of the palace, but the palace shows the bull-culture out of which such a myth could grow.
Knossos, the Labyrinth, and What Evans Built
The Minoan palace at Knossos was excavated by Arthur Evans from 1900, and almost everything popular culture knows about the Minotaur passes through his interpretation of it. The site is genuinely complex in plan, and Evans connected that complexity to the labyrinth of the myth. He also connected the name: labrys, a double axe, appears repeatedly in Minoan contexts, and the derivation of labyrinth from it as the house of the double axe is his proposal rather than an ancient statement.
Bull imagery at the site is not in doubt. Frescoes show figures vaulting over a bull's back, horns of consecration appear as architectural fittings, and bull-head rhyta were used for pouring. Whether any of it depicts what the Athenian myth describes is another question, and the myth is Athenian, told from the point of view of a city that paid tribute.
The caution that has to travel with the site is that Evans reconstructed. Concrete was poured, columns were raised, and frescoes were restored from small fragments by painters working to his direction. Visitors photograph a great deal of early twentieth-century work. The excavation is still the foundation of Aegean archaeology, and separating what was found from what was completed is ordinary practice in the field, not a scandal.
Connections
Associated With
Source The Library (Bibliotheca)Pseudo-Apollodorus
Belongs to Tradition
Opposes
Theseus kills the Minotaur in the labyrinth at Knossos in Greek myth, aided by the thread of Ariadne.
Source The Library (Bibliotheca)Pseudo-Apollodorus
Sources
1. The Library (Bibliotheca)
Pseudo-Apollodorus, (various editions)the Library, Pasiphae, the Cretan Bull and the Minotaur's birth
But angry at him for not sacrificing the bull, Poseidon made the animal savage, and contrived that Pasiphae should conceive a passion for it.
the Library, Pasiphae, the Labyrinth and the Minotaur
Then he introduced Pasiphae into it; and the bull came and coupled with it, as if it were a real cow. And she gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.
- Opposes: Theseus
View the Source 2. Metamorphoses
Ovid, (various editions)- Metamorphoses Book 8, the Labyrinth, the Athenian tribute and Theseus
Metamorphoses Book 8, the Labyrinth and Theseus
In this the Minotaur was long concealed, and there devoured Athenian victims sent three seasons, nine years each, till Theseus, son of Aegeus, slew him and retraced his way, finding the path by Ariadne's thread.
View the Source Divinity Atlas Entity Records, First Edition
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