Legend of the Monitaur (1 Viewer)

[Gummy_bear]

Hey, could someone please post up some notes on the legend of the monitaur? ive got plently of notes on everything else, but i just need a better understanding of the specific topic.

Anything at all would be great. I have looked at the resources, but there isnt that much.

Oh, and some info on the different texts of the minoans, its jsut that was a past paper Q and im not sure if they meant linear A and B or somethig else?
I could also use some basic notes on both linear A and B.

sorry to be a bit of a burden, but i dont really know much about this topic and i jsut want a better understanding.

thanks in advance.

 

[bind]

if you google it you find:

http://www.greekfoodanddrink.com/culture/mythology/LegendsMinotaur.htm

which explains the legend.

or here is my shortened crappyish version, since i am so lovely and helpful haha:

The Legend of the Minotaur: according to this legend, Minos was the son of Europa, a beautiful young princess who had been taken from her home to the island of Crete. Zeus, king of the gods, was his father. Minos in turn married Pasiphae and became King of Crete. Minos was a good ruler, wrote a code of laws of the Spartans, and rid the Aegean Sea of pirates. One day, Minos neglected to perform a religious rite properly. Because his mother had been brought to Crete by Zeus in the disguise of a white bull, the finest bull in the royal herd had to be offered to Zeus each year. Minoa was reluctant to kill this beast, so he sacrificed another in its place. Zeus became angry and decided to punish Minos by causing Pasiphae to fall in love with the bull-> the Minotaur was born. Minos was shamed by this monster that had the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man. He asked his engineer, Daidalos to devise a prison for the Minotaur, and he invented a maze-like bulding: the labyrinth. Aegeus, King of Athens had killed Androgeos, the son of Minos. When Minos discovered the murder, he demanded that every 8 years a tribute be sent to Crete: 7 girls and 7 boys. King Aegeus’ son Theseus volunteered to go, promising to slay the Minotaur. Shortly after the Athenians arrived in Crete, the daughter of Minos, Aridne, saw Theseus and decided to help him. Theseus took string and a dagger into the labyrinth with him. Theseus killed the monster and fled to Athens. He had made a promise to his father to change the ships sails from black to white, so when King Aegeus saw the ship with a black flag, he thought his son had been killed and he through himself into the sea…now called the Aegean Sea in memory of the king.

as for linear a and b etc:

Early writing was a form of hieroglyphics, using symbols for objects. This form gave way to the largely indecipherable Linear A. Later still, another form imported from mainland Greece, was discovered at Knossos and has been called Linear B. This script is Mycenaean Greek and has been interpreted. Ventris and Chadwick interpreted Linear B in 1952.
Phaistos Disc – Pomerance suggests that the hieroglyphs are symbols of the constellations, or groups of stars. When he finished his work on interpreting the disc, he took star charts to a practicing astronomer, who said that the patterns “faithfully record the relative positions of these constellations… consistent with an epoch c. 2000 BC”. Callender suggests that it is possible the signs on the Phaistos Disc could have been part of a star chart used by sailors.

yipppee am i nice or what? wooooo. good luck and stuff.

 

[Gummy_bear]

ooh, you ARE nice! thankyou so much. geeze, i didnt even think of google. lol.
good luck i your studies and exam, woop! only 2 days left.

 

[bonniejjj]

The origin of the Minotaur
The God Poseidon sent King Minos (son of Princess Europa and Zeus) a perfect white bull, intended as a sacrifice to Poseidon, but Minos valued the bull too much to sacrifice. Poseidon punished Minos by making his wife Pasiphae fall passionately in love with the bull. With the help of inventor and craftsman Daedalus she satisfied her unnatural desires, and a monster, half man, half bull was born. He was referred to as the Minotaur, or ‘the bull of Minos.’ King Minos tried to hide the Minotaur in a vast maze, The Labyrinth, built by Daedalus.

Theseus and the Minotaur
Androgeos, son of Minos visited Athens. He became friendly with a family that was unpopular with the King of Athens, and Aegeus, the King became afraid Androgeos might use the Cretan fleet against him, and so had Androgeos killed. In response King Minos waged war, and the Gods wreaked havoc on Athens. Athens, in an entreaty for peace, engaged in an agreement with Crete; in exchange for peace Minos demanded seven young Athenian men and seven young Athenian women every nine years to feed to the Minotaur. When Minos called the tribute for the second time, Aegeus’ only son Theseus volunteered. Theseus promised to slay the Minotaur and return, and Aegeus reluctantly agreed on the condition that he sails home with a white sail instead of a black one. Upon his arrival in Crete, Minos’ daughter Ariadne fell in love with Theseus. She decided to help him by giving him a sharp dagger and a ball of thread enabling Theseus to kill the Minotaur and find his way out of the Labyrinth. In return he was to take her back to Athens with him. Theseus was successful in killing the Minotaur and escaped the maze. He freed the Athenians and sailed home to Athens, without Ariadne. Unfortunately, Theseus forgot his promise to his father and sailed home with a black flag. When Aegeus saw the flag, he threw himself from the headland onto the rocks below.
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Evans based many of his site interpretations and conclusions upon the ancient Greek mythology of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur. Drawing from a variety of written and archaeological sources, Evans concluded Knossos to be the palace of the legendary King Minos. This was due to its location, the double-axe symbol engraved on columns at the palace and the very complex system of small rooms and winding “labyrinthine” passages. Evans called the site at Knossos “King Minos’ Palace,” and named the civilization Minoan, after the legendary King. The legend, despite being mythological, is seeded in truth. The Minotaur is clearly one aspect of the legend that is not plausible, although in the ruins of Knossos there was evidence of bull worship. Ancient historians, including Thucydides and Herodotus, have made reference to King Minos in their histories, indicating that his existence as a historical figure is probable, despite the fact that these writers wrote a considerable time after the events in Knossos. The sacrifice of the seven young men and seven young women within the legend is improbable, although there have been two cases of human sacrifice in Crete, One dated 1700BC and the other 1500BC. It has been suggested that these sacrifices can be attributed to a desperate attempt at appeasement of gods during the violent earthquake periods at these times. In the legend the Minotaur was housed within the labyrinth. When Evans discovered Knossos, he found that the layout of the palace was not unlike that of a maze, and thus connected the palace at Knossos with the Labyrinth of myth, continuing to make, if somewhat strained, connections between the palace and the myth.