Editing Minotaur (section)

==Interpretations==
[[File:Statue of the Minotaur (Roman copy after an original by Myron) at the National Archaeological Museum of Athens on 3 April 2018.jpg|left|thumb|240x240px|Statue of the Minotaur (Roman copy of an original by [[Myron]]), [[National Archaeological Museum, Athens]]]]
[[File:Plate painted by Lydos. Struggle between Theseus and the Minotaur presumably in the presence of Ariadne.jpg|thumb|195x195px|Theseus wrestling with the Minotaur in the presence of [[Ariadne]], {{Circa|550-540}} BC]]

The contest between Theseus and the Minotaur was frequently represented in [[Greek art]]. A Knossian [[Ancient drachma|didrachm]] exhibits on one side the Labyrinth, on the other the Minotaur surrounded by a semicircle of small balls, probably intended for stars; one of the monster's names was Asterion or Asterius ("star"). <blockquote>[[Pasiphaë]] 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.<ref>{{cite book |author=[[Apollodorus]] |title=[[Bibliotheca (Pseudo-Apollodorus)|Bibliotheca]] |at=3.1.4}}</ref></blockquote>While the ruins of Minos's palace at Knossos were discovered, the Labyrinth never was. The multiplicity of rooms, staircases and corridors in the palace has led some archaeologists to suggest that the palace itself was the source of the Labyrinth myth, with over 1300&nbsp;maze-like compartments,<ref>{{cite web |first=C. Michael |last=Hogan |year=2007 |title=Knossos fieldnotes |website=The Modern Antiquarian |editor=Cope, Julian |url=http://www.themodernantiquarian.com/site/10854/knossos.html#fieldnotes}}</ref> an idea that is now generally discredited.{{efn|
Sir [[Arthur Evans]], the first of many archaeologists who have worked at Knossos, is often given credit for this idea, but he did not believe it;<ref>{{cite book |first=David |last=McCullough |title=The Unending Mystery |publisher=Pantheon |date=2004 |pages=34–36}}</ref> modern scholarship generally discounts the idea.<ref name=Kern-2000/>{{rp|style=ama|pp= 42–43}}<ref name=Doob-1990/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 25}}
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Homer, describing the [[shield of Achilles]], remarked that Daedalus had constructed a ceremonial dancing ground for [[Ariadne]], but does not associate this with the term ''labyrinth''.

Some 19th century mythologists proposed that the Minotaur was a personification of the sun and a Minoan adaptation of the [[Baal]]-[[Moloch]] of the [[Phoenicia]]ns. The slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus in that case could be interpreted as a memory of Athens breaking tributary relations with [[Minoan civilization|Minoan Crete]].<ref name="EB19112"/>

According to [[Arthur Bernard Cook|A.B. Cook]], ''Minos'' and ''Minotaur'' were different forms of the same personage, representing the [[Solar deity|sun-god]] of the Cretans, who depicted the sun as a bull. He and [[James George Frazer|J. G. Frazer]] both explain Pasiphaë's union with the bull as a sacred ceremony, at which the queen of Knossos was wedded to a bull-formed god, just as the wife of the [[Tyrant]] in Athens was wedded to [[Dionysus]]. E. Pottier, who does not dispute the historical personality of Minos, in view of the story of [[Phalaris]], considers it probable that in Crete (where a [[bull cult]] may have existed by the side of that of the [[labrys]]) victims were tortured by being shut up in the belly of a red-hot [[brazen bull]]. The story of [[Talos]], the Cretan man of [[brass]], who heated himself red-hot and clasped strangers in his embrace as soon as they landed on the island, is probably of similar origin.

[[File:Perfume_jar_(Aryballos)_in_the_shape_of_a_minotaur_Greek_made_in_Ionia_580-560_BCE_Terracotta_(1).jpg|thumb|[[Ionia]]n Perfume Jar in the shape of a minotaur|200x200px]][[Image:Minotaurus.gif|thumb|right|The Minotaur in the [[Labyrinth]], engraving of a 16th-century AD gem in the Medici Collection in the [[Palazzo Strozzi]], Florence{{refn|
[[Paolo Alessandro Maffei]] (1709), ''Gemmae Antiche'', Pt. IV, pl. 31; Kern (2000): Maffei "erroneously deemed the piece to be from [[Classical antiquity]]".<ref name=Kern-2000/>{{rp|style=ama|p= 202, fig. 371}}
}}|150x150px]]

[[Kerényi Károly]] viewed the Minotaur, or Asterios, as a god associated with stars, comparable to [[Dionysus]].<ref>{{Cite book |last=Kerenyi |first=Karl |year=1951 |title=The Gods of the Greeks |pages=269}}</ref> Coins minted at [[Knossos]] from the fifth century showed labyrinth patterns encircling a goddess's head crowned with a wreath of grain,<ref>See illustrations of [[Carme (mythology)|Carme]], for an example of a goddess crowned with a labyrinthine wreath of grain.</ref> a bull's head, or a star. Kerényi argued that the star in the Labyrinth was in fact Asterios, making the Minotaur a "luminous" deity in Crete, associated with a goddess known as the Mistress of the Labyrinth.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Kerényi|first=Karl|title=Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life|year=1976|pages=104–105, 159}}</ref>

A geological interpretation also exists. Citing early descriptions of the minotaur by [[Callimachus]] as being entirely focused on the "cruel bellowing"<ref name=Callimachus-Mair-Mair-1921>{{cite book |author=[[Callimachus]] |year=1921 |title=Callimachus, Hymns and Epigrams |translator1=Mair, A.W. |translator2=Mair, G.R. |place=Cambridge, MA |publisher=Harvard University Press}}</ref>{{efn|
[[Callimachus]] first refers to the minotaur with the phrase
: "Having escaped the cruel bellowing and the wild son of [[Pasiphaë]] and the coiled habitation of the crooked labyrinth"&nbsp;...<ref name=Callimachus-Mair-Mair-1921/>
}}
it made from its underground labyrinth, and the extensive tectonic activity in the region, science journalist Matt Kaplan has theorised that the myth may well stem from geology.
{{efn|
Kaplan argues that the minotaur is the result of ancient people trying to explain earthquakes;<ref>{{cite book |author=Kaplan, Matt |title=Science of Monsters |place=New York, NY |publisher=Simon & Schuster |year=2012}}</ref> he points out that carbon dating of marine fossils attached to boulders that were ejected from the ocean by ancient [[tsunamis]] indicates the region was [[tectonically]] very active during the years when the minotaur myth first appeared.<ref>{{cite journal |author1=Scheffers, Anja |display-authors=etal |year=2008 |title=Late Holocene tsunami traces on the western and southern coastlines of the Peloponnesus (Greece) |journal=[[Earth and Planetary Science Letters]] |volume=269 |issue=1–2 |pages=271–279|doi=10.1016/j.epsl.2008.02.021 |bibcode=2008E&PSL.269..271S }}</ref> Given this, he argues that the Minoans used the monster to help explain the terrifying earthquakes that were "bellowing" beneath their feet.
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===Image gallery===
<gallery mode="packed" heights="110">
File:Theseus Castellani Louvre E850.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur. Detail from an Attic [[black-figure]] [[amphora]], {{circa|575 BC–550 BC}}.
File:Theseus Minotaur Louvre F33.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur. Side A from a black-figure Attic amphora, {{circa|540 BC}}.
File:Theseus Minotauros Louvre G67.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur. Attic red-figured plate, 520–510 BC.
File:Theseus Minotauros Louvre CA2254.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur. Attic black-figure [[lekythos]], 500–475 BC. From Crimea.
File:183-Thesee-tuant-le-Minotaure MNA.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur, black-figure amphora  {{Circa|480}} BC
File:British Museum Room 20a Neck Amphora Oionokles Painter Theseus and the Minotaur 19022019 6619.jpg|Theseus fighting the Minotaur, red-figure amphora, {{Circa|460}} BC
File:Theseus Minotauros Staatliche Antikensammlungen SL471.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur. Side A from an Attic red-figure [[stamnos]], {{circa|460 BC}}.
File:Kylix Theseus Minotauros Louvre F83.jpg|Theseus and the Minotaur, Attic black-figure kylix tondo, {{circa|450–440 BC}}.
</gallery>