Greek Mazes, Monsters, Menages a Trois (And Bestiality to Boot)

On arriving on Crete, Theseus met Ariadne, Minos’ daughter, who fell in love with him and told him that, provided he agreed to marry her, she would let him into the secret of getting out of the impenetrable maze with all his bits intact.  He agreed to the arrangement, so she gave him a ball of thread, he tied one end of the thread securely at the entrance to the maze and, as he walked through, he slowly unwound it.  Once he’d come across the minotaur which, by some miracle, happened to be taking a snooze, he beat it to death and then led the remaining sacrificial Athenians back to safety by rewinding the thread.

This myth has stood the test of time and many have tried to discover the site of the Minoan palace and the labyrinth.  This yearning for the truth behind the ancient tale, was fuelled by a wealthy English archaeologist, Arthur Evans who visited Crete and excavated and partially reconstructed the site at Knossos (above) between 1900 and 1935.  Now, over half a million people a year visit the ruins and are told that this was the site of King Minos’ palace and consequently the most likely location of the mighty labyrinth so it’s little wonder that other sites in the area are shoved on the back burner, but a group of English scholars from Oxford University joined forces with the Hellenic Speleological Society and spent the last summer delving into a medley of tunnels and caves discovered in a disused quarry just 20 miles up the road.

Gortyn (above), in southern Crete. was at one time the Roman capital of the island.  The archaeologists discovered that the caves at Gortyn (known locally as the Labyrinthos Caves) had been visited by ‘archaeological thieves’ – basically less energetic and rugged Indiana Joneses or less buxom and scantily clad Lara Crofts! – who were on the verge of blowing the whole thing sky high by dynamiting one of the inner chambers in the hope of finding treasure but thankfully our archaeological heroes arrived just in the nick of time!

The caves run to about two and a half miles and have numerous tunnels leading to wide chambers and dead end rooms which have been visited by travellers since Medieval times who were searching for the labyrinth.  Unfortunately, interest waned in these a-mazing caves and was re-routed to Knossos over the last 100 years or so thanks to Arthur Evans’ excavation escapades.  The caves at Gortyn then fell into neglect and even became a Nazi ammunition dump during World War 2!

Nicholas Howarth, a geographer from Oxford University who led the Anglo side of the expedition, said that the Gortyn caves had a menacing feel about them and it’d certainly be easy to become lost in the mass of tunnels and chambers so there seemed to be no reason why Gortyn couldn’t have been the location of the cave maze.  He believes the main reason Knossos had remained so highly regarded as the labyrinth site was due to Arthur Evans who had the wealth and clout to promote the area once he’d excavated and partially reconstructed it.

But before you make up your mind which is the most likely site, Nicholas Howarth has also said there may be a third option; at Skotino on the Greek mainland but little’s known about this at the moment.

The fact of the matter is that there’s no real evidence that King Minos’ palace, the labyrinth or the minotaur existed – it’s purely a myth.

Andrew Shapland, the curator of Greek Bronze Age at the British Museum in London added his two penn’orth by saying that Knossos is mentioned by Homer (the Greek poet, not Simpson!) so it seems more likely that if in fact this myth was a reality then Knossos would be the favoured site.

For my part, I think it’s a wonderful mythological tale but I do have some reservations when it comes to this mating with the white bull and menage a trois business!!!