The Minotaur, whose name means "bull of Minos", was a monster with a man's body and a bull's head that fed on human flesh. His real name was Asterion. His story links many figures of mythology: Poseidon, King Minos, the inventor Daedalus and the Athenian hero Theseus.
The birth of the monster
Minos, son of Zeus and Europa, wanted to become king of Crete and asked Poseidon for a sign of divine favour. The god sent a magnificent white bull out of the sea, which Minos was supposed to sacrifice. But the bull was so beautiful that the king kept it and sacrificed another. To punish him, Poseidon made Queen Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull. From their union the Minotaur was born.
The labyrinth
Horrified, Minos asked the Athenian architect Daedalus, who lived at his court, to build a prison no one could escape: the labyrinth, a tangle of corridors and rooms with no way out. The Minotaur was shut inside.
The Athenian tribute
Androgeus, son of Minos, had been killed in Attica. In revenge the king of Crete made war on Athens and forced it to pay a terrible tribute: every nine years seven youths and seven maidens were sent to Crete and shut in the labyrinth, where the Minotaur devoured them.
Theseus and Ariadne's thread
At the third tribute Prince Theseus volunteered. On Crete Minos's daughter Ariadne fell in love with him and, on Daedalus's advice, gave him a ball of thread. Theseus tied it at the entrance and unrolled it as he went; in the heart of the labyrinth he fought and killed the Minotaur, then followed the thread back to the exit. He fled with Ariadne and the other young Athenians. For helping Theseus, Daedalus was imprisoned in the labyrinth with his son Icarus: see Daedalus and Icarus.
Myth and archaeology
In the early 20th century the British archaeologist Arthur Evans uncovered at Knossos, near Heraklion, an enormous palace with hundreds of rooms, corridors and staircases on several floors. It was full of images of bulls, such as the frescoes of youths leaping over the animal's back, and of double axes, perhaps labrys in an ancient tongue: hence, according to one theory, the word labyrinth. Evans believed he had found the palace of Minos and called the civilisation Minoan. The myth may preserve the memory of a palace so complex it seemed a maze, and of rituals with bulls. See the palace of Knossos and the Minoan civilisation.