MINOTAUR

From long past history of ancient greece comes the tale of a creature part man with the head of a bull and the brave warrior that slayed him within the labyrinth. The tale of the minotaur. Recent finds place this tale into the catagory of being partly TRUE. A maze of hand dug tunnels hidden beneath the feet of unsuspecting citivans hiding a creature ready to eat woman and children alike, sounds made up right? Poseidon is where this tale begins, the island of crete king minos recieves a beautiful white bull from the god of the sea. Poseidon told the king to sacrifice the bull but the king refused so as punishment the god got aphroditie to make the kings wife fall in love with the bull and breed. The kings wife gives birth to a half man,half bull but as the creature grows with a lust for blood and killing king minos needed to find a way to control and contain his step child. The kings gaurds under his orders trap the creature and begin to build a series of elaborate tunnels under crete to house the beast called the labyrinth once locked up the creature is fed on a diet of woman and children from athens. Aegeus the greatest warrior of greece at the time offered his sword to kill the minotaur, his father king Aegeus agrees and Theseus sets sale to crete where he falls in love with king minos daughter ariadne, who hands him string so as not to get lost in the maze so he can return to be wed. Of course we all know the creature was beaten and Theseus returned using the string to find his way back. Theseus returned to athens but forgot to sail with white sails to show his father Aegeus he was alive, so destraught thinking his child had died the king threw himself off a cliff into the sea below, this is now known as Aegean sea. All myths have a grain of truth in them somewhere along the line and most legends greek or other wise have clues the creatures of legend somewhere in one form or another are in fact very real, from years of researching i do feel most are to do with power plays in one form or another, clean and clear lies so one man/woman can best another. Clearly the beastiality between king minos wife and a bull would never produce off spring but what sparked the myth of the child eating beast. Alot of historians believe in fact the kings wife had a child by another and the child was hidden in the labyrinth and the tale of the minotaur, minatour translates literally as minos bull bt the creature did infact have a name and that wasAsterion. Question is , is that so? Around the med many countries have a cult following of the bull and the tale is just a form of the blood cults of the era. It is believed the minoans would wear the head of a bull that had been sacrificed and from what i have found reading countless books and web pages and watching doctumentries from what i found if i understand it correctly this act of wearing a bulls head, part man part animal, the minotaur may well of been a form of blood sacrifice to appease the gods for better crops, success in war and prosperity. The question follows with this as to the probabilty the labyrinth being a reality also. Well in fact it is believed the labyrinth was a real place after arciologists uncovered a series of twisting rooms underneath the palace near Gortyn, Crete.Although at least three other locations since found have been said to be the same cretan labyrinth, whether the labyrinth of the tale is real i truly do not know but what i do know is there are labyrinth deep in the earth under greece, crete and probably many other countries world wide. The Gortyn labyrinth the most recently found is believed to be the most likely basis of the legend, the tunnels and rooms run over 12 kilometres underground which i think is around 7 or 8 miles long and the walls have as yet untranslated script scratched into the walls in most locations throughout the pipeline of tunnels and they are believed to be originals. It has also been discovered within these tunnels that the nazis used them for weapons and ammo and blew up most of their ammo in 1945. Was the minotaur a real creature or a ritual blood sacrifice to bring wealth and prosperity? or was it a tale around the infidelity of the kings own wife. Who knows, but the tale will excite and terrify young readers for centuries to come.