Post by @artemiscollective

What if Greek myths are more real than you think? Part 1🏺 | The myth of the Minotaur may be a distorted memory of Bronze Age Crete. At Knossos, archaeologists found a Linear B tablet that records an offering “to the Mistress of the Labyrinth.” The palace itself had more than 1,300 interconnected rooms, and bull imagery appears everywhere, like the famous bull-leaping fresco and the Horns of Consecration. Then there are the children’s bones found near the palace, bearing cut marks consistent with butchery. The myth, of course, says Athens sent young people to Crete to be devoured by the Minotaur. None of this proves that Theseus or the Minotaur were real. But it does suggest that the story may preserve something older: a memory of a labyrinth, a powerful female deity, bulls at the center of ritual life, and something much darker happening at Knossos. Sources: Apollodorus. The Library of Greek Mythology. Translated by Robin Hard. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Plutarch. Theseus. In Lives, translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (Loeb Classical Library), 1914. Evans, Arthur J. The Palace of Minos at Knossos. 4 vols. London: Macmillan, 1921–1935. Wall, Sarah M., John H. Musgrave, and Peter M. Warren. "Human Bones from a Late Minoan IB House at Knossos." Annual of the British School at Athens 81 (1986): 333–388. Sakellarakis, Yannis, and Efi Sakellaraki. "Drama of Death in a Minoan Temple." National Geographic 159, no. 2 (1981): 205–222. Castleden, Rodney. The Knossos Labyrinth: A New View of the 'Palace of Minos' at Knossos. London: Routledge, 1990. Kerényi, Karl. Dionysos: Archetypal Image of Indestructible Life. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1976. Nilsson, Martin P. The Minoan-Mycenaean Religion and Its Survival in Greek Religion. 2nd ed. Lund: Gleerup, 1950. Hughes, Dennis D. Human Sacrifice in Ancient Greece. London: Routledge, 1991. Shapland, Andrew. "Knossos: Seeking the Labyrinth." The Past, March 20, 2023. "The Dark History of Human Sacrifice in Minoan Crete." The Collector, February 18, 2026. "Myths of the Labyrinth." Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. Accessed 2026. #ancienthistory #ancientgreece #greekmythology #historytok #bronzeage