WEBVTT - From the Vault: The Minotaur, Part 2 0:00:05.720 --> 0:00:07.840 Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. This is 0:00:07.920 --> 0:00:11.440 Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and this is part 0:00:11.480 --> 0:00:14.440 two of our series on the Minotaur that we recorded 0:00:14.480 --> 0:00:18.599 in October of this one originally published on the of 0:00:18.720 --> 0:00:24.919 that month. We hope you enjoy Welcome to Stuff to 0:00:24.920 --> 0:00:34.440 Blow Your Mind production of My Heart Radio. Hey, welcome 0:00:34.479 --> 0:00:36.400 to Stuff to Blow your Mind. My name is Robert 0:00:36.479 --> 0:00:39.640 Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick, and we're back going into 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:42.080 the Labyrinth again. This is going to be the second 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:45.440 part of our series on the Minotaur for this October. 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.920 I'm so excited because, in addition to talking more about 0:00:48.960 --> 0:00:52.080 the maze and the Monster, today we're gonna be interviewing 0:00:52.120 --> 0:00:55.800 a professor who specializes in the history of my knowing Crete. 0:00:56.120 --> 0:01:00.840 That's right. We're delighted to have Nicoletta Mamiliano, Professor of 0:01:00.880 --> 0:01:04.080 Agan Studies at the University of Bristol, on the show. Uh. 0:01:04.440 --> 0:01:06.840 She's the author of the new book In Search of 0:01:06.880 --> 0:01:10.440 the Labyrinth, The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete, which is 0:01:10.480 --> 0:01:14.399 available now in paperback, hardback and as an e book. 0:01:14.600 --> 0:01:16.960 And it's a beautiful book, just loaded with with wonderful 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:21.000 illustrations and photographs of you know, of the various motifs 0:01:21.360 --> 0:01:23.559 that she discusses in the book. All right, so before 0:01:23.600 --> 0:01:26.280 we jump into our conversation, we should probably do a 0:01:26.360 --> 0:01:28.680 quick overview of Minoan Creed, just to give you a 0:01:28.720 --> 0:01:32.000 little bit of background. Yeah, you know, in our previous 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:34.160 episode on the minitar we touched a little bit on 0:01:34.240 --> 0:01:36.800 the fact that these are Greek myths concerning the Minoan 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:40.280 civilization on the isle of Crete. Um, but yeah, let's 0:01:40.280 --> 0:01:42.400 get a let's just lay a little groundwork for the 0:01:42.440 --> 0:01:44.920 interview to follow. So Crete is an island in the 0:01:44.920 --> 0:01:48.200 eastern Mediterranean, the fifth largest in fact, it's part of 0:01:48.240 --> 0:01:51.080 what is now the nation of Greece. It's long, it's narrow, 0:01:51.240 --> 0:01:55.120 it's a largely mountainous Today it's a melting pot of European, 0:01:55.240 --> 0:01:58.760 Asian and African cultures and it's well positioned to bridge 0:01:58.760 --> 0:02:02.560 those cultures now. Stone tools on Creed have been dated 0:02:02.600 --> 0:02:05.760 back a hundred thirty thousand years, but true human settlements 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:10.320 weren't found here until uh it seems like a b c. 0:02:11.400 --> 0:02:13.600 But it was home to what is sometimes referred to 0:02:13.960 --> 0:02:18.440 as the first advanced European civilization. It was established by 0:02:18.520 --> 0:02:20.800 three thousand b c E and by two thousand b 0:02:21.000 --> 0:02:25.160 C they were building palaces and exhibited a rich culture. 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:28.960 They thrived till at least fourteen fifty b C, when 0:02:29.000 --> 0:02:32.120 they ended up entering into a period of decline. Okay, 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:34.840 So in the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, 0:02:35.000 --> 0:02:38.400 we are getting a sort of exo mythology, a depiction 0:02:38.800 --> 0:02:43.720 of a past, once flourishing culture, but depicted from the 0:02:43.800 --> 0:02:48.360 outside by a different culture, and in a somewhat pejorative way, 0:02:48.400 --> 0:02:51.160 at least in in that particular story, right that the 0:02:51.200 --> 0:02:54.040 idea that there's a monster there and that the Greek 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.720 city states like Athens would have to pay tribute to 0:02:56.760 --> 0:03:00.480 the monster in the palace on in my and Crete, 0:03:00.720 --> 0:03:02.200 Yeah and U. And one of the big things we 0:03:02.240 --> 0:03:03.600 have to keep in mind is that, you know, we 0:03:03.600 --> 0:03:09.799 we're dealing with one ancient people's interpretations of another ancient people. Um. 0:03:10.000 --> 0:03:13.320 So we while we refer to this Bronze Age civilization 0:03:13.360 --> 0:03:17.520 today as Minoan Crete, the name itself here is referring 0:03:17.560 --> 0:03:21.119 to King Minos in Greek traditions. We simply don't know 0:03:21.320 --> 0:03:25.240 what the pre Hellenistic inhabitants of this island called themselves. 0:03:25.560 --> 0:03:29.600 Some scholars, according to Mamiliano, believe that the second millennium 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:34.280 BC Egyptians knew them as the people of Kef. Two. 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:38.600 The Minoan distinction stems from the early twentieth century. Uh. 0:03:38.640 --> 0:03:41.320 This was it was dubbed by Sir Arthur Evans, the 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:46.360 famous excavator of Nosis, the the the the major city 0:03:46.400 --> 0:03:49.520 there on what is what is now crete. Alright, So 0:03:49.680 --> 0:03:53.680 Arthur Evans, working on excavating this ancient structure at Canossus 0:03:54.440 --> 0:03:58.480 uh Is is Knowingly he's not suggesting that like the 0:03:58.720 --> 0:04:02.280 mythical king Mino was actually the king who lived in 0:04:02.320 --> 0:04:06.320 this palace, but saying, well, that is the terminology that 0:04:06.360 --> 0:04:08.760 we already have applied to it in a mythological context, 0:04:08.800 --> 0:04:11.000 so we might as well just use it to apply 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.880 to the archaeological remains of this actual civilization, right Yeah, 0:04:14.880 --> 0:04:17.240 And I think realizing that sort of it adds the 0:04:17.279 --> 0:04:19.159 mystery of it all right, you know, and into the 0:04:19.200 --> 0:04:22.600 wonder again of of not just an ancient civilization, but 0:04:22.760 --> 0:04:27.200 one ancient civilization's interpretation of that which came before. Thinking 0:04:27.200 --> 0:04:31.560 about ancient Greek myths pertaining to the civilization of my 0:04:31.640 --> 0:04:34.400 knowing Crete uh brings up a subject that we've talked 0:04:34.440 --> 0:04:37.960 about on the show before. But it's the modern tendency 0:04:38.040 --> 0:04:41.440 to kind of compress all of ancient history together and 0:04:41.480 --> 0:04:45.200 not realize how much time actually elapsed within what we 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:49.720 call ancient history. Like, for example, if you were Julius 0:04:49.720 --> 0:04:52.640 Caesar living in the you know, the first century BC 0:04:53.200 --> 0:04:57.000 of the Roman Republic, the ancient parts of ancient Egypt 0:04:57.080 --> 0:05:01.719 were more ancient to him than ancient Rome is to 0:05:01.960 --> 0:05:05.200 us now, like that much time had gone by, and 0:05:05.240 --> 0:05:08.760 so there were huge gaps of history in the ancient 0:05:08.839 --> 0:05:11.320 world even, I mean there were there were that the 0:05:11.400 --> 0:05:16.080 ancient Greeks also could look back on mysterious, vanished ancient 0:05:16.160 --> 0:05:20.120 civilizations and not know anymore about them necessarily than we 0:05:20.160 --> 0:05:23.520 know about a lot of ancient law civilizations today. That's right. 0:05:23.560 --> 0:05:26.160 And so in some respects of me personally, when I'm 0:05:26.160 --> 0:05:28.000 reading about all this and thinking about all this, like 0:05:28.400 --> 0:05:31.160 you know, it's like a game of telephone across the ages, 0:05:31.160 --> 0:05:34.400 with different cultures interpreting different cultures. Uh. And and I 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:38.320 think stuff like the particularly the myth of the Minotaur, 0:05:38.480 --> 0:05:41.800 is a perfect example of this, as it be you know, 0:05:41.880 --> 0:05:46.320 begins as something to some extent rooted in this part 0:05:46.400 --> 0:05:49.000 of the world and and and isolated around at least 0:05:49.279 --> 0:05:52.520 thoughts about crete, and then it becomes this this Greek thing, 0:05:52.640 --> 0:05:55.120 and then it every time it is handled, every time 0:05:55.120 --> 0:05:59.000 it is retold, it becomes, uh, you know, it takes 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:04.120 on particles of new cultures and new concerns and new people. Totally. 0:06:04.560 --> 0:06:06.520 Before we jump right into the interview here, just want 0:06:06.560 --> 0:06:08.159 to throw in a couple of notes. First of all, 0:06:08.360 --> 0:06:10.279 at around the fourteen minute mark, you're gonna hear a 0:06:10.279 --> 0:06:13.040 couple of outlook pings. Uh. That's just part of doing 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:17.640 a remote recordings these days. But don't worry. It's it's us, 0:06:17.720 --> 0:06:20.039 not you, and will only be a couple of them. 0:06:20.040 --> 0:06:23.400 It's not gonna keep going throughout the interview. Also, I 0:06:23.440 --> 0:06:26.000 want to point out that our guests at around twenty 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:29.560 five minutes then is going to mention mason's marks, And 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.440 just to give you a little background, these are marks 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:35.920 that were found on masonry that are sort of a 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:41.080 signature of the individuals that created the masonry work. Good 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:43.279 dad that note, because I did not know what mason's 0:06:43.320 --> 0:06:45.919 marks were until until we look that up. Well, on 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.480 that note, let's go ahead and jump into our interview 0:06:48.839 --> 0:06:55.680 with Professor Nicoletta Mamiliano. Let's start with your book, In 0:06:55.760 --> 0:06:58.840 Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy of the Noan Crete. 0:06:59.279 --> 0:07:01.880 Where did the I the for the book come from 0:07:01.920 --> 0:07:05.000 and what did you set out to accomplish with it? Well, 0:07:06.279 --> 0:07:11.440 I have always been fascinated by the history of research 0:07:11.760 --> 0:07:17.880 in anyone given subject. That is, I've always been fascinated 0:07:17.920 --> 0:07:24.280 by the complex relationship between past and present. I've always 0:07:24.280 --> 0:07:28.680 been interested in how a particular discipline has developed over 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:35.520 the centuries. That is, how theories, methods, research questions can 0:07:35.640 --> 0:07:40.880 change from one generation to another. And of course the 0:07:40.920 --> 0:07:47.200 way in which scholarly research and agendas developed is related 0:07:47.320 --> 0:07:51.840 to our present, is related to what happens in the present, 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:58.440 and for me, the minn past and the min non 0:07:58.480 --> 0:08:04.360 cultural legacy. It's not just what happened in the second 0:08:04.560 --> 0:08:09.240 and third millennium BC, that is, the traditional chronology given 0:08:09.320 --> 0:08:15.080 to minor and civilization. And also the minor and legacy 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.920 is not just, as I said, what happened in the 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:25.120 second and third millennium BC, and what possible material or icono, graphic, linguistic, 0:08:25.640 --> 0:08:31.320 or even spiritual legacy may have been transmitted to us 0:08:31.640 --> 0:08:37.920 via Mycenian Greece and then later via Classical Greece. For me, 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:47.000 what we now call minorn creed is the product of interpretations, reconstructions, 0:08:47.080 --> 0:08:54.000 and complex entanglements between objects and ideas about them, and 0:08:54.240 --> 0:08:58.880 these ideas are influenced by the present. I also think 0:08:59.160 --> 0:09:02.800 that is in it It's very important for scholars to 0:09:02.920 --> 0:09:07.000 try and understand how their own discipline, how their own 0:09:07.080 --> 0:09:14.920 subject is perceived beyond academia. And I think artistic and 0:09:15.280 --> 0:09:20.240 literary imaginations of mine own crete are good to think with. 0:09:21.240 --> 0:09:26.800 They may stimulate new ways of looking at ancient objects. 0:09:27.080 --> 0:09:32.320 Um new imaginations can make me, as a scholar, appreciate 0:09:32.800 --> 0:09:37.800 what is significant or not about my discipline for the 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.880 general public. And after all, it is the general public 0:09:41.960 --> 0:09:46.120 the taxpayer, who funds my research, and I think I 0:09:46.200 --> 0:09:50.400 have the duty to understand what fascinates would interest the 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:54.320 general public, not just me as a scholar. Now, in 0:09:54.360 --> 0:09:57.520 broad strokes, what does the treatment of the known civilization 0:09:57.679 --> 0:10:02.360 in Greek mythology reveal about Minoan creeds place in ancient 0:10:02.400 --> 0:10:08.240 Greek culture? Well, in ancient Greek culture, in Greek mythology, 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:13.080 what we now called minor and crete appears as a 0:10:13.160 --> 0:10:20.600 really strange and contradictory place. Crete in Greek mythology is 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:25.520 a land where immortal Zeus, who was also the father 0:10:25.800 --> 0:10:31.280 of King Minus, to where Zeus was nurtured, but also 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:36.400 where he died and where he was buried minor and 0:10:36.480 --> 0:10:41.520 Crete was also a land ruled by loggiving king Minus, 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:46.400 who was a kind of Cretan Moses. And King Minus 0:10:46.520 --> 0:10:51.760 conversed with and was wisely guided by his father Zeus. 0:10:52.920 --> 0:10:58.280 But Crete was also a land rife with extreme sexual desires, 0:10:59.240 --> 0:11:09.719 with adulter bestiality, mostly involving women and bulls, pederasty, human sacrifice, magic, murder, 0:11:09.800 --> 0:11:14.920 and betrayal. So I would say the treatment of my 0:11:15.000 --> 0:11:21.680 non civilizations in Greek mythology reveals a rather ambivalent aptitude 0:11:21.720 --> 0:11:26.240 by the Greeks towards this island and her past. This 0:11:26.320 --> 0:11:30.280 reminds me of some parallels with, say, the Biblical view 0:11:30.320 --> 0:11:34.760 of the Antediluvian time, the time before the flood in 0:11:34.840 --> 0:11:38.800 the Book of Genesis, which I think is simultaneously thought 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:41.960 of as a time of greatness but also a time 0:11:42.040 --> 0:11:47.480 of sort of chaos and immorality. Uh, do you see 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:51.040 any parallels there? Or am I running off the tracks here? Well? 0:11:51.559 --> 0:11:56.040 Why not? I think in a sense, it's it's when 0:11:56.080 --> 0:11:59.200 people are trying to make sense of a very distant 0:11:59.280 --> 0:12:05.479 past of which they have very very um vague understanding 0:12:05.559 --> 0:12:10.959 and memories, they change it, something gets lost in translation. 0:12:11.280 --> 0:12:17.400 In a sense, um, people are trying to they know 0:12:17.640 --> 0:12:20.160 that there was something that happened in a very very 0:12:20.200 --> 0:12:24.720 distant past, but they've lost the full understanding of it, 0:12:25.160 --> 0:12:28.520 and so they try to explain it, sometimes in ways 0:12:28.559 --> 0:12:32.960 that tell you more about their present than actually the past. 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:34.960 All right, on that note, we're going to take a 0:12:35.000 --> 0:12:38.319 quick break, but we'll be right back with Nicoletta Momiliano 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:45.120 and we're back. In your book, you discuss how how 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:49.400 even the ancient Greeks used fragments of Minoan material culture 0:12:49.640 --> 0:12:52.360 as a catalyst for further creativity. Could you give us 0:12:52.360 --> 0:12:57.560 an example and explain what that means? Yeah, Um, I 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.920 can give you a very very precise example, which is 0:13:02.400 --> 0:13:08.440 provided by some Greek pottery, pottery of later periods that 0:13:08.640 --> 0:13:14.440 was found at nossauce Um, pottery that dates to the 0:13:14.600 --> 0:13:18.040 early to the Greek Early Iron Age, that is to 0:13:18.160 --> 0:13:24.200 the late ninth and eight centuries BC. There is one 0:13:24.280 --> 0:13:27.320 pot in particular, a lead that was found in a 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:31.800 Minorn tomb, which in my own tomb that had been 0:13:31.840 --> 0:13:36.520 cleared and reused in the Early Iron Age and the 0:13:36.920 --> 0:13:41.080 Early Iron Age pot is decorated with an octopus motif. 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.000 And this motif is actually relatively rare in the Early 0:13:46.080 --> 0:13:48.600 Iron Age, but of course it's one of the motives 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:53.240 that was quite common in my non crete and on 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:58.200 this lead. The way which the octopus is depicted, the 0:13:58.320 --> 0:14:03.000 position of the octopus head above the tentacles, the number 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.319 of tentacles, which is eight, suggests that it's really derived 0:14:07.480 --> 0:14:11.280 from my non pottery of the so called marine style, 0:14:12.000 --> 0:14:17.520 and not from later examples, for example Mycenean period, where 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:21.240 the position of the head is inverted and sometimes the 0:14:21.360 --> 0:14:27.600 number of the tentacles is reduced. So the decoration in 0:14:27.600 --> 0:14:32.120 this spot is inspired by my non models, but it's 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:36.320 also something new because it's created in a new style, 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:40.840 in the style of the Early Iron Age. And there 0:14:40.840 --> 0:14:45.000 are also, i think other aspects of my non material 0:14:45.120 --> 0:14:51.080 culture that acted as catalyst for further creativity, for example, 0:14:51.240 --> 0:14:57.960 the large ruins of the Palace of Nos Sauce, and 0:14:58.120 --> 0:15:03.720 perhaps even some of the frescos that remained visible um 0:15:03.800 --> 0:15:08.080 for a few generations, or even centuries after the palace 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.320 was abandoned. The ruins were certainly quite visible even in 0:15:12.440 --> 0:15:18.200 later centuries that we know for sure. But who created 0:15:18.240 --> 0:15:24.080 these buildings, what these buildings represented were no longer part 0:15:24.320 --> 0:15:29.240 of leaving memory. People had forgotten all that, and yet 0:15:29.560 --> 0:15:33.600 people felt the need to provide some explanations of what 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:39.320 these ruins represented, and so later Greeks created these wonderful, 0:15:39.400 --> 0:15:45.000 fantastic stories of monsters and labyrinthes, of women having sex 0:15:45.080 --> 0:15:51.120 with bulls, powerful kings that were half divine and half human. 0:15:51.600 --> 0:15:56.680 It's actually it's also related to what Joe was asking earlier. 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.240 I think, yeah, this is this is very interesting because 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:03.800 I think often when we think about ideological myths, the 0:16:03.840 --> 0:16:06.480 myths that are supposed to explain the origin of something, 0:16:06.480 --> 0:16:10.920 the most common thing people think of are explaining natural phenomena, 0:16:11.040 --> 0:16:14.080 you know, myths to explain where the why the mountains 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:16.560 or this way or where the lightning comes from. But 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:20.760 there are also ideological myths to explain cultural artifacts of 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.520 human civilization, of course, and there are I think there 0:16:24.560 --> 0:16:30.200 are explanations that relate to our physical world. You know, 0:16:30.480 --> 0:16:35.080 it's not whether it's natural phenomena or buildings. But this 0:16:35.240 --> 0:16:37.800 is the point I'm making is presided that it's that 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:42.720 these things are no longer part of living memory, and 0:16:42.800 --> 0:16:47.920 that's one when people are trying to create stories about them, 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:51.920 sometimes they tell us more about the present than really 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:56.360 what happened in the past. It's almost as if they 0:16:56.400 --> 0:16:59.000 were natural phenomena. It's almost as if they are a 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:03.040 mountain range or something like that. Yes, well, I think 0:17:03.120 --> 0:17:06.000 people probably in the case of ruins of buildings, they 0:17:06.000 --> 0:17:10.080 would recognize what they were. But sometimes they were so 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:15.359 astounded by kinds of buildings that people were no longer 0:17:15.440 --> 0:17:19.480 able to produce in later centuries, that sometimes they attributed 0:17:19.520 --> 0:17:24.440 their constructions to gods. For example, moving from my non 0:17:24.520 --> 0:17:29.399 treat to other areas. But the Walls of Troy that 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:32.359 the Walls of Troy's, of course were built in the 0:17:32.400 --> 0:17:40.040 middle of the early middle second millennium BC. But the 0:17:40.119 --> 0:17:43.359 way in which they are described in the Homeric poems 0:17:44.119 --> 0:17:46.840 eight seventh century b C, as if if they had 0:17:46.880 --> 0:17:49.399 been built by gods. But of course they were not 0:17:49.440 --> 0:17:52.080 built by gods. That were built by human people like 0:17:52.200 --> 0:17:57.040 you and me. But people had forgotten this, and they 0:17:57.040 --> 0:18:01.320 were so astounding that they thought explain them as being 0:18:01.320 --> 0:18:05.080 built by supernatural beings, and we've seen something similar in 0:18:05.080 --> 0:18:09.879 recent centuries as well. Correct. Yes, to some extent um. 0:18:09.920 --> 0:18:14.399 Since the rediscovery of my non creed in the early 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:20.399 twentieth century, thanks to the excavations of Saraharta Evans at 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:27.040 Transource and by other archeologists and other sides, writer and 0:18:27.440 --> 0:18:30.639 artists have been inspired by the material culture of my 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:35.640 non creed to create something new, from poems to ballet 0:18:36.640 --> 0:18:43.000 or paintings, and the French writer Paul Moron, in an 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.440 article he wrote in the nineteen sixties, used the term 0:18:46.720 --> 0:18:52.520 crito mania to describe this phenomenon. Mania is of course 0:18:52.640 --> 0:18:58.440 a term similar to earlier terms and used to describe 0:18:58.640 --> 0:19:05.720 similar phenomena such as Egyptomania, Great Romania, Helenomania. So is 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:10.520 ancient creto mania comparable to our modern fascination and retellings 0:19:10.520 --> 0:19:14.040 of various historical settings and motifs like I'm instantly thinking 0:19:14.080 --> 0:19:17.960 of modern Roman sagas or various Viking TV shows and 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:24.560 the like. Yes, again, to some extent, crepto mania is 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:29.400 above all borrowing of my non elements to create something 0:19:29.440 --> 0:19:36.639 completely new um and sometimes though my non elements are 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:41.560 also used to give a more ancient, more archaic, and 0:19:41.680 --> 0:19:47.480 more Bronze Age look to later Greek dramas uh that 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:51.080 are set in what we now call the Bronze Age 0:19:51.240 --> 0:19:55.160 or heroic past of Greece. But kreto Mania is above 0:19:55.200 --> 0:20:00.119 all the use of minorana elements to create something in 0:20:00.680 --> 0:20:04.040 new contemporary. Now, in discussing the minute are, we of 0:20:04.040 --> 0:20:08.880 course are discussing balls. How did balls factor into Minoan 0:20:08.920 --> 0:20:13.800 civilization and how is this reflected in Greek myth? Well, 0:20:14.000 --> 0:20:22.000 bulls appear very very frequently in minor representations, especially from 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:28.080 the mid to late second millennium BC. We find representations 0:20:28.080 --> 0:20:34.240 of bulls in frescos pottery, terracotta figurines, in tiny, tiny 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:40.399 seal stones um and particularly fascinating are the representations of 0:20:40.520 --> 0:20:47.120 bull leaping, that is, of human figures producing acrobatic somersaults 0:20:47.160 --> 0:20:54.840 over the back of charging bulls. But interestingly and contrastingly, 0:20:55.960 --> 0:21:00.800 depiction of minotor images, that is, of ceatures that are 0:21:00.960 --> 0:21:06.680 half bull and half human are actually very very rare 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:13.199 and relatively late in my norn creat And also we 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.880 may wonder whether some of these representation may simply be 0:21:17.119 --> 0:21:23.520 very stylized representations of bullyping, because they appear on tiny 0:21:23.640 --> 0:21:31.680 seal stones or seal impressions. Um and animals human hybrids 0:21:32.080 --> 0:21:36.600 do exist in my Norn creat but it's also interesting 0:21:36.640 --> 0:21:40.240 to see that there is no prevalence of bulls necessarily 0:21:40.960 --> 0:21:46.800 because some of these human hybrid representations, including some of 0:21:46.840 --> 0:21:52.600 the early ones, tend to involve other animals um, birds 0:21:53.080 --> 0:21:58.920 or gods for example. So how exactly one god from 0:21:59.160 --> 0:22:03.880 my non rules to later Greek representations of the mint 0:22:03.960 --> 0:22:09.080 or as a hybrid figure is not entirely clear, and 0:22:09.440 --> 0:22:13.960 I think this process must have been quite complex, and 0:22:14.160 --> 0:22:17.320 exactly what happened I don't know. Is it possible to 0:22:17.400 --> 0:22:22.040 infer anything about the tone of how these images are 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:26.400 presented in actual Minoring artwork? So the the depictions of 0:22:26.640 --> 0:22:30.960 bull leaping or of animal human hybrids, including with bullparts 0:22:31.080 --> 0:22:33.800 or as you mentioned, with birds or goats, does this 0:22:33.880 --> 0:22:38.040 convey a sense of um, of fearfulness or terror the 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:41.479 way the minotaur would in Greek myth or? Is the 0:22:41.520 --> 0:22:45.080 tone different? Does that make any sense? Well, as I said, 0:22:46.600 --> 0:22:50.240 it's um, I don't. I think we have to decouple 0:22:51.119 --> 0:22:57.480 bull representations in Minor and Creete and later representations, because really, 0:22:57.600 --> 0:23:01.440 how we got from one to the other it's really complicated, 0:23:01.560 --> 0:23:06.480 and I honestly don't know how this hand and whether 0:23:06.520 --> 0:23:10.520 there is a necessarily a direct link. Some people have 0:23:10.920 --> 0:23:16.680 even suggested that the minor tours in later Greece are 0:23:16.760 --> 0:23:20.480 not necessarily derived from my norn Creed, but are derived 0:23:20.640 --> 0:23:27.240 from other Near Eastern civilizations, later civilizations. But the way 0:23:27.280 --> 0:23:33.359 in which bulls are presented in my norn Creed, do 0:23:33.480 --> 0:23:42.320 they show term I don't, well, certainly not all of them. Um. 0:23:43.320 --> 0:23:50.160 The contrary, some people UM describe the the acrobatics over 0:23:50.240 --> 0:23:54.359 bulls like almost like a kind of dance over over bulls. 0:23:54.440 --> 0:23:59.919 It's a like a very interesting showing kind of relations 0:24:00.000 --> 0:24:04.879 ship between human and animals. I wouldn't say they represent 0:24:05.000 --> 0:24:10.960 anything necessarily terror. I mean, there are some representations where 0:24:10.960 --> 0:24:15.919 you said, see human beings being gored by bulls, but 0:24:17.280 --> 0:24:25.159 many other representations is is the human being who successfully 0:24:25.760 --> 0:24:31.159 produces these wonderful somersaults over the boom? So I wouldn't 0:24:31.200 --> 0:24:35.879 say it's necessarily terror. And the other hybrid figures, and 0:24:36.160 --> 0:24:39.679 they are so small, um, they are not part of 0:24:39.840 --> 0:24:43.960 large compositions, it would be difficult to say whether they 0:24:44.000 --> 0:24:50.240 have any fearful terror elements in them. I would say probably. 0:24:50.240 --> 0:24:54.119 The answer to that is again my hunch is probably no. 0:24:55.240 --> 0:24:59.960 It simply shows an interesting fascination in the animal world. 0:25:00.040 --> 0:25:03.600 Armed now, of course, the myths involved the greatness involved 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:07.040 not only the minute are but the labyrinth. Is there 0:25:07.040 --> 0:25:11.040 currently any archaeological evidence to support the existence of the 0:25:11.119 --> 0:25:14.879 Manoan labyrinth of Greek myth or some actual structure or 0:25:14.960 --> 0:25:18.840 complex that would have inspired it. I mean yes and 0:25:18.920 --> 0:25:22.000 no in the sense that there is no building in 0:25:22.080 --> 0:25:26.600 my non treat that can be described as a complicated maze, 0:25:27.119 --> 0:25:32.080 that is a complicated system of parts or edges, designed 0:25:32.160 --> 0:25:37.159 as a puzzle through which one has to find the way. No, 0:25:38.600 --> 0:25:43.600 but the ruins of my non palaces, especially the ruins 0:25:43.640 --> 0:25:49.240 of cloissance Um, can have for us a kind of 0:25:49.359 --> 0:25:56.240 labyry in fine appearance. And also Sarah Evans, the excavator 0:25:56.440 --> 0:26:02.480 of Cloissance, presented the large stature that he excavated as 0:26:02.680 --> 0:26:08.760 the real Cretan labyrinth because he connected the word labyrinth 0:26:09.040 --> 0:26:14.760 with labraries, which is a term used in later Greek 0:26:14.840 --> 0:26:22.040 text to indicate the double ax. And he also suggested 0:26:22.119 --> 0:26:26.399 that labyrinth meant the house of the double ax, because 0:26:26.400 --> 0:26:31.480 he noted that many Mason's marks found at Cnaissance in 0:26:31.680 --> 0:26:36.600 very prominent locations. Had the shape of this object had 0:26:37.080 --> 0:26:41.840 the shape of a double axe. But I should like 0:26:42.119 --> 0:26:49.400 to remark that the connection between the word labyrinth and 0:26:49.720 --> 0:26:55.360 labraries appears to be much more tenuous than Evans suggested, 0:26:56.040 --> 0:27:00.600 because there are linguistic difficulties in relating the these two 0:27:00.600 --> 0:27:04.560 words that have been pointed out by several philologists, by 0:27:04.640 --> 0:27:11.119 several linguists. And also I'd like to remark that yes, 0:27:11.520 --> 0:27:15.439 Mason's marks in the shape of a double axe do 0:27:15.640 --> 0:27:20.480 appear very frequently and perhaps most frequently at Cnossource than 0:27:20.760 --> 0:27:24.480 are the minor on sides, but they're not exclusive to 0:27:24.600 --> 0:27:27.600 Cronos Source. You can find in them also at other 0:27:27.800 --> 0:27:32.800 minor on sides. And also that there are other signs 0:27:32.960 --> 0:27:37.240 are the masons marks that are also very common at Cnossauce. 0:27:37.880 --> 0:27:40.320 Now in addition to the miniatur and the labyrinthya. Of course, 0:27:40.320 --> 0:27:44.280 the other key part of these stories is King Minos 0:27:44.359 --> 0:27:48.760 himself behind the you know, the fantastic and the monstrous 0:27:49.000 --> 0:27:53.080 aspects of the particular character that we find in Greek mythology. 0:27:53.119 --> 0:27:59.639 Is there a true historic element to this king? Who knows? Perhaps? Possibly? 0:28:01.480 --> 0:28:06.399 But the issue who really ruled in my non Creed 0:28:06.760 --> 0:28:11.240 is very much debated, and perhaps we should bear in 0:28:11.359 --> 0:28:14.200 mind that when we talk of my non Creed, we 0:28:14.440 --> 0:28:19.000 speak of about two millennia, and it is very likely 0:28:19.400 --> 0:28:25.640 that political systems, these social organizations changed in this two millennia. 0:28:26.640 --> 0:28:32.960 Some scholars think that perhaps some form of royalty and 0:28:33.040 --> 0:28:38.640 perhaps even of Chrossian supremacy may have existed in Crete, 0:28:39.600 --> 0:28:46.160 especially in what archeologists called the Neoplacial period, that is, 0:28:46.240 --> 0:28:52.840 from about seventeen hundred to fourteen fifty BC. But there 0:28:52.880 --> 0:28:56.240 are also many scholars who prefer to see my non 0:28:56.360 --> 0:29:02.320 creed as ruled by women or by some kind of 0:29:02.480 --> 0:29:09.160 gender balanced elite class, almost like council or a corporation 0:29:09.840 --> 0:29:15.480 of men and women together, rather than a single ruler. 0:29:16.000 --> 0:29:20.560 But it's possible that for some part of the history 0:29:20.560 --> 0:29:23.680 of my noncreat for some periods, there may have been 0:29:23.720 --> 0:29:29.720 a supreme ruler whose memory might have inspired later stories 0:29:29.760 --> 0:29:32.400 about King Mines. All right, on that note, we're going 0:29:32.440 --> 0:29:34.080 to take a quick break, but we'll be right back 0:29:34.240 --> 0:29:42.600 with Nicoletta Momiliano, and we're back now. As for the Minotar, 0:29:42.720 --> 0:29:46.080 the mythic minotar itself, why do you think the minetar 0:29:46.200 --> 0:29:49.320 resonates so strongly in Western traditions. Do you think it 0:29:49.360 --> 0:29:53.040 reveals something about the broader human condition, or rather, are 0:29:53.080 --> 0:29:55.800 we inflating and building on something that would have had 0:29:56.240 --> 0:30:02.680 you know, far different, more specific associations for ancient people's well, 0:30:03.920 --> 0:30:07.800 I think that, at least for some ancient people, for 0:30:07.960 --> 0:30:13.160 some Greeks, the story of the Minotour had more specific 0:30:13.200 --> 0:30:20.040 association um, because in a sense, the Greek myths related 0:30:20.080 --> 0:30:23.160 to King Minus, the Minotour and song could be seen 0:30:23.200 --> 0:30:27.520 almost like a morality tale, an example of a punishment 0:30:28.200 --> 0:30:34.480 inflicted by the gods because King Minus didn't keep one 0:30:34.520 --> 0:30:38.000 of his promises to the gods. Um. But of course, 0:30:38.040 --> 0:30:43.680 the story of the Minotour, like many many other Greek myths, 0:30:44.200 --> 0:30:48.480