OFH Throwback- Episode #3- Was There a Real Labyrinth?

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hello and welcome to this throwback episode of our fake history this week i am throwing you all the way back to season one

episode three

was there a real labyrinth

Now, it's always a bit of a trip for me to revisit these very early episodes of Our Fake History.

As you'll hear, I'm still kind of figuring out what the show is.

But this was an important early experiment because it established the idea that the podcast wouldn't just be about stories that people think are true, but probably aren't.

It's also about legends that many people assume are completely fake that might have a kernel of historical truth at the heart of them.

What strikes me listening back is that if I was to do this episode now, there are so many things that I would do differently.

You might notice that this early episode's a little loose, a little sloppy.

I misspeak a lot.

Now, let's be real.

I misspeak all the time on this podcast.

But in this one, you'll notice that I say the name King Minos like five different ways over the course of the show.

After 10 years and hundreds of emails about how I say words, I think I've become a little more aware of my pronunciation.

Hopefully, you be the judge.

Maybe I haven't.

Perhaps this early episode can serve as a reminder of just how far I've come.

Now, beyond just my delivery, there are some other things that I might do differently if I was to take on this topic today.

First, the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is a perfect textbook example of the hero's journey, as described by the thinker Joseph Campbell.

This is the monomyth, the hero with a thousand faces.

All of the phases of the hero's journey that get described by Campbell are very obvious and clear in the myth of Theseus.

If I was making this episode today, I'd probably spend more time discussing how Theseus' journey truly is the archetypal hero's journey.

Also, given that now I'm comfortable making the podcast longer, and often my stories play out over the course of multiple episodes, I probably would have taken even more time telling the tale of Theseus.

If I was to do this topic now, I would probably divide it fairly neatly into two episodes.

Part one would focus on the myth, and part two would focus on the history.

That would give me time to linger on the weirder and quite frankly more entertaining elements of the Theseus story.

For instance, I love the tales of Theseus on the road to Athens and all the weird sort of mini bosses he needs to beat beat along the way, like the cudgel man and sinnus the pine bender.

That's the kind of thing that I wouldn't just skip on past if I was creating this episode today.

I would also spend way more time getting into the work of a figure like Arthur Evans.

Now, you will hear in today's podcast that I'm very celebratory of this early 20th century British archaeologist.

I call him the real life Indiana Jones.

Back when I made this episode, I was very charmed by his life story.

Now, as time has gone on and I have learned more, I've become considerably more skeptical of all early archaeologists, and especially people with complex colonial relationships to the places where they were doing their work.

I hope one day to return to the life of Arthur Evans on this podcast and explore it in a bit more detail and with a more critical eye.

If I was making this now, I certainly would not have been as

blithely celebratory.

Let's call it that.

The other thing that really struck me after listening back to this episode is how, after 10 years of doing this podcast, my relationship to both myths and history has changed.

You'll hear me say at the end of this show that myths in history like never line up.

And that's like almost adorable to hear in my voice because I've since learned that they often do.

The whole premise of this show is that it actually happens all the time.

But one thing that's happened to me as I've learned more about these topics is I've become more careful when trying to map an ancient myth on to real history.

It can be done, and I still truly believe that myths can hold kernels of historical truth.

But we need to be careful when using myth to draw conclusions about history.

Some of the worst charlatans in the world of pseudo-history and pseudo-archaeology often use ancient myths to give credence to their interpretations of ancient archaeological sites.

I've been hugely critical of these types of people on this podcast over the years.

It can be very easy to cherry-pick elements from myth and use that to support all sorts of wild claims.

Before long, you can find yourself believing that a super ancient world-spanning civilization made up of people with telekinetic spiritual powers actually built all of the world's greatest ancient monuments.

My point, I suppose, is that we can learn a lot from myth, and there are instances where myth can even give us clues about real history.

But we need to remember that myths, and especially ancient myths, are complex and often serve many different spiritual, psychological, and cultural functions.

They are not straightforward roadmaps that point us towards some kind of hidden history.

But with all that said, I still think this early episode is a lot of fun and a real good listen.

I hope you enjoy it.

So, without further ado, here is episode three.

Was there a Real Labyrinth?

Ancient myths of bullheaded human hybrids living at the centers of giant mazes haunted the stories of the Greeks.

The tale of an island nation with great power, but a horrifying curse, percolated in the folk memory of this ancient people and popped out as the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.

Is this just a story of heroics meant to entertain, frighten, and inspire?

Or is there more to this classic myth?

Could it be that the story of King Minos and his bullheaded baby could have actually contained at its heart a kernel of historical fact?

The answer to that question would obsess early archaeologists, leading them to one of the most rich archaeological finds in history.

Was there a King Minos?

A labyrinth?

A Minotaur?

Does any of this even matter?

All this and more on today's archaic history.

One, two, three, five.

Episode three:

Was there a real labyrinth?

labyrinth?

Hello, and welcome to Our Fake History.

My name's Sebastian Major, and this is the podcast where we look at historical myths and decide what's fact, what's fiction, and what is such a good story.

It must be told.

This week, we're going to take a slightly different tact, and we're going to be looking at a myth that people think is fake, but might actually have some kernel of historical truth.

When I was a kid, I loved Greek myths.

When I was in grade two, I remember checking out a book of illustrated Greek myths from the school library, taking it home, and having my dad read it to me.

Like most eight-year-olds, my favorite stories were about heroes fighting monsters.

I particularly loved the stories about Hercules and his amazing labors.

Lots of good monster deaths in those stories.

Another early favorite was the story of Theseus and the Minotaur.

The Minotaur may be one of the better monsters in Greek myth.

A man with the head of a bull who eats teenagers alive and lives at the center of a maze that is impossible to escape.

That is certifiably badass.

I love letting my imagination run wild in these worlds.

I still do.

But I also remember knowing from a very young age that these stories were not real.

I remember being told that these myths were just stories.

And I was comfortable with that.

After all, what eight-year-old needs a real Minotaur hiding in their closet?

It wasn't until later as a young adult when I revisited these stories in university that I realized that these these myths aren't just stories.

Not only do they carry deep allegorical meanings, but they also might offer clues about verifiable historical events.

Asking, was there really a king Minas, is not as ridiculous a question as it might seem.

Today, we are going to do our best to answer some of those questions.

First and foremost, we need to tell the story of Theseus and his battle with the Minotaur.

I'm going to tell you the long version of the story, complete with the origins of Theseus and the monster that he fights.

I think this version of the story is way more entertaining, as it includes all those weird details that make Greek myth so much fun.

It should also be noted that I'm not reading from any particular written version of the myth.

Instead, you're going to hear my own interpretation of the classic tale.

So, with no further ado, the tale of Theseus and the Minotaur.

The story begins in the small town of Troisen, where there lived a beautiful young woman named Aethra.

Aethra was so beautiful and charming that she even caught the eye of one of the gods.

Poseidon, god of the sea, seduced Aethra and made her his lover.

Around this time, a traveler named Aegeus came to the town of Troisen as well, and also fell madly in love with Aethra.

She was not immune to Aegeus' charms, and she took up with him as well.

Some even said that Aethra may have slept with both Poseidon and Aegeus in the same night.

Nonetheless, she woke up the next morning beside Aegeus, and he revealed himself to be the king of Athens.

She was very surprised by this and was even more surprised when he told her that he was sailing that day to go back to Athens and she was not invited to come with him.

However, he said that if she happened to get pregnant and have a son, he would leave something for him.

What an awesome dude.

Under a huge boulder in the front yard, he placed a pair of golden sandals and a sword with a royal inscription.

He said, if you ever have a son, when he is old enough, tell him to move the boulder and retrieve the sandals and the sword.

If he comes to Athens with these items, I will recognize him as my son and make him my heir.

And with that, he sailed off to Athens, never to see Aether

again.

Sure enough, Aetra did become pregnant and later gave birth to a boy named Theseus.

However, the real father of Theseus was always a mystery.

Some said it was the god Poseidon, and some said Aegeus, and some said both.

You see, the Greeks didn't have a complete handle on this whole sex thing, so it was quite possible to have double dads.

Aethra quietly raised her boy in Troisen, wondering if he would ever fulfill his destiny to become the king of Athens.

Meanwhile, on the island of Crete, another strange coupling was about to take place.

In these days, Crete was a very powerful kingdom, and the king, a man named Minos, was one of the most important kings in all of Greece.

The Cretan navy was the best in the world, and few challenged their power.

When Minos first ascended to the throne, his brothers contested his kingship.

Each of them thought that they should be king, and war nearly broke out over the issue.

Minos prayed to the god Poseidon to send him a sign that would convince the people of Crete that he was the rightful king.

Poseidon sent a massive white bull out of the sea to serve as a sign.

The people of Crete were duly impressed, and Minos' brothers backed away from their claims to the throne.

But the deal had been that Minos was to sacrifice the bull to Poseidon after he'd shown it off a bit, to pay respect to the god.

But Minos was so enamored with his beautiful white bull that he reneged on the deal and decided instead to keep the bull as a pet.

Now, if there is one rule in Greek mythology, it's don't go back on a deal you made with a god, cause you're gonna get burnt.

Obviously, Poseidon was none too pleased about Minas' decision to keep the bull, so he decided to get back at the king by making his wife, Pasiphae, fall madly in love with the bull.

She was so hot for the bull that she went to a workshop of a local genius engineer named Daedalus and ordered him to help her mate with the bull.

Daedalus built her a wooden cow contraption that she could crawl inside, seduce the bull with, and eventually make sweet, sweet love with the animal.

The plan worked, and by the time Poseidon's love charm wore off, she was pregnant with a horrifying man-beast.

She eventually gave birth to the Minotaur, a terrible creature with the body of a hulking man and the head of a bull.

The Minotaur could only be fed with human flesh, so Minos had Daedalus construct an incredible maze that was impossible to escape, known as the Labyrinth.

The Minotaur was let loose in the labyrinth, and his victims would be led inside for him to devour.

Now the Minotaur wasn't Minos' only child with Pasiphae.

They had a number of children, the oldest of which was named Androgius.

Androgius was an amazing athlete who dreamed of competing in the Pan-Athenian Games, a kind of pre-Olympics that were also held every four years.

When he was old enough, Androgius sailed to Athens and competed in the Games.

Minas' son absolutely dominated these games.

He competed in every single event and came first in all of them.

It was an unprecedented feat of athletic achievement that even impressed the current king of Athens, our old friend, Mr.

Love Em and Leave Em Aegeus.

However, the other competitors in the games were considerably less impressed with Androgius, A group of jealous Athenians who didn't like the idea of some Cretian with a monster brother stealing all the glory formed a conspiracy to murder Androgius, whose athletic prowess proved useless when faced with the group of men with swords.

When news reached King Minos that his oldest child had been murdered by a group of Athenians, he was outraged.

He assembled his great navy and sailed to attack Athens.

The Cretans had the Athenians sorely outnumbered and noticeably outclassed when it came to fighting men, and Aegeus knew it.

To save his city from complete destruction, he worked out a deal with Minos.

Every year, the Athenians would send a tribute of seven young men and seven young women in the prime of their life, just like the slain Androgius, to be sacrificed to the Minotaur on Crete.

Minos was satisfied with this deal, and Athens was saved from being burnt to the ground by the vengeful king.

Meanwhile, back in Troisen, Theseus, the boy with two daddies, had grown into an impressive young man.

Indeed, it did seem like Poseidon was one of his half-dads, as his strength was unrivaled even by the mightiest warriors.

When Theseus came of age, his mother told him that his father, at least in part, was Aegeus, the king of Athens.

All he needed to do was move the boulder in the front yard and claim the gifts that had been left for him all those years ago.

Theseus pushed the boulder aside with an ease uncommon for a mortal man.

Underneath the boulder he found the sandals and the sword that proved he was the son of a king.

He knew that he had to go fulfill his destiny, so he kissed his mother and set out on the road to Athens.

Although Troisen is not particularly far from Athens, the road to the city was fraught with dangers, and on his journey Theseus would encounter a number of terrifying road villains.

People by the names of Periphetes, the cudgel man, and Sinnus, the pine bender,

and Screon, the weird old guy who makes you wash his feet and then kicks you into the mouth of a waiting giant turtle.

And I'm totally not making that up.

Suffice it to say, Theseus had a number of crazy adventures on his way to Athens.

But after a long and dangerous journey, the great city finally loomed into sight.

He had finally reached it.

However, all was not well in Athens.

Not only was King Aegeus paying a yearly tribute of teenagers to Minos, he had also become bewitched by Medea, the sorceress ex-wife of Jason, the former Argonaut, who had retrieved the golden fleece.

But that's another story altogether.

Theseus headed directly to the palace, where he presented himself to Aegeus as his son.

But Aegeus' eyes were clouded by a spell, and he did not recognize the young man.

Medea whispered in Aegeus' ear that this stranger was surely an assassin, sent by Aegeus' enemies, and that he should be killed before he could do the same to them.

Aegeus agreed, and so they invited Theseus to dinner, where they planned to serve him poisoned wine.

They asked Theseus to join them and to tell them tales of his adventures on the road to Athens.

At the the feast, servants poured Theseus the deadly concoction, and they all raised their glasses to toast the health of the young hero.

Just as Theseus was about to gulp back the wine, Aegeus noticed Theseus' distinctive sword, and the spell was broken.

He knew Theseus was his son.

Aegeus dashed across the table and smacked the poisoned wine from Theseus' hands.

He then whirled around and screamed at Medea, You would have me kill my own son?

Medea could see the way the wind was blowing, so she immediately fled the palace, jumped in her chariot pulled by dragons, and flew out of town.

Ah, Greek myth, the only place where a previously unintroduced and completely unexplained dragon chariot can conveniently appear as a getaway car.

Theseus and his father were united for the first time and they were both overjoyed.

But Theseus' homecoming was dampened by the fact that he had arrived exactly at the time that the Athenian sacrificial youths were being sent to Crete to be eaten by the Minotaur.

It was a time of great mourning in the city, and it seemed rather inappropriate to throw a celebration to honor a returned mystery prince.

The brave Theseus was disgusted by this barbaric human sacrifice and decided that enough was enough.

He boldly declared to his father that he would volunteer to be one of the seven sacrificial youths to be sent to Crete, except he would kill the Minotaur and free Athens from this diabolic tribute.

Aegeus begged his son not to embark on this suicidal mission.

They had only just been reunited, and the thought of losing his son was too much for him to bear.

But Theseus was not going to be deterred.

He told his father not to fear.

The boats that sailed to and from Crete always flew black sails to signify mourning.

Theseus said that when he returned victorious, he would have the boats raise white sails, so his father would know he was alive and well.

The next day, Theseus boarded a ship with the other victims and set sail for Crete.

When they landed on the island, they were met by King Minos himself.

He had each of the Athenians introduce themselves to make sure they were of noble birth and therefore a fitting meal for the Minotaur.

When he got to Theseus, the hero declared, I am Theseus, Prince of Athens, and a son of Poseidon.

Hold on, said Minos.

If you are a prince of Athens, wouldn't that mean that old Aegeus was your father?

It's complicated, explained Theseus.

Both the man and the god are my father, because of magic.

Very well, said Minas.

If you truly are the son of Poseidon, perhaps your father can help you retrieve my ring, and with that he tossed his ring into the sea.

Without a moment's hesitation, Theseus dove into the ocean, murmuring a prayer to Poseidon as he went.

As he dove down into the water, a nymph named Thetis appeared from the depths and handed Theseus both Minos' ring and an impressive-looking crown.

When he popped to the surface and showed off these items, Minos just laughed.

A son of Poseidon will make a mighty feast for my Minotaur.

And the king walked away to his great palace as the Athenians were led away to the cells where they would be spending the night.

Watching all of this was Minos' daughter Ariadne.

She was amazed by the handsome young Athenian who had retrieved her father's ring.

She fell instantly in love with the dreamy Theseus and decided to help him.

That night she snuck down to a cell and made the hero a proposition.

If Theseus would promise to marry her and make her the queen of Athens, she would release him from the cell and help him kill the Minotaur.

This seemed like a win-win for Theseus.

Not only would he slay a monster and become an undisputed hero, he would also get to marry this very comely young princess.

Of course, he agreed.

Ariadne released Theseus from the cell and led him to the entrance of the labyrinth.

When they arrived, she gave him a ball of golden thread and instructed him to tie one end to a secure spot near the entrance of the maze.

She kissed her hero for good luck, and Theseus headed into the labyrinth.

Theseus headed into the winding maze, all the the while unfurling his golden thread behind him.

He turned left and right until he had grown dizzy, but he eventually reached the center of the labyrinth, and there he met the Minotaur.

The Minotaur was even more terrible than Theseus had imagined.

The beast, with the head of a bull and the body of a man, towered over Theseus and gnashed a mouthful of teeth that looked more like a lion's fangs than a cow's.

When the Minotaur saw Theseus he charged at him and pointed his razor-sharp horns at the hero.

But Theseus was quick and was able to nimbly dodge the charging Minotaur.

The Minotaur charged again and again Theseus leaped.

This process repeated itself a number of times until the frustrated beast bellowed and bared his head down low to go in for the death blow.

As the monster charged, Theseus jumped high into the air and landed on his back.

He grabbed the beast by the horns and bent his head back hard.

The Minotaur dropped to his knees, and Theseus used his great strength to break one of the beast's horns from its head.

He then took the horn and stabbed it deep into the Minotaur's throat, killing the monster once and for all.

The victorious Theseus picked up the thread given to him by Ariadne and followed it out of the labyrinth.

When he reached the entrance, the sun was just beginning to rise, and Ariadne was waiting.

She had taken the liberty liberty of freeing the other Athenian hostages and readying the escape boats while Theseus was in the labyrinth.

They hurried down to the harbor, where they boarded their boats and set sail for Athens, before King Minas could learn that his monster had been killed.

The triumphant Athenians sailed without any rest for many days on their way home.

Eventually they came upon the island of Naxos, where they decided to rest and resupply.

Little did they know that Naxos was a favorite haunt of Dionysus, the god of wine and partying.

When Dionysus laid his eyes on young Ariadne, he fell immediately in love.

That night he visited Theseus in a dream, and he told him in no uncertain terms that he, Dionysus, would be marrying Ariadne.

The young hero must abandon the girl on Naxos, or else Dionysus would make sure that Theseus and the other Athenians would never make it home alive.

Theseus was heartbroken, but he knew that he didn't really have a choice in the matter, so he set sail without Ariadne early the next day.

Ariadne awoke and realized that she had been abandoned by the man she had just helped escape certain death, and she was brokenhearted.

But Dionysus soon appeared to comfort the girl, and before long, she fell in love with the charming immortal.

Meanwhile, Theseus was thoroughly depressed.

Although he was returning to Athens a hero, he had lost his first real love.

Even worse, in his mopey malaise, Theseus forgot to change the ship's sails from black to white.

Aegeus had not stopped watching the horizon since Theseus had left, and when the ship with black sails pulled into the harbor, Aegeus was overcome with grief.

Convinced that his son and heir had been killed by the Minotaur, Aegeus jumped from the cliffs and died as he crashed into the sea.

Since that time, the sea has borne Aegeus' name.

We still call the body of water between Greece and Turkey the Aegean Sea.

Theseus' homecoming was bittersweet, to say the least.

But with Aegeus dead, Theseus was proclaimed the king of Athens, and he ruled as a wise and just king for many years.

Never again would a young Athenian be sacrificed to the fearsome Minotaur.

The end.

Man,

that's a good story.

The myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is easily one of the best known and best-loved Greek myths.

I think there's a reason for that.

Like all great myths, this story contains deep elemental truths about the human experience that resonate both on a conscious and subconscious level.

This myth is particularly rich in symbology.

The labyrinth, the man-beast hybrid, the triumph of order over chaos are all potent symbols that are loaded with meaning.

But what about the historical facts?

Is this myth based on any type of historical truth?

Or is it just an awesome bedtime story for morbid eight-year-olds?

To answer that question, we need to look at the life and work of one Sir Arthur Evans.

Evans was an Oxford scholar, adventurer, amateur diplomat, journalist, freedom fighter, and one of the early 20th century's greatest archaeologists.

This guy is one of those British Empire Renaissance men in the vein of Cecil Rhodes or Rudyard Kipling, but maybe less racist.

But where those guys were aristocrats who had been born into the project of spreading British imperial power, Evans kind of bumbled into it.

Aside from being an expert on ancient coins and early Aegean civilization, he was also a fearless traveler who enjoyed touring geopolitical hotspots.

In an earlier tour through the Balkans, Evans landed himself in jail for running afoul of the Austro-Hungarian authorities.

He was later honored by the state of Yugoslavia for championing their independence from the Ottomans and the British press.

His notoriety as a journalist meant that the Ottoman Turks treated Evans as an unofficial diplomat from Great Britain.

As a result, he was given unprecedented access to historical sites across their empire.

Honestly, I could go on about Evans as he's kind of the real-life Indiana Jones and probably deserves his own podcast.

A mild-mannered museum manager by day, international man of mystery by night, outwitting the Turks and insisting that other people's cultural heritage belongs in a museum.

All he needs is a badass hat.

Anyway, by 1900, the Ottoman Empire was crumbling, and the island of Crete was becoming independent for the first time in centuries.

Evans found himself well situated at this key moment and was able to use his fame as a British intellectual and a champion of independence to secure the purchase of some archaeologically rich land in Crete.

You see, Evans had a hunch that based on his research into ancient coins, a Bronze Age society that predated that found on mainland Greece actually existed on Crete.

His excavations would blow the lid off of Mediterranean archaeology and completely reshape how we conceptualize Greece's past.

As Evans' team dug, a massive system of interconnected corridors and rooms began to appear in front of them.

Could this actually be the fabled labyrinth of King Minos?

Evans wasn't entirely sure.

The often recited story of the discovery is that Evans, inspired by the myth of the Minotaur, set out to find the labyrinth, and when he discovered this massive archaeological find, he immediately jumped to the conclusion that it was the fabled maze.

The reality is that Evans was never really looking for the labyrinth, nor did he think he'd found it.

The British press, press, however, was not as measured.

Headlines like, Minotaur's Labyrinth Found, were not uncommon.

An article in the British magazine The Golden Penny proclaimed, quote, strange as it may appear, excavations on the island of Crete have revealed the remains of a maze corresponding to the original labyrinth, end quote.

The popular press were quick to spin yarns of lost worlds discovered, but the decidedly more scientific Evans was never entirely comfortable with this.

What was clear was that a highly sophisticated Bronze Age civilization that predated and was culturally distinct from the mainland cultures had built massive, impressive structures on the island of Crete.

What Evans had found was the massive palace structure known as Canossus.

In honor of King Minos and the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, Evans dubbed this newly discovered civilization the Minoans.

The discovery of Kenossus kicked off a study of this culture which continues to be added to by experts today.

So who were these Minoans?

Well around 2700 BC, the people of Crete entered what historians and archaeologists refer to as the Bronze Age.

The Bronze Age is a type of archaeological shorthand that they use for societies that had developed to the point where they can manufacture the metal bronze.

If you're not a metals person, that means that you've developed smelting techniques that are sophisticated enough to combine copper and tin to make a new, stronger alloy.

Most societies in the Middle East and the Mediterranean entered this period between 3300 BC and 1500 BC.

It was during the Bronze Age that civilizations like Egypt and Babylon were able to flourish.

With new bronze tools, architecture took a massive leap forward.

People could could build things that were bigger and more impressive than ever before.

Bronze Age people gave us the pyramids, the walls of Babylon, and more importantly for our story, the mighty palace centers on Crete.

The Minoans appeared to be particularly prosperous people.

Their wealth seems to have come from a massive network of trade that spanned the Mediterranean.

Minoan vases and crafts have been found in mainland Greece and other parts of the Near East.

Their massive palaces acted more like towns than just residences for the kings.

Archaeological evidence shows that these were places of trade, commerce, art, entertainment, and religion.

This has led some to question whether or not Kenossus was a palace at all.

Some have speculated that it may have been more like a monumental community center.

However, this view is in the minority.

We know that the Minoans were ruled by hereditary kings, and the excavations seem to suggest features like throne rooms and royal bedrooms, so it's still a good guess that these were in fact palaces.

It's also notable that Kanosis doesn't have any defensive walls, which is rare for Bronze Age societies.

To give you some context, the mainland Greek Bronze Age society, known as the Mycenaeans, were known to build walls so massive that later peoples thought that giant cyclopses put them in place.

These so-called cyclopean walls are in direct contrast with the wallless Minoan cities.

There are a number of explanations for this lack of walls.

Some have suggested, including Sir Arthur himself, that the Minoans were a peaceful people who were not interested in war.

Being an island nation, they could stay out of international conflict and concentrate instead on trade and art.

This idea is supported by the fact that the Minoans didn't depict warfare and battle in any of their art.

Any depictions of weaponry only seem to be for purely ceremonial purposes.

However, this Pax Minoica theory has recently gone out of vogue.

With greater archaeological finds that include stores of weapons and coastal structures that may have been fortifications, the idea of a benignly peaceful Minoan civilization seems less plausible.

Another explanation for the lack of walls could have been the Minoan's powerful navy, much like the mythical King Minas is described as having.

Much in the same way as the British Navy was referred to as England's wooden wall in the 1800s, the Minoan Navy may have had a similar reputation.

The island nation could be defended from invaders by their unmatched navy, making city walls unnecessary.

Building a massive palace without walls in this period is a pretty ballsy move.

I personally read this as the Minoans boasting about their untouchability in the same way Louis XIV chose not to have any walls around Versailles.

No walls is the come at me, bro of the ancient world.

We know that the Minoans had extensive contact with the mainland Mycenaeans, the people of the Levant, and the Egyptian kingdoms.

Egyptian records also seem to describe trade relations with the Minoans and name a number of important cities on Crete, including Canassus.

Minoan culture seems to have been very influential, especially on mainland Greece, where Minoan styles of architecture and craftsmanship appear to predate local Mycenaean styles.

Most importantly for our story, the Minoans did seem to have a special relationship with bulls.

Throughout the ruins of Kenossus, bull motifs are found everywhere.

Their art is filled with images of bulls, and their religious rites seem to have included an image of a deity in the form of a bull.

The bull is often associated with Baal-Moloch, a Middle Eastern deity deity that was worshipped widely in the Bronze Age.

The pre-Jewish Canaanite people worshipped Baal, and images of the horned god were common throughout that area.

Remember the golden calf from the Bible?

That the wandering Israelites started worshipping at the bottom of Mount Sinai?

Well, that was probably meant to represent Baal, the traditional bull-headed god of their people.

Minoan worship of the bull seems to have been unique, and that it fit in with a pantheon of mostly female deities.

Art from Kanosis suggests that the religion was controlled entirely by women.

A caste of powerful priestesses oversaw the society's religious rites.

That probably included sacrifices to a bull god.

The art also suggests that these sacrifices were carried out using a special two-headed axe that was wielded by the priestesses.

The name of this ritualistic axe, and you're not going to believe this, was the Labras.

So, to recap, during the Bronze Age, Crete had a powerful and sophisticated society that built massive structures far superior to those found on the mainland.

Their culture seems to have been ascendant over the mainland Mycenaeans for a period of time in the Middle Bronze Age.

They also had a religion that was focused on bulls, and they used images of bulls in their art.

Sacrifices to their gods were carried out using a tool called a labris.

The headline here seems to be, powerful island nation dominates region and uses labris to sacrifice to bull-headed gods.

Sound familiar?

If you needed even more proof of a connection between the historical Minoans and the mythical Cretans, you need look no further than the Minoan bull dance.

Frescoes in Kanosis depict young athletes jumping over bulls in what could either have been an athletic competition or a religious ritual.

Bull leaping, as it's known, was sort of like an early form of bull fighting, but instead of killing the bull, the object was to jump on its back and use the animal as kind of a living pommel horse.

The most impressive move was to stand in front of a charging bull, jump into the air at precisely the right moment, grab the beast by the horns, and when the bull jerks its neck upward, use the added momentum to fly even higher into the air and do a sweet flip.

This move is depicted specifically on frescoes in Canassus, which suggests that everyone thought it was pretty cool.

Now you might recall in my description of how Theseus killed the Minotaur that he performs a move very similar to the one performed by the bull leapers, but with the deadly twist of stabbing the Minotaur with his own horn.

To be fair, there are a number of different descriptions of how Theseus killed the Minotaur, and I just chose my personal favorite.

In some versions, Theseus stabs the Minotaur with a sword given to him by Ariadne.

In others, he simply bends the head back until the neck breaks.

The worst version of the story has Theseus finding the Minotaur sleeping and then killing the beast while he slept.

I never really liked that one.

It just seemed too easy.

Nonetheless, I think it's notable that many of the versions include Theseus jumping over the Minotaur and landing on his back.

The similarity to bull jumping is just too striking not to be mentioned.

And just in case you think bull jumping is impossible, I've posted a few videos on the website of modern bull jumpers who continue to keep this tradition alive today.

You need to check these videos out.

They are insane and it proves that this stuff is totally real and totally badass.

The end of the Minoan civilization is a hotly debated topic among historians.

Many believe that a series of natural disasters took place after the volcano Thera erupted.

There seem to have been two major eruptions of Thera within a hundred-year period.

This could have led to accompanying earthquakes and tsunamis that could have destroyed the great Minoan navy and destroyed many of their great structures.

What is clear in the archaeological record is that the Minoans were eventually overrun and conquered by the mainland Mycenaeans.

After around 1450 BC, Mycenaean weaponry and architecture becomes dominant on the island.

Correspondingly, Minoan-style art and architecture stops being produced and appearing in other parts of the Mediterranean.

Most historians now believe that the eruptions of Mount Thera, combined with a tsunami, led to a crisis on Crete that made them vulnerable to attack from outsiders.

The Minoans were out, and the Mycenaeans were in.

Now, let's return to our myth and put all the pieces of this puzzle together.

The story of Theseus is that of a warlike hero from the mainland of Greece going to the island of Crete to kill their weird bull monster and end Cretian domination of the mainland city-states.

This has led many to speculate that the whole story is simply a mythological retelling of how the Mycenaeans conquered the Minoan civilization.

The Minoan bull religion becomes symbolized as the demonic Minotaur.

The Great Maze is a stand-in for the palace structures at Kanosis, or similar Minoan megastructures.

The Labras, as a means for the sacrifice, becomes the labyrinth, the maze and the axe becoming one and the same after repeated retellings.

Theseus' return signifies a changing of the guard and the power structure of the region.

The mainland Greeks no longer need to pay tribute to the powerful Cretians.

Now, trying to prove how folk memory works is trying to prove how dreams work.

It's slippery and completely unverifiable.

In other words, saying that the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur is in fact an allegorical representation of real history, it's a theory at best.

But personally, I find the coincidences to be too strong to ignore.

In this case, myth and history match up so neatly, and believe me, that never happens, that I truly believe that this story has to be based on real events.

Now, that's not to say there really was a Theseus and a Minotaur, but there was a real war, a real struggle between cultures, a real labyrinths, a real maze, and bull jumping.

There was bull jumping, guys, and I simply will not ignore it.

All of these elements were incorporated into a folktale that that simultaneously entertained and taught history.

The only way to learn of the lost Minoan culture was through this myth.

And because that culture was an enemy to the mainlanders, they portrayed it as cruel and a home to monsters.

Now there are dozens of other interpretations of this myth.

Some have read it as an allegory of one art form becoming dominant over the other.

The geometric and mathematical forms of the Mycenaeans and the later classical Greeks represented by the labyrinth, boxing in and containing the more organic and nature-based forms of the Minoans, represented by the Minotaur.

There are also Freudian and Jungian interpretations that see the story as an allegory about the development of the mind.

Ariadne, the archetypal mother, gives the child, Theseus, tools to discover how to destroy the animalistic side of his psyche.

In Freudian terms, this is the triumph of the ego over the id.

There are also countless spiritual interpretations, where the Minotaur stands in for sin and Theseus plays the role of pious virtue.

In the world of therapeutic meditation, the labyrinth is often used as a symbol for self-discovery, and on and on and on.

All of these interpretations are fascinating and clearly hold another important truth about the myth.

But the history student in me is always drawn to the historical explanations.

The clash between the Minoan and the Mycenaean civilizations was unknown to modern people until Sir Arthur Evans uncovered Kenossus in the early 1900s.

Except, ironically, it was known to us.

It had been preserved in the myth of Theseus.

That myth turned out to be much more resilient than the palaces of the Minoans and the Cyclopean walls of the Mycenaeans.

In this case, the fake story was the only window into real history.

Okay, that's all for this week on our fake history.

If you're interested in checking out those videos of the bull leapers, you can go to our Facebook page where they're going to be posted.

I know I said earlier on the podcast that they're going to be on the website, but YouTube videos just post easier on Facebook, so you can find them there.

You can go to Facebook/slash slash our fake history.

You can like the page.

You can keep up on all the fun our fake history news that's going to be coming down the pipeline.

I'd like to say a big thank you to all of my friends and everyone out there that's been supporting the podcast.

I've really been humbled by you guys.

So thank you very much for all your support.

Thanks also to anyone that's been sending me tweets on Twitter and anyone out there that's been spreading the word about our fake history.

I'd also like to give a shout out to everyone listening in other countries.

I'm making this podcast in my hometown of Toronto, Canada, but I've been amazed at how many people have found this podcast from other parts of the world.

So a big thank you to all of the listeners in the United States, in the UK, in Ireland, in Norway, in France, in Germany, the Netherlands, Japan, and any other country I may have forgotten to mention.

I'm really amazed that you guys have found the podcast, and so I hope you stick with us and keep journeying into the world of strange historical myths.

In the meantime, everyone can find me at our fake history on Twitter.

You can send me an email at rfakehistory at gmail.com.

You can go directly to our website at rfakehistory.com.

And I think those are all the ways you can get in touch with me.

I think I've said them all.

I've got to remind you that the theme music for the show comes from Dirty Church.

You can find them at dirtychurch.bandcamp.com.

All of the other music on the show is written and recorded by me.

My name is Sebastian Major.

And remember, just because it didn't happen doesn't mean it isn't real.

One, two, three, four.

There's nothing better than a one-play slide.

But I'm strong enough to pay the price.