Minotaur Birth and appearance
what was significant about his birth?
What was significant about Minotaur's birth?
After he ascended the throne of the island of Crete, Minos competed with his brothers to rule. Minos prayed to Poseidon, the sea god, to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of support (the Cretan Bull). He was to kill the bull to show honor to the deity, but decided to keep it instead because of its beauty. He thought Poseidon would not care if he kept the white bull and sacrificed one of his own. To punish Minos, Poseidon made Pasiphae, Minos's wife, fall deeply in love with the bull. Pasiphae had craftsman Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow, and climbed inside it in order to mate with the white bull. The offspring was the monstrous Minotaur. Pasiphae nursed him, but he grew and became ferocious, being the unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast; he had no natural source of nourishment and thus devoured humans for sustenance. Minos, after getting advice from the oracle at Delphi, had Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth to hold the Minotaur. Its location was near Minos' palace in Knossos. The Minotaur is commonly represented in Classical art with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. One of the figurations assumed by the river spirit Achelous in seducing Deianira is as a man with the head of a bull, according to Sophocles' Trachiniai. From Classical times through the Renaissance, the Minotaur appears at the center of many depictions of the Labyrinth. Ovid's Latin account of the Minotaur, which did not elaborate on which half was bull and which half man, was the most widely available during the Middle Ages, and several later versions show the reverse of the Classical configuration, a man's head and torso on a bull's body, reminiscent of a centaur. This alternative tradition survived into the Renaissance, and still figures in some modern depictions, such as Steele Savage's illustrations for Edith Hamilton's Mythology (1942). CANNOTANSWER
After he ascended the throne of the island of Crete, Minos competed with his brothers to rule.
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur ( ,  ;  ; in Latin as Minotaurus ) is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". He dwelt at the center of the Labyrinth, which was an elaborate maze-like construction designed by the architect Daedalus and his son Icarus, on the command of King Minos of Crete.  The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.

Etymology
The word minotaur derives from the Ancient Greek , a compound of the name  (Minos) and the noun  "bull", translated as "(the) Bull of Minos". In Crete, the Minotaur was known by the name Asterion, a name shared with Minos' foster-father. In Etruscan, the Minotaur had the name Θevrumineś.

"Minotaur" was originally a proper noun in reference to this mythical figure. That is, there was only the one Minotaur. In contrast, the use of "minotaur" as a common noun to refer to members of a generic "species" of bull-headed creatures developed much later, in 20th-century fantasy genre fiction.

English pronunciation of the word "Minotaur" is varied. The following can be found in dictionaries:  ,  ,  .

Creation and appearance

After ascending the throne of the island of Crete, Minos competed with his brothers as ruler. Minos prayed to the sea god Poseidon to send him a snow-white bull as a sign of the god's favour. Minos was to sacrifice the bull to honor Poseidon, but owing to the bull's beauty he decided instead to keep him. Minos believed that the god would accept a substitute sacrifice. To punish Minos, Poseidon made Minos' wife Pasiphaë fall in love with the bull. Pasiphaë had the craftsman Daedalus fashion a hollow wooden cow, which she climbed into in order to mate with the bull. The monstrous Minotaur was the result. Pasiphaë nursed the Minotaur but he grew in size and became ferocious. As the unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast, the Minotaur had no natural source of nourishment and thus devoured humans for sustenance. Minos, following advice from the oracle at Delphi, had Daedalus construct a gigantic Labyrinth to hold the Minotaur. Its location was near Minos' palace in Knossos.

The Minotaur is commonly represented in Classical art with the body of a man and the head and tail of a bull. According to Sophocles' Trachiniai, when the river spirit Achelous seduced Deianira, one of the guises he assumed was a man with the head of a bull. From  classical antiquity through the Renaissance, the Minotaur appears at the center of many depictions of the Labyrinth. Ovid's Latin account of the Minotaur, which did not describe which half was bull and which half man, was the most widely available during the Middle Ages, and several later versions show a man's head and torso on a bull's body – the reverse of the Classical configuration, reminiscent of a centaur.  This depiction is in keeping with Dryden's translation of  Virgil's description of the Minotaur in Book VI of the Aeneid: "The lower part a beast, a man above / The monument of their polluted love." This alternative tradition survived into the Renaissance, and still figures in some modern depictions, such as Steele Savage's illustrations for Edith Hamilton's Mythology (1942).

Theseus

Androgeus, son of Minos, had been killed by the Athenians, who were jealous of the victories he had won at the Panathenaic festival. Others say he was killed at Marathon by the Cretan Bull, his mother's former taurine lover, whom Aegeus, king of Athens, had commanded him to slay. The common tradition holds that Minos waged and won a war to avenge the death of his son. Catullus, in his account of the Minotaur's birth, refers to another version in which Athens was "compelled by the cruel plague to pay penalties for the killing of Androgeon." Aegeus had to avert the plague caused by his crime by sending "young men at the same time as the best of unwed girls as a feast" to the Minotaur. Minos required that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens, drawn by lots, be sent every seventh or ninth year (some accounts say every year) into the Labyrinth to be devoured by the Minotaur.

When the third sacrifice approached, Theseus volunteered to slay the monster. He promised his father Aegeus that he would put up a white sail on his journey back home if he was successful, but would have the crew put up black sails if he was killed. In Crete, Minos' daughter Ariadne fell madly in love with Theseus and helped him navigate the labyrinth. In most accounts she gave him a ball of thread, allowing him to retrace his path. According to various Classical sources and representations, Theseus killed the Minotaur with his bare hands, his club, or a sword. He then led the Athenians out of the labyrinth, and they sailed with Ariadne away from Crete. On the way home, Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos and continued to Athens. He neglected to put up the white sail. King Aegeus, from his lookout on Cape Sounion, saw the black-sailed ship approach and, presuming his son dead, committed suicide by throwing himself into the sea that is since named after him. This act secured the throne for Theseus.

Interpretations

The contest between Theseus and the Minotaur was frequently represented in Greek art. A Knossian didrachm exhibits on one side the Labyrinth, on the other the Minotaur surrounded by a semicircle of small balls, probably intended for stars; one of the monster's names was Asterion or Asterius ("star"). Pasiphaë gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.While the ruins of Minos' palace at Knossos were discovered, the Labyrinth never was. The multiplicity of rooms, staircases and corridors in the palace has led some archaeologists to suggest that the palace itself was the source of the Labyrinth myth, with over 1300 maze-like compartments, an idea that is now generally discredited. Homer, describing the shield of Achilles, remarked that Daedalus had constructed a ceremonial dancing ground for Ariadne, but does not associate this with the term labyrinth.

Some modern mythologists regard the Minotaur as a solar personification and a Minoan adaptation of the Baal-Moloch of the Phoenicians. The slaying of the Minotaur by Theseus in that case indicates the breaking of Athenian tributary relations with Minoan Crete.

According to A. B. Cook, Minos and Minotaur were different forms of the same personage, representing the sun-god of the Cretans, who depicted the sun as a bull. He and J. G. Frazer both explain Pasiphaë's union with the bull as a sacred ceremony, at which the queen of Knossos was wedded to a bull-formed god, just as the wife of the Tyrant in Athens was wedded to Dionysus. E. Pottier, who does not dispute the historical personality of Minos, in view of the story of Phalaris, considers it probable that in Crete (where a bull cult may have existed by the side of that of the labrys) victims were tortured by being shut up in the belly of a red-hot brazen bull. The story of Talos, the Cretan man of brass, who heated himself red-hot and clasped strangers in his embrace as soon as they landed on the island, is probably of similar origin.

Karl Kerenyi viewed the Minotaur, or Asterios, as a god associated with stars, comparable to Dionysus. Coins minted at Cnossus from the fifth century showed labyrinth patterns encircling a goddess' head crowned with a wreath of grain, a bull's head, or a star. Kerenyi argued that the star in the Labyrinth was in fact Asterios, making the Minotaur a "luminous" deity in Crete, associated with a goddess known as the Mistress of the Labyrinth.   

A historical explanation of the myth refers to the time when Crete was the main political and cultural potency in the Aegean Sea. As the fledgling Athens (and probably other continental Greek cities) was under tribute to Crete, it can be assumed that such tribute included young men and women for sacrifice. This ceremony was performed by a priest disguised with a bull head or mask, thus explaining the imagery of the Minotaur.

Once continental Greece was free from Crete's dominance, the myth of the Minotaur worked to distance the forming religious consciousness of the Hellene poleis from Minoan beliefs.

A scientific interpretation also exists. Citing early descriptions of the minotaur by Callimachus as being entirely focused on the "cruel bellowing" it made from its underground labyrinth and the extensive tectonic activity in the region, science journalist Matt Kaplan has theorised that the myth may well stem from geology. He points out that carbon dating of marine fossils attached to boulders that were ejected from the ocean by ancient tsunamis indicates the region was tectonically very active during the years when the minotaur myth first appeared. Given this, he argues that the Minoans used the monster to help explain the terrifying earthquakes that were "bellowing" beneath their feet.

Cultural references

Dante's Inferno

The Minotaur (infamia di Creti, Italian for "infamy of Crete"), appears briefly in Dante's Inferno, in Canto 12 (l. 12–13, 16–21), where Dante and his guide Virgil find themselves picking their way among boulders dislodged on the slope and preparing to enter into the seventh circle of hell. Dante and Virgil encounter the beast first among the "men of blood": those damned for their violent natures. Some commentators believe that Dante, in a reversal of classical tradition, bestowed the beast with a man's head upon a bull's body, though this representation had already appeared in the Middle Ages.

Inferno, Canto XII, lines 16–20

Lo savio mio inver' lui gridò: "Forse
tu credi che qui sia 'l duca d'Atene,
che sú nel mondo la morte ti porse?
Pártiti, bestia, ché questi non vene
ammaestrato da la tua sorella,
ma vassi per veder la vostre pene."

English translation

My sage cried out to him: "You think,
perhaps, this is the Duke of Athens,
who in the world put you to death.
Get away, you beast, for this man
does not come tutored by your sister;
he comes to view your punishments."

In these lines, Virgil taunts the Minotaur in order to distract him, and reminds the Minotaur that he was killed by Theseus the Duke of Athens with the help of the monster's half-sister Ariadne. The Minotaur is the first infernal guardian whom Virgil and Dante encounter within the walls of Dis. The Minotaur seems to represent the entire zone of Violence, much as Geryon represents Fraud in Canto XVI, and serves a similar role as gatekeeper for the entire seventh Circle.

Giovanni Boccaccio writes of the Minotaur in his literary commentary of the Commedia: "When he had grown up and become a most ferocious animal, and of incredible strength, they tell that Minos had him shut up in a prison called the labyrinth, and that he had sent to him there all those whom he wanted to die a cruel death". Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in his own commentary, compares the Minotaur with all three sins of violence within the seventh circle: "The Minotaur, who is situated at the rim of the tripartite circle, fed, according to the poem was biting himself (violence against oneself) and was conceived in the 'false cow' (violence against nature, daughter of God)."

Virgil and Dante then pass quickly by to the centaurs (Nessus, Chiron and Pholus) who guard the Flegetonte ("river of blood"), to continue through the seventh Circle.

Surrealist art 

 From 1933 to 1939, Albert Skira published an avant-garde literary magazine Minotaure, with covers featuring a Minotaur theme. The first issue had cover art by Pablo Picasso. Later covers included work by Salvador Dalí, René Magritte, Max Ernst, and Diego Rivera. 
 Pablo Picasso made a series of etchings in the Vollard Suite showing the Minotaur being tormented, possibly inspired also by Spanish bullfighting. He also depicted a Minotaur in his 1933 etching Minotaur Kneeling over Sleeping Girl and in his 1935 etching Minotauromachy.
The Minotaur appears as the protagonist of Steven Sherill's The Minotaur Takes a Cigarette Break. The character returns in The Minotaur Takes His Own Sweet Time.

TV, literature and plays
 Argentine author Julio Cortázar published the play Los reyes in 1949, which reinterprets the Minotaur's story. In the book, Ariadne is not in love with Theseus, but with her brother the Minotaur.
 Mika Waltari's 1945 historical novel The Egyptian, set in the 12th century B.C., sees the main protagonist and his slave venture into the Cretan labyrinth in search of the protagonist's love interest, sacrificed to a Cretan god beforehand, The god is revealed to be a long dead huge horned sea carnivore that was capable of walking on land when it was alive (in one of the story's few supernatural twists, the creature does not bear even cursory resemblance to any attested animal). Minotaur, in turn, is the name of the chief Cretan priest who wears a bull mask most of the time, which makes people confuse him for an actual human/bull hybrid upon first encounter in a dim light.
The short story The House of Asterion by the Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges gives the Minotaur's story from the monster's perspective.
 The documentary Room 237 suggests that the film The Shining (1980) is a re-telling of the myth of the Minotaur.
 A minotaur, descended from the original mythological figure, appears in the third episode of the 2014 television series The Librarians ("And The Horns of a Dilemma"). Golden Axe Foods, an agribusiness firm founded by survivors of the Minoan civilization (the name refers to a symbol of the Minoan monarchy), have imprisoned the minotaur to recreate the Labyrinth in order to maintain their wealth and prosperity. The minotaur is presented as a large, bull-headed man in leather garb, who can shapeshift into the form of a muscular biker. It is freed when the labyrinth is destroyed, and proceeds to exact revenge upon its captors.
 A minotaur named Iron Will is a supporting character in My Little Pony Friendship is Magic.
 In the Gargoyles episode "The New Olympians", a minotaur named Taurus (voiced by Michael Dorn) is a New Olympian security officer. After his father (the original Minotaur) was killed by the devious, shapeshifting New Olympian villain Proteus, the villain eventually takes the form of Goliath, intending to fool Elisa Maza into liberating him from the island to freedom, and is stopped by Taurus and Elisa - as co-operating police figures - to be re-imprisoned.
 In the animated TV series Aladdin, a huge minotaur named Dominus Tusk was killed by the Sultan and had his horns mounted as a trophy.
 In the Doctor Who serial The Time Monster, set in Bronze Age Thera, the Minotaur appears played by Dave Prowse.
The Minotaur is one of the characters in South Park: "Imaginationland Episode III", and is one of the characters from the "dark side" of Imaginationland.
 In Death in the Andes by Mario Vargas Llosa, one of the characters relates a story about a pishtaco who lives in an underground labyrinth and is defeated by a man with a gigantic nose who first takes a powerful laxative in order to follow his scent trail back to the surface.
 In the Legend of the Three Caballeros (episode "Labyrinth and Repeat"), the Minotaur chases Donald Duck, José Carioca and Panchito Pistoles in the hidden labyrinth but dies crushed under a pile of rocks.
 In Jake and the Never Land Pirates a minotaur named Monty appears in two episodes ("Minotaur Mix-Up") and ("Captain Buzzard to the Rescue!") as a guardian of the treasure of Argos Island. Unlike his Greek mythological counterpart, he is depicted as friendly.
 The Minotaur appears in the first book in the Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, The Lightning Thief (2005), where he battles and is killed by Percy Jackson. He is reborn and reappears in the fifth book, The Last Olympian (2009).
 In the Doctor Who episode "The God Complex", the Doctor, Amy and Rory find themselves in a mysterious hotel with rooms and corridors that constantly change to form an endless labyrinth, allowing the minotaur trapped inside to hunt people down one by one with their secret fears until they give in and are consumed.
 Mark Z. Danielewski's novel House of Leaves features both the labyrinth and the Minotaur as prominent themes.
 In the Brazilian telenovela Caminhos do Coração, a man is transformed into the Minotaur and placed on an island with several other mutants.
 The titular kaiju of Pulgasari has the appearance of a minotaur, and is based on the metal-eating folk monster Bulgasari.
 Aleksey Ryabinin's book Theseus (2018). provides a retelling of the myths of Theseus, Minotaur, Ariadne and other personages of Greek mythology.
 The Minotaur, an opera by Harrison Birtwistle.
 Minotauria is a genus of Balkan woodlouse hunting spiders named in its honor.
 The Netflix TV series Dark alludes to the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur in a number of episodes, and part of the series' story involves navigating labyrinthian underground tunnels.
The Minotaur appears as a character in the novel, Ariadne by Jennifer Saint.
 In Hercules the Minotaur (voiced by Michael Dorn) appears along with king Minos (voiced by Charles Nelson Reilly) as antagonists in the episodes Hercules and the Minotaur and Hercules and the Grim Avenger. The Minotaur is depicted as a sophisticated yet easily agitated monster, while Minos is depicted as a comically rude and sadistic king.

Board and video games
 The popular role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons features Minotaurs.
 Madness and the Minotaur is a 1981 text adventure game for the TRS-80 Color Computer
 The storyline of the 2017 virtual reality video game Theseus revolves around the titular hero's mission to defeat the Minotaur.
 In Assassin's Creed: Odyssey (2018), there is a mission where the main character (Alexios or Kassandra) visits the ruins of the Palace of Knossos in order to kill the Minotaur in the Labyrinth of the Lost Souls. Completing the mission grants the player the achievement "A-maze-ing Victory" on the Steam and X-Box platforms and a PlayStation trophy of the same name.
In the video game Hades (2020) by Supergiant Games, the protagonist defeats the Minotaur (named Asterius) in Elysium, where he fights beside Theseus.
In the turn-based strategy series Heroes of Might & Magic, the Minotaur is a unit that is controllable by the player. Traditionally, they are sided with the Dungeon faction (Formerly the Warlock / Mountain faction).
In the mobile game Fate/Grand Order, the Minotaur is named Asterios, and summonable as a Berserker-class Servant; this particular version of the character is shown with a child-like mentality and loves Euryale, one of the Gorgons.
In the Total War Saga: Troy, In the campaign, the player can come across mythical units to recruit in their armies, one of which is the Minotaur. One of his recruiting locations can be found on the Crete. Minotaur is also available to play in the custom games.
The Castlevania series features minotaurs as enemies starting in Castlevania: Rondo of Blood.
In the 2002 Ensemble Studios real-time strategy game Age of Mythology, minotaurs can be trained and utilized in combat by Greek players who choose to worship Athena.
 In King's Quest VI: Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow the protagonist has to defeat the Minotaur in order to escape the labyrinth

Film
Minotaur, the Wild Beast of Crete is a 1960 Italian film. The film was directed by Silvio Amadio and starred Bob Mathias.
Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger was directed by Sam Wanamaker. Peter Mayhew played the Minotaur is his first role in 1976.
Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur is one of the TV movie pilots for the television series Hercules: The Legendary Journeys released in 1994, directed by Josh Becker, starring Kevin Sorbo as Hercules, Anthony Ray Parker as the Minotaur and Anthony Quinn as Zeus.
Minotaur, a horror adaptation of the legend, starring actor Tom Hardy as Theo (Theseus), released on DVD by Lions Gate on 20 June 2006. Maple Pictures would also release the film in Canada that same day. It was later released by Brightspark on 3 September 2007.
Sinbad and the Minotaur is a film released in 2011, directed by Karl Zwicky.
Wonder Woman: Bloodlines is a film in the DC Animated Movie Universe that features a Minotaur. Like in Greek mythology, it resides in the labyrinth, but rather than eat humans, it defends a fountain at the end. When Wonder Woman destroys it, the Minotaur is freed and nicknamed "Ferdinand."

Music 

 Labyrinth is an album by Italian technical death metal band Fleshgod Apocalypse. It is a concept album based upon the labyrinth of Knossos and the characters related to the associated myth.
 A chibi crying Minotaur is one of the mascots of the band Radiohead, created for their album Amnesiac.
 "Minotaur" is a song off the American garage rock band Thee Oh Sees 2013 album Floating Coffin. The music video for this song has the frontman John Dwyer playing a Minotaur.
 The Minotaur is referenced by British steampunk folk band The Mechanisms in their 2013 album Ulysses Dies At Dawn- The Minotaur is referenced in the context of Ariadne and her 'romance' with Theseus

See also
Satyr – a legendary human-goat (or horse) hybrid(s)
Shedu – a figure in Mesopotamian mythology with the body of a bull and a human head
Tikbalang – a  creature of Philippine folklore with the head and hooves of a horse, usually depicted standing on its hind legs.

References

External links

Minotaur in Greek Myth source Greek texts and art.

 
Anthropomorphic animals
Cattle in art
Labours of Theseus
Monsters in Greek mythology
Mythological bovines
Mythological human hybrids
Cretan characters in Greek mythology
Knossos
Henri de Mondeville (1320) was a medieval French surgeon who made a significant number of contributions to anatomy and surgery, and was the first Frenchman to author a surgical treatise, La Chirurgie (1306-1320). Very little is known about the details of his early life. There is some doubt about his birthplace as according to ancient Norman custom, his last name is derived from the place of birth, and is variously spelled as Amondeville, Esmondeville, Mandeville and so on.

He pursued his medical studies in Montpellier and Paris, and he became a cleric and master in medicine and then went to Bologna as a cleric-physician to work with Theodoric Borgognoni, who was one of the most prominent surgeons of the Medieval Period. Mondeville appreciated and used Borgognoni´s method of dressing wounds which was completely opposite to the practices at that time.

Returning to France, he worked as a professor of anatomy and surgery at the University of Montpellier between 13011304. He was appointed as a royal surgeon to King Philippe Le Bel (Philip the Fair) of France and he retained his position under Louis X, serving in military expeditions against the English. He also started to teach surgery at the medical schools in Paris in 1308 and settled permanently in 1312. His royal duties ended after the death of Louis X in 1316. He carried on teaching and writing about surgery until his death around 1320 from what was believed to be tuberculosis.

La Chirurgie 
In 1306, he started to write his unfinished manuscript La Chirurgie ("Surgery", translated from French) in Latin until 1320. Prioreschi in Ghosh states that "the book documents his professional views, as well as gives significant insights into the status of medicine and surgery in the 14th century". His work was never completed, only two of his intended five sections are completed. The manuscript was met with contention by his colleagues and immediate successors. It was not until 1892 that it was re-discovered by Julius Leopold Pagel that it was considered important due to the development of antiseptic surgery in modern times. His work was influenced by the medical works of the Ancient Greek physician Galen and the Latin translations of Avicenna's Canon of Medicine. He was the first known surgeon to introduce the concept of aseptic management of wounds without inducing pus formation and applied it to injured soldiers.

"Mondeville conducted the first unauthorized human dissection at the University of Montpellier in 1315, and his efforts were pivotal towards legalization of human dissection in France from 1340. His full-length illustrations marked a significant transformation in anatomical studies during those days, as human cadaveric dissection was prohibited and anatomists had to rely solely on textual descriptions prevalent from the ancient period."

References

External links

1316 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
14th-century French physicians
Medieval surgeons
14th-century French writers
13th-century French physicians Chris Owen (1944 – 9 March 2018) was an Australian filmmaker, who specialises in ethnographic documentary films about Papua New Guinea and its inhabitants.

He has served as director of the film unit of the Institute of Papua New Guinea Studies in Port Moresby and has played a significant role in the creation of most documentaries about New Guinea since 1980.

Filmography
Owen's 1984 film Tukana (also called What Went Wrong?) was not a documentary, but a fictionalised feature film about the problems facing young people in the Bougainville Province.

His 1990 film Man Without Pigs was about John Waiko (who would go on to become the PNG foreign minister from 2000 to 2001) returning to his home village to take part in a traditional ritual after receiving a PhD from the University of Papua New Guinea. The film was about the complexities of village politics, and the pressures and expectations placed on Waiko in a community where wealth and status are measured by the number of pigs one owns. The film won the awards for Best Documentary at the Hawaii International Film Festival, and the International Jurors' Prize at the Sydney Film Festival.

Bridewealth for a Goddess (2000) won the Award for Excellence at the American Anthropological Association Film and Video Festival in 2001.

Betelnut Bisnis (2004) won the award for Best Documentary at the Australian Capital Territory Film & Television Council.

References

External links

Australian film directors
1944 births
2018 deaths
Place of birth missing