The Minotaur in House of Leaves The Minotaur in House of Leaves The Minotaur or Minotauros was the son born of lust to Queen Pasiphae of Crete and a bull. He had the body of a man and the head of a bull and was more beast than human. The creature was banished by King Minos to reside in the centre of a labyrinth in Knossos built by the ingenious architect Daedalus and his son Icarus. The Minotaur was nursed by Queen Pasiphae as a child but grew to devour humans, so he was safely put away in the maze contrived so carefully and trickily that
Minotaur act secured the throne for Theseus. This essentially Athenian view of the Minotaur as the antagonist of Theseus reflects the literary sources, which are biased in favour of Athenian perspectives. The Etruscans, who paired Ariadne with Dionysus, never with Theseus, offered an alternative Etruscan view of the Minotaur, never seen in Greek arts: on an Etruscan red-figure wine-cup of the early-to-mid fourth century Pasiphaë tenderly cradles an infant Minotaur on her knee. 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