October 13, 2020 • 42 mins
To fully understand the minotaur myth, we also have to consider the Minoan civilization of Crete. In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and Joe chat with Professor Nicoletta Momigliano, author of “In Search of the Labyrinth: The Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete.” Learn all about ancient Creteomania as well as modern artistic treatments of the minotaur.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back going into the Labyrinth again. This is going
to be the second part of our series on the
Minotaur for this October. I'm so excited because, in addition
(00:26):
to talking more about the maze and the Monster, today
we're gonna be interviewing a professor who specializes in the
history of my Noan crete. That's right, we're delighted to
have Nicoletta Mamiliano, professor of the gen Studies at the
University of Bristol, on the show. Uh. She's the author
of the new book In Search of the Labyrinth, The
(00:46):
Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete, which is available now in paperback,
hardback and as an e book. And it's a beautiful book,
just loaded with with wonderful illustrations and photographs of you know,
of the various motifs that she discusses in the book.
All right, so before we jump into our conversation, we
should probably do a quick overview of my knowing Creed
(01:07):
just to give you a little bit of background. Yeah.
You know, in our previous episode on the Mintar, we
touched a little bit on the fact that these are
Greek myths concerning the Manoan civilization on the isle of Crete. Um.
But yeah, let's get a let's just lay a little
groundwork for the interview to follow. So. Crete is an
island in the Eastern Mediterranean, the fifth largest in fact,
it's part of what is now the nation of Greece.
(01:28):
It's long, it's narrow, it's a largely mountainous Today it's
a melting pot of European, Asian and African cultures and
it's well positioned to bridge those cultures now. Stone tools
on Crete have been dated back a hundred thirty thousand years,
but true human settlements weren't found here until uh it
seems like b C. But it was home to what
(01:51):
is sometimes referred to as the first advanced European civilization.
It was established by three thousand b c E and
by two thousand b C. They were building palaces and
exhibited a rich culture. They thrived till at least fourteen
fifty b C, when they ended up entering into a
period of decline. Okay, So, in the Greek myth of theseus.
(02:13):
In the Minotaur, we are getting a sort of exo mythology,
a depiction of a past, once flourishing culture, but depicted
from the outside by a different culture, and in a
somewhat pejorative way, at least in in that particular story,
right that the idea that there's a monster there and
that the Greek city states like Athens would have to
(02:34):
pay tribute to the monster in the palace on in
my knowing creed. Yeah, and and one of the big
things we have to keep in mind is that, yeah,
we we're dealing with one ancient people's interpretations of another
ancient people. Um. So we while we refer to this
Bronze Age civilization today as Minoan Crete, the name itself
(02:55):
here is referring to King Minos in Greek traditions. We
simply don't know what the pre Hellenistic inhabitants of this
island called themselves. Some scholars, according to Momiliano, believe that
the second millennium BC Egyptians knew them as the people
of Kef Two. The Minoan distinction stems from the early
(03:16):
twentieth century. Uh this is it was dubbed by Sir
Arthur Evans the famous excavator of Nosis, the the major
city there on what is what is now crete. Alright,
So Arthur Evans working on excavating this ancient structure at
Canossus Uh is knowingly he's not suggesting that like the
(03:37):
mythical king Minos was actually the king who lived in
this palace, but saying, well, that is the terminology that
we already have applied to it in a mythological context,
so we might as well just use it to apply
to the archaeological remains of this actual civilization, right, Yeah,
And I think realizing that sort of it adds the
mystery of it all right, you know, into into the
(03:58):
wonder again of of not just an ancient civilization, but
one ancient civilizations interpretation of that which came before thinking
about ancient Greek myths pertaining to the civilization of my
knowing crete uh brings up a subject that we've talked
about on the show before. But it's the modern tendency
to kind of compress all of ancient history together and
(04:20):
not realize how much time actually elapsed within what we
call ancient history. Like, for example, if you were Julius
Caesar living in the you know, the first century BC
of the Roman Republic. The ancient parts of ancient Egypt
were more ancient to him than ancient Rome is to
(04:40):
us now, like that much time had gone by, and
so there were huge gaps of history in the ancient
world even, I mean there were there were that the
ancient Greeks also could look back on mysterious, vanished ancient
civilizations and not know anymore about them necessarily than we
know about a lot of ancient law civilizations today. That's right.
(05:02):
And so in some respects of me personally, when I'm
reading about all this and thinking about all this, it's like,
you know, it's like a game of telephone across the ages,
with different cultures interpreting different cultures. Uh. And and I
think stuff like the particularly the myth of the Minotaur,
is a perfect example of this. As it be you know,
begins as something to some extent rooted in this part
(05:25):
of the world and and an isolated around at least
thoughts about crete, and then it becomes this this Greek thing,
and then it every time it is handled, every time
it is retold, it becomes uh, you know, it takes
on particles of new cultures and new concerns and new
people totally. Before we jump right into the interview here,
just want to throw in a couple of notes. First
(05:46):
of all, at around the fourteen minute mark, you're gonna
hear a couple of outlook pings. Uh. That's just part
of doing uh remote recordings these days. But don't worry,
it's it's us, not you, and the will only be
a couple of them. It's not gonna keep going throughout
the interview. Also, I want to point out that our
guests at around twenty five minutes then is going to
mention Mason's marks, And just to give you a little background,
(06:10):
these are marks that were found on masonry that are
sort of a signature of the individuals that created the
masonry work. Good dad that note, because I did not
know what Mason's marks were until until we look that up. Well,
on that note, let's go ahead and jump into our
interview with Professor Nicoletta Momiliano. Let's start with your book,
(06:34):
In Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy of the
Noan Crete. Where did the idea for the book come
from and what did you set out to accomplish with it? Well,
I have always been fascinated by the history of research
in anyone given subject. That is, I've always been fascinated
(06:56):
by the complex relationship between past and present. I've always
been interested in how a particular discipline has developed over
the centuries. That is, how theories, methods, research questions can
change from one generation to another. And of course the
(07:19):
way in which scholarly research and agendas developed is related
to our present, is related to what happens in the present.
And for me, the minor on past and the minor
on cultural legacy, it's not just what happened in the
(07:42):
second and third millennium BC, that is, the traditional chronology
given to minor and civilization. And also the minor on
legacy is not just, as I said, what happened in
the second and third millennium BC, and what possible material
or icono, graphic, linguistic, or even spiritual legacy may have
(08:08):
been transmitted to us via my Snian Greece and then
later via classical Greece. For me, what we now call
mine own creed is the product of interpretations, reconstructions, and
complex entanglements between objects and ideas about them, and these
(08:33):
ideas are influenced by the present. I also think that
is it's very important for scholars to try and understand
how their own discipline, how their own subject is perceived
beyond academia. And I think artistic and literary imaginations of
(08:56):
mine own creed are good to think with. They may
stimulate new ways of looking at ancient objects. New imaginations
can make me, as a scholar, appreciate what is significant
or not about my discipline for the general public. And
(09:18):
after all, it is the general public, the taxpayer, who
funds my research, and I think I have the duty
to understand what fascinates would interest the general public, not
just me as a scholar. Now, in broad strokes, what
does the treatment of Minoan civilization in Greek mythology reveal
(09:39):
about Minoan creeds place in ancient Greek culture? Well, in
ancient Greek culture, in Greek mythology, what we now call
minor and Crete appears as a really strange and contradictory
place create in Greek mythology is a law and where
(10:01):
immortal Zeus, who was also the father of King Minus,
to where Zeus was nurtured, but also where he died
and where he was buried. My nor and Crete was
also a land ruled by law giving King Minus, who
was a kind of Cretan Moses and King Minus conversed
(10:26):
with and was wisely guided by his father Zeus. But
Crete was also a land rife with extreme sexual desires,
with adultery, bestiality, mostly involving women and bulls, pederasti, human sacrifice, magic, murder,
(10:48):
and betrayal. So I would say the treatment of my
non civilizations in Greek mythology reveals a rather ambivalent aptitude
by the Greeks towards this island and her past. This
reminds me of some parallels with, say, the Biblical view
(11:09):
of the Antediluvian time, the time before the flood in
the Book of Genesis, which I think is simultaneously thought
of as a time of greatness but also a time
of sort of chaos and immorality. Uh. Do you see
any parallels there? Or am I running off the tracks here? Well?
(11:30):
Why not? I think in a sense it's it's when
people are trying to make sense of a very distant
past of which they have very very um vague understanding
and memories, they change it, something gets lost in translation.
In a sense, um people are trying to they know
(11:56):
that there was something that happened in a very very
distant past, but they've lost the full understanding of it,
and so they try to explain it, sometimes in ways
that tell you more about their present than actually the past.
All right, on that note, we're going to take a
quick break, but we'll be right back with Nicoletta Momiliano
(12:21):
and we're back. In your book, you discuss how how
even the ancient Greeks used fragments of Minoan material culture
as a catalyst for further creativity. Could you give us
an example and explain what that means? Yeah, Um, I
can give you a very very precise example, which is
provided by some Greek pottery pottery of later periods that
(12:47):
was found at nassauce Um, pottery that dates to the
early to the Greek Early Iron Age, that is to
the late ninth and eight centuries BC. There is one pot,
in particular, a lead that was found in a minor
on tomb, which my own tomb that had been cleared
(13:11):
and reused in the Early Iron Age and the Early
Iron Age pot is decorated with an octopus motif, and
this motif is actually relatively rare in the Early Iron Age,
but of course it's one of the motives that was
quite common in my non crete and on this lead.
(13:33):
The way which the octopus is depicted, the position of
the octopus head above the tentacles, the number of tentacles,
which is eight, suggests that it's really derived from my
non pottery of the so called marine style, and not
from later examples, for example Mycenean period, where the position
(13:57):
of the head is inverted and sometimes the number of
the tentacles is reduced. So the decoration in this spot
is inspired by my non models, but it's also something
new because it's created in a new style, in the
style of the early Iron Age. And there are also,
(14:20):
i think other aspects of my non material culture that
acted as catalyst for further creativity. For example, the large
ruins of the Palace of Cnassauce and perhaps even some
of the frescos that remained visible um for a few
(14:43):
generations or even centuries after the palace was abandoned. The
ruins were certainly quite visible even in later centuries that
we know for sure. But who created these buildings, what
these buildings represented, we're no longer part of leaving memory.
(15:05):
People had forgotten all that, and yet people felt the
need to provide some explanations of what these ruins represented,
and so later Greeks created these wonderful, fantastic stories of
monsters and labyrinth, of women having sex with bulls, powerful
(15:26):
kings that were half divine and half human. It's actually
it's also related to what Joe was asking earlier. I think, yeah,
this is this is very interesting because I think often
when we think about ideological myths, the myths that are
supposed to explain the origin of something. The most common
(15:46):
thing people think of are explaining natural phenomena, you know,
myths to explain where the why the mountains or this way,
or where the lightning comes from. But there are also
ideological myths to explain cultural artifacts a few and civilization
of course, and there are I think there are explanations
that relate to our physical world. You know, it's not
(16:10):
whether it's natural phenomena or buildings. But this is the
point I'm making is precided that it's that these things
are no longer part of living memory. And that's one
when people are trying to create stories about them, sometimes
they tell us more about the present than really what
(16:31):
happened in the past. It's almost as if they were
natural phenomena. It's almost as if they are a mountain
range or something like that. Yes, well, I think people
probably in the case of ruins of buildings, they would
recognize what they were. But sometimes they were so astounded
by kinds of buildings that people were no longer able
(16:54):
to produce in later centuries that sometimes they attributed their
constructions to lords, for example, moving from my non creat
to other areas. But the Walls of Troy that the
Walls of Troy's, of course were built in the middle
of the early middle second millennium BC, but the way
(17:19):
in which they are described in the Homeric poems eight
seventh century b C, as if if they had been
built by gods. But of course they were not built
by gods. They were built by human people like you
and me. But people had forgotten this, and they were
so astounding that they thought they explained them as being
(17:40):
built by supernatural beings. And we've seen something similar in
recent centuries as well. Correct. Yes, to some extent um
since the rediscovery of my non creat in the early
twentieth century, thanks to the excavations of Saraharta Evans at
Cranssat and by other archeologists and other science writer and
(18:06):
artists have been inspired by the material culture of my
non creed to create something new, from poems to ballet
or paintings. And the French writer Paul Moron, in an
article he wrote in the nineteen sixties, used the term
creto mania to describe this phenomenon. Treto Mania is of
(18:31):
course a term similar to earlier terms and used to
describe similar phenomena such as Egyptomania, Great Romania, Helenomania. So
is ancient Cretomania comparable to our modern fascination and retellings
of various historical settings and motifs like I'm instantly thinking
(18:53):
of modern Roman sagas or various Viking TV shows and
the like. Yes, again, to some extent, kryto mania is
above all borrowing of mynorn elements to create something completely
new um and sometimes though my non elements are also
(19:16):
used to give a more ancient, more archaic, and more
Bronze Age look to later Greek dramas uh that are
set in what we now call the Bronze Age or
heroic past of Greece. But krito mania is above all
the use of minorana elements to create something new contemporary.
(19:41):
Now in discussing the minute are, we of course are
discussing balls. How did balls factor into Minoan civilization and
how is this reflected in Greek myth? Well, bulls appear
very very frequently in minor representations, especially from the mid
(20:01):
to late second millennium BC. We find representations of bulls
in frescoes, pottery, terracotta figurines, in tiny, tiny seal stones
UM and particularly fascinating are the representations of bull leaping,
that is, of human figures producing acrobatic somersaults over the
(20:26):
back of charging bulls. But interestingly and contrastingly, depiction of
mynotor images, that is, of creatures that are half bull
and half human are actually very very rare and relatively
(20:47):
late in my non creed. And also we may wonder
whether some of these representation may simply be very stylized
representations of bull leaping because they appear on tiny seal
stones or seal impressions UM and animals human hybrids do
(21:11):
exist in my non treat but it's also interesting to
see that there is no prevalence of bulls necessarily because
some of these human hybrid representations, including some of the
early ones tend to involve other animals um birds or goads,
(21:32):
for example. So how exactly one god from my non
brules to later Greek representations of the minotor as a
hybrid figure is not entirely clear, and I think this
process must have been quite complex, and exactly what happened
(21:54):
I don't know. Is it possible to infer anything about
the tone of how these images are presented in actual
mining artwork? So the depictions of bull leaping or of
animal human hybrids, including with bullparts, or as you mentioned,
with birds or goats, does this convey a sense of um,
(22:15):
of fearfulness or terror the way the minotaur would in
Greek myth? Or is the tone different? Does that make
any sense? Well, as I said, it's um, I don't.
I think we have to decouple bull representations in Minor
and creat and later representations, because really how we got
(22:37):
from one to the other, it's really complicated, and I
honestly don't know how this high and whether there is
a necessarily a direct link. Some people have even suggested
that the minor tours in later Greece are not necessarily
derived from my non creat but are derived from are
(23:00):
the Near Eastern civilizations later civilizations. But the way in
which bulls are presented in my norn Creed do they
show terror? I don't. Well, certainly not all of them. Um.
(23:22):
The contrary, some people UM describe the the acrobatics over
bulls like almost like a kind of dance over over bulls.
It's a like a very interesting showing kind of relationship
between human and animals. I wouldn't say they represent anything
(23:45):
necessarily terror. I mean, there are some representations where you said,
see human beings being gored by bulls, but many other representations.
Is is the human being who successfully produces these wonderful
(24:06):
somersaults over the boom, So I wouldn't say it's necessarily terror.
And the other hybrid figures, and they are so small, um,
they are not part of large compositions, it would be
difficult to say whether they have any fearful terror elements
(24:27):
in them. I would say probably. The answer to that
is again my hunch is probably no. It simply shows
an interesting fascination in the animal world. Now, of course,
the myths involved the greatness involved not only the minute
are but the labyrinth. Is there currently any archaeological evidence
(24:48):
to support the existence of the Manoan labyrinth of Greek myth,
or some actual structure or complex they would have inspired it.
I mean yes and no in the sense that there
is all building in my non tree that can be
described as a complicated maze, that is a complicated system
(25:08):
of parts or edges, designed as a puzzle through which
one has to find the way. No, but the ruins
of my non palaces, especially the ruins of cnaissance Um,
can have for us a kind of labyrin fine appearance.
(25:31):
And also, Sir after Evans, the excavator of Croissance, presented
the large stature that he excavated as the real Cretan labyrine,
because he connected the word labyrinth with labries, which is
a term used in later Greek text to indicate the
(25:57):
double axe. I And he also suggested that labyrinth meant
the house of the double ax, because he noted that
many mason's marks found at Cnaissance in very prominent locations
had the shape of this object had the shape of
a double axe. But I should like to remark that
(26:24):
the connection between the word labyrinth and labraries appears to
be much more tenuous than Evans suggested, because there are
linguistic difficulties in relating the these two words that have
been pointed out by several philologists, by several linguists. And
(26:46):
also I'd like to remark that yes, Mason's marks in
the shape of a double axe do appear very frequently,
and perhaps most frequently at Croisence than the my non sides,
but they're not exclusive to Souce. You can find in
them also at other minor on sides. And also that
(27:09):
there are other signs are the masons marks that are
also very common at Sauce. Now in addition to the
militar and the labyrinthy, of course, the other key part
of these stories is King Minos himself behind the you know,
the fantastic and the monstrous aspects of the particular character
(27:29):
that we find in Greek mythology. Is there a true
historic element to this king? Who knows? Perhaps possibly, But
the issue who really ruled in My non Crete is
very much debated. And perhaps we should bear in mind
(27:50):
that when we talk of my non Crete we speak
of about two millennia, and it is very likely that
political system the social organizations changed in the two millennia.
Some scholars think that perhaps some form of royalty and
(28:12):
perhaps even of Crossian supremacy may have existed in Crete,
especially in what archeologists called the neoplational period, that is,
from about seventeen hundred to fourteen fifty BC. But there
are also many scholars who prefer to see my norn
(28:35):
Creed as ruled by women or by some kind of
gender balanced elite class, almost like council or a corporation
of men and women together, rather than a single ruler.
But it's possible that for some part of the history
(28:59):
of my Now and Crete, for some periods, there may
have been a supreme ruler whose memory might have inspired
later stories about King Mines. All right, on that note,
we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with Nicoletta Momiliano. And we're back now. As
(29:20):
for the minotar, the mythic minotar itself, why do you
think the minetar resonates so strongly in Western traditions. Do
you think it reveals something about the broader human condition,
or rather, are we inflating and building on something that
would have had, you know, far different, more specific associations
for ancient people's Well, I think that at least for
(29:45):
some ancient people, for some Greeks, the story of the
minor Tour had more specific association um, because in a sense,
the Greek myths related to King Minos, the Minotour and
song could be seen almost like a morality tale, an
example of a punishment inflicted by the gods because King
(30:09):
Minors didn't keep one of his promises to the gods. Um.
But of course, the story of the Minotur, like many
many other Greek myths, Greek narratives, and not just Greek narratives,
but also Near Eastern narratives ken and has been endlessly
(30:33):
reimagined to address different aspects of the human condition at
different times and in different periods. And there are some
fascinating examples of really different imaginations and different symbolies of
the encounter, for example, between theseus and the minotor And
(30:58):
you can find many examples in literature or in the
visual and performing arts. From the last novel by andre A.
Gid says just the encounter is more almost like an
encounter between the individual and his own sexuality. Um. There
(31:20):
are other encounters in uh works by Picasso, in works
by the Greek famous Greek author Nikos Kazanzakis, in which
the encounter between theseus and the Minortor is almost like
an encounter between an older civilization and Minoran civilization and
(31:41):
the Greek civilization UM and so on. So the symbolism
changes all the time, and there are so many different examples.
So of course it is because it relates to um
different aspects of the human condition. I said, whether it's
seen as a symbolism of one's sexuality, to the animal
(32:07):
elements in human beings, almost like a struggle between different impulses.
So it can be reimagined and invented with different meanings
all the time. Now, in your book you you you
mentioned various examples of artistic performance or literary works that
are you know, based in some part on the minetar
(32:27):
myth or Mino and creed. Do you do you have
a personal favorite? Now, this is really the most difficult
question for me to answer, because you really put me
on the spot here because I have so many favorites.
It's it's very difficult for me to choose because also
(32:47):
it's so many different materials, as you said, for performance,
literary works and song in the visual arts. Probably my
favorite with work occupied by the material culture of my
non creed is Paul Kleis sketch titled the Snake God
(33:09):
This and Her Enemy that he created in ninet But
I also love um one of the sketches made by
Mark Chagall. One is an irreverent take on famous my
non fresco of bull leaping. And I also sound like
(33:32):
some of the paintings by a local Cretan painter, the
one who actually produced the cover the illustration for the
cover of my book Roussettos Panaga Takis. He has m
very very sexy my notor um and uh, and I
(33:53):
like it very much. It reminds me of salvatorro Da
L's surrealistic pain teens. And in the performing arts, I
have a very very soft spot for the gigantic snake
Godness that appears in the opera Mino Tour by the
(34:14):
British composer, a contemporary British composer, Sir Harrison birth Whistle.
And I also have a soft spot for the ballet
La Premier didem Phone, which was first performed in nineteen
twelve in Paris and was choreographed by the famous dancer
(34:36):
Baslav Nijinsky, and the costumes were created by Leon bas
and the costumes have some my non elements, and among
literary works, I like a poem written by Cecile Lewis
(34:56):
entitled Statuette Late Minn, which was written around ninety seven
and again is also inspired by the famous snake goddess
from Claissance. And I love the story the short story
The Ivory Acrobat by the American writer Don Delilon, and
(35:21):
the ivoryan Krobat is named after another the famous fine
Discovery from Cloissance. And I also like Don Delillo's novel
The Names, which has plenty of references to Minor and
cret so recently on the show. In considering a couple
of different Greek myths that feature a monster, one's the
(35:43):
myth of Perseus and Medusa and the other is Theseus
and the Minotaur. In reading both of them, I find,
as a modern reader, I feel a lot of sympathy
for the monster, for for Medusa, and for the minute hour.
It seems it seems very unfair to them what happens
(36:04):
to them, almost like they're not even really the aggressor
of the story. That the hero is kind of the
aggressor of the story, and both the case of Perseus
and and Theseus, so it is that the way of
reading the story completely alien to the context in which
they originated. Is that just our modern way of interpreting
(36:24):
a story, where you know, the people who originally told
and heard these stories probably would not have felt such sympathies.
Or is that element of kind of pity and unfairness
there even in the ancient understanding of these myths. I
honestly don't know, because certainly some a lot of modern
imaginations of the myth of Thesis and the minotur that
(36:46):
I've come across when working on my book sympathize with
the minotur completely um. For example, in g the minotour
is not the monster at it's a beautiful young man. Again,
in Sir Harrison bird Whistles Opera the minotor the sympathy
(37:07):
is with the minuitor, not with the other people at all. Um.
To say I mean to say that nobody in antiquity
ever felt something like this would be I think unfair
and unjust. There might have been some people in antiquity
who may have felt some sympathy for the monsters. I
can't exclude this a priority. I would have probably thought
(37:31):
that the majority of the people didn't, But why not?
I mean it's I mean, it's like saying that everybody,
every modern person now feels sympathy with the minutor. Perhaps
many people do nowadays, but not everybody might do. So
(37:51):
why should we treat the people who lived in antiquity
as a complete single block. Different people may have reacted
in different ways to these stories. Somebody a bit original
might have felt sympathy for the minotor why not? And
some people even thought that the minotoor was not an
(38:13):
animal at all. Even in antiquities. There are lots of
different explanations and different views, So I would not want
to say a priori that nobody in antiquity felt sympathy
with the minotor, although it strikes me as perhaps a
kind of sensibility and uh that it's a bit more modern.
(38:35):
But ancients could be very modern too in their field,
in their feelings in there, in the way in which
they present things that are not necessarily black and white.
But though this stray is quite a lot from Minoan crete,
these are more to do with the later periods with
Greek mythology. So it's it's Halloween season for many of
(38:57):
our listeners, so we're wondering if you could commend any
particular suitable minuteur related works for the Halloween season. Um,
Like you mentioned so many different things. For instance, I
noticed that you mentioned a minute our book by Russian
author Victor Pelvin. I read it it really enjoyed his
novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf many years ago,
and I just hadn't been keeping I hadn't really kept
(39:19):
up with what other other things he had written. But
you you point out that that he he wrote a
minotar based work as well. Yes. Well, to be perfectly honest,
I can't think of, um, something that is particularly spooky
that is in the spirit suitable to Halloween. UM. But
(39:42):
many reimaginations of the myth of the mintor can be
a bit unnerving and disturbing. UM. And indeed, I would
say the book by Victor Peleevin that you have just
referred to, which was published in English with the title
The Helmet of Horrors, I think it's a bit of
(40:06):
an unnerving story because it reimagines the labyrinth of minus
any modern internet chat toom that sounds good. This has
been fantastic. Thank you so much for talking to us today.
Thank you so much. All right, well there you have it.
(40:29):
Thanks once again. So much to Professor Nicoletto Mamiliano again,
author of In Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy
of Minoan Crete. It's out now. You can find it.
It it you know. It just came out. It's available
in paperback, hardback, and as an e book. In the meantime,
you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff
to Blow your Mind, such as our our previous episode
(40:50):
of the Minotaur on the Minotaur, or if you want
to look out for our next episode that is going
to deal a little bit more with the minotaur. We
can't yeah, we can't start. We're lost in the labyrinth. Um.
If you want to check any of that out. You
can find our podcast wherever you get your podcasts, wherever
that happens to be. We just asked that you rate
the review and subscribe. But you can find us at
(41:12):
stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That'll shoot you
over to the I heart page for our podcast, and
if you go there, I think there's a link for
a store you can check that out. There's some t shirts,
some logos, some stickers, et cetera, including a few that
are mythological in nature. Huge thanks, as always to our
excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
(41:32):
episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
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That's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
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(41:53):
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.
My present point four point four pp fo fo fo
fo
Welcome to stot to Blow Your Mind production of My
Heart Radio. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp and I'm Joe McCormick, and
we're back going into the Labyrinth again. This is going
to be the second part of our series on the
Minotaur for this October. I'm so excited because, in addition
(00:26):
to talking more about the maze and the Monster, today
we're gonna be interviewing a professor who specializes in the
history of my Noan crete. That's right, we're delighted to
have Nicoletta Mamiliano, professor of the gen Studies at the
University of Bristol, on the show. Uh. She's the author
of the new book In Search of the Labyrinth, The
(00:46):
Cultural Legacy of Minoan Crete, which is available now in paperback,
hardback and as an e book. And it's a beautiful book,
just loaded with with wonderful illustrations and photographs of you know,
of the various motifs that she discusses in the book.
All right, so before we jump into our conversation, we
should probably do a quick overview of my knowing Creed
(01:07):
just to give you a little bit of background. Yeah.
You know, in our previous episode on the Mintar, we
touched a little bit on the fact that these are
Greek myths concerning the Manoan civilization on the isle of Crete. Um.
But yeah, let's get a let's just lay a little
groundwork for the interview to follow. So. Crete is an
island in the Eastern Mediterranean, the fifth largest in fact,
it's part of what is now the nation of Greece.
(01:28):
It's long, it's narrow, it's a largely mountainous Today it's
a melting pot of European, Asian and African cultures and
it's well positioned to bridge those cultures now. Stone tools
on Crete have been dated back a hundred thirty thousand years,
but true human settlements weren't found here until uh it
seems like b C. But it was home to what
(01:51):
is sometimes referred to as the first advanced European civilization.
It was established by three thousand b c E and
by two thousand b C. They were building palaces and
exhibited a rich culture. They thrived till at least fourteen
fifty b C, when they ended up entering into a
period of decline. Okay, So, in the Greek myth of theseus.
(02:13):
In the Minotaur, we are getting a sort of exo mythology,
a depiction of a past, once flourishing culture, but depicted
from the outside by a different culture, and in a
somewhat pejorative way, at least in in that particular story,
right that the idea that there's a monster there and
that the Greek city states like Athens would have to
(02:34):
pay tribute to the monster in the palace on in
my knowing creed. Yeah, and and one of the big
things we have to keep in mind is that, yeah,
we we're dealing with one ancient people's interpretations of another
ancient people. Um. So we while we refer to this
Bronze Age civilization today as Minoan Crete, the name itself
(02:55):
here is referring to King Minos in Greek traditions. We
simply don't know what the pre Hellenistic inhabitants of this
island called themselves. Some scholars, according to Momiliano, believe that
the second millennium BC Egyptians knew them as the people
of Kef Two. The Minoan distinction stems from the early
(03:16):
twentieth century. Uh this is it was dubbed by Sir
Arthur Evans the famous excavator of Nosis, the the major
city there on what is what is now crete. Alright,
So Arthur Evans working on excavating this ancient structure at
Canossus Uh is knowingly he's not suggesting that like the
(03:37):
mythical king Minos was actually the king who lived in
this palace, but saying, well, that is the terminology that
we already have applied to it in a mythological context,
so we might as well just use it to apply
to the archaeological remains of this actual civilization, right, Yeah,
And I think realizing that sort of it adds the
mystery of it all right, you know, into into the
(03:58):
wonder again of of not just an ancient civilization, but
one ancient civilizations interpretation of that which came before thinking
about ancient Greek myths pertaining to the civilization of my
knowing crete uh brings up a subject that we've talked
about on the show before. But it's the modern tendency
to kind of compress all of ancient history together and
(04:20):
not realize how much time actually elapsed within what we
call ancient history. Like, for example, if you were Julius
Caesar living in the you know, the first century BC
of the Roman Republic. The ancient parts of ancient Egypt
were more ancient to him than ancient Rome is to
(04:40):
us now, like that much time had gone by, and
so there were huge gaps of history in the ancient
world even, I mean there were there were that the
ancient Greeks also could look back on mysterious, vanished ancient
civilizations and not know anymore about them necessarily than we
know about a lot of ancient law civilizations today. That's right.
(05:02):
And so in some respects of me personally, when I'm
reading about all this and thinking about all this, it's like,
you know, it's like a game of telephone across the ages,
with different cultures interpreting different cultures. Uh. And and I
think stuff like the particularly the myth of the Minotaur,
is a perfect example of this. As it be you know,
begins as something to some extent rooted in this part
(05:25):
of the world and and an isolated around at least
thoughts about crete, and then it becomes this this Greek thing,
and then it every time it is handled, every time
it is retold, it becomes uh, you know, it takes
on particles of new cultures and new concerns and new
people totally. Before we jump right into the interview here,
just want to throw in a couple of notes. First
(05:46):
of all, at around the fourteen minute mark, you're gonna
hear a couple of outlook pings. Uh. That's just part
of doing uh remote recordings these days. But don't worry,
it's it's us, not you, and the will only be
a couple of them. It's not gonna keep going throughout
the interview. Also, I want to point out that our
guests at around twenty five minutes then is going to
mention Mason's marks, And just to give you a little background,
(06:10):
these are marks that were found on masonry that are
sort of a signature of the individuals that created the
masonry work. Good dad that note, because I did not
know what Mason's marks were until until we look that up. Well,
on that note, let's go ahead and jump into our
interview with Professor Nicoletta Momiliano. Let's start with your book,
(06:34):
In Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy of the
Noan Crete. Where did the idea for the book come
from and what did you set out to accomplish with it? Well,
I have always been fascinated by the history of research
in anyone given subject. That is, I've always been fascinated
(06:56):
by the complex relationship between past and present. I've always
been interested in how a particular discipline has developed over
the centuries. That is, how theories, methods, research questions can
change from one generation to another. And of course the
(07:19):
way in which scholarly research and agendas developed is related
to our present, is related to what happens in the present.
And for me, the minor on past and the minor
on cultural legacy, it's not just what happened in the
(07:42):
second and third millennium BC, that is, the traditional chronology
given to minor and civilization. And also the minor on
legacy is not just, as I said, what happened in
the second and third millennium BC, and what possible material
or icono, graphic, linguistic, or even spiritual legacy may have
(08:08):
been transmitted to us via my Snian Greece and then
later via classical Greece. For me, what we now call
mine own creed is the product of interpretations, reconstructions, and
complex entanglements between objects and ideas about them, and these
(08:33):
ideas are influenced by the present. I also think that
is it's very important for scholars to try and understand
how their own discipline, how their own subject is perceived
beyond academia. And I think artistic and literary imaginations of
(08:56):
mine own creed are good to think with. They may
stimulate new ways of looking at ancient objects. New imaginations
can make me, as a scholar, appreciate what is significant
or not about my discipline for the general public. And
(09:18):
after all, it is the general public, the taxpayer, who
funds my research, and I think I have the duty
to understand what fascinates would interest the general public, not
just me as a scholar. Now, in broad strokes, what
does the treatment of Minoan civilization in Greek mythology reveal
(09:39):
about Minoan creeds place in ancient Greek culture? Well, in
ancient Greek culture, in Greek mythology, what we now call
minor and Crete appears as a really strange and contradictory
place create in Greek mythology is a law and where
(10:01):
immortal Zeus, who was also the father of King Minus,
to where Zeus was nurtured, but also where he died
and where he was buried. My nor and Crete was
also a land ruled by law giving King Minus, who
was a kind of Cretan Moses and King Minus conversed
(10:26):
with and was wisely guided by his father Zeus. But
Crete was also a land rife with extreme sexual desires,
with adultery, bestiality, mostly involving women and bulls, pederasti, human sacrifice, magic, murder,
(10:48):
and betrayal. So I would say the treatment of my
non civilizations in Greek mythology reveals a rather ambivalent aptitude
by the Greeks towards this island and her past. This
reminds me of some parallels with, say, the Biblical view
(11:09):
of the Antediluvian time, the time before the flood in
the Book of Genesis, which I think is simultaneously thought
of as a time of greatness but also a time
of sort of chaos and immorality. Uh. Do you see
any parallels there? Or am I running off the tracks here? Well?
(11:30):
Why not? I think in a sense it's it's when
people are trying to make sense of a very distant
past of which they have very very um vague understanding
and memories, they change it, something gets lost in translation.
In a sense, um people are trying to they know
(11:56):
that there was something that happened in a very very
distant past, but they've lost the full understanding of it,
and so they try to explain it, sometimes in ways
that tell you more about their present than actually the past.
All right, on that note, we're going to take a
quick break, but we'll be right back with Nicoletta Momiliano
(12:21):
and we're back. In your book, you discuss how how
even the ancient Greeks used fragments of Minoan material culture
as a catalyst for further creativity. Could you give us
an example and explain what that means? Yeah, Um, I
can give you a very very precise example, which is
provided by some Greek pottery pottery of later periods that
(12:47):
was found at nassauce Um, pottery that dates to the
early to the Greek Early Iron Age, that is to
the late ninth and eight centuries BC. There is one pot,
in particular, a lead that was found in a minor
on tomb, which my own tomb that had been cleared
(13:11):
and reused in the Early Iron Age and the Early
Iron Age pot is decorated with an octopus motif, and
this motif is actually relatively rare in the Early Iron Age,
but of course it's one of the motives that was
quite common in my non crete and on this lead.
(13:33):
The way which the octopus is depicted, the position of
the octopus head above the tentacles, the number of tentacles,
which is eight, suggests that it's really derived from my
non pottery of the so called marine style, and not
from later examples, for example Mycenean period, where the position
(13:57):
of the head is inverted and sometimes the number of
the tentacles is reduced. So the decoration in this spot
is inspired by my non models, but it's also something
new because it's created in a new style, in the
style of the early Iron Age. And there are also,
(14:20):
i think other aspects of my non material culture that
acted as catalyst for further creativity. For example, the large
ruins of the Palace of Cnassauce and perhaps even some
of the frescos that remained visible um for a few
(14:43):
generations or even centuries after the palace was abandoned. The
ruins were certainly quite visible even in later centuries that
we know for sure. But who created these buildings, what
these buildings represented, we're no longer part of leaving memory.
(15:05):
People had forgotten all that, and yet people felt the
need to provide some explanations of what these ruins represented,
and so later Greeks created these wonderful, fantastic stories of
monsters and labyrinth, of women having sex with bulls, powerful
(15:26):
kings that were half divine and half human. It's actually
it's also related to what Joe was asking earlier. I think, yeah,
this is this is very interesting because I think often
when we think about ideological myths, the myths that are
supposed to explain the origin of something. The most common
(15:46):
thing people think of are explaining natural phenomena, you know,
myths to explain where the why the mountains or this way,
or where the lightning comes from. But there are also
ideological myths to explain cultural artifacts a few and civilization
of course, and there are I think there are explanations
that relate to our physical world. You know, it's not
(16:10):
whether it's natural phenomena or buildings. But this is the
point I'm making is precided that it's that these things
are no longer part of living memory. And that's one
when people are trying to create stories about them, sometimes
they tell us more about the present than really what
(16:31):
happened in the past. It's almost as if they were
natural phenomena. It's almost as if they are a mountain
range or something like that. Yes, well, I think people
probably in the case of ruins of buildings, they would
recognize what they were. But sometimes they were so astounded
by kinds of buildings that people were no longer able
(16:54):
to produce in later centuries that sometimes they attributed their
constructions to lords, for example, moving from my non creat
to other areas. But the Walls of Troy that the
Walls of Troy's, of course were built in the middle
of the early middle second millennium BC, but the way
(17:19):
in which they are described in the Homeric poems eight
seventh century b C, as if if they had been
built by gods. But of course they were not built
by gods. They were built by human people like you
and me. But people had forgotten this, and they were
so astounding that they thought they explained them as being
(17:40):
built by supernatural beings. And we've seen something similar in
recent centuries as well. Correct. Yes, to some extent um
since the rediscovery of my non creat in the early
twentieth century, thanks to the excavations of Saraharta Evans at
Cranssat and by other archeologists and other science writer and
(18:06):
artists have been inspired by the material culture of my
non creed to create something new, from poems to ballet
or paintings. And the French writer Paul Moron, in an
article he wrote in the nineteen sixties, used the term
creto mania to describe this phenomenon. Treto Mania is of
(18:31):
course a term similar to earlier terms and used to
describe similar phenomena such as Egyptomania, Great Romania, Helenomania. So
is ancient Cretomania comparable to our modern fascination and retellings
of various historical settings and motifs like I'm instantly thinking
(18:53):
of modern Roman sagas or various Viking TV shows and
the like. Yes, again, to some extent, kryto mania is
above all borrowing of mynorn elements to create something completely
new um and sometimes though my non elements are also
(19:16):
used to give a more ancient, more archaic, and more
Bronze Age look to later Greek dramas uh that are
set in what we now call the Bronze Age or
heroic past of Greece. But krito mania is above all
the use of minorana elements to create something new contemporary.
(19:41):
Now in discussing the minute are, we of course are
discussing balls. How did balls factor into Minoan civilization and
how is this reflected in Greek myth? Well, bulls appear
very very frequently in minor representations, especially from the mid
(20:01):
to late second millennium BC. We find representations of bulls
in frescoes, pottery, terracotta figurines, in tiny, tiny seal stones
UM and particularly fascinating are the representations of bull leaping,
that is, of human figures producing acrobatic somersaults over the
(20:26):
back of charging bulls. But interestingly and contrastingly, depiction of
mynotor images, that is, of creatures that are half bull
and half human are actually very very rare and relatively
(20:47):
late in my non creed. And also we may wonder
whether some of these representation may simply be very stylized
representations of bull leaping because they appear on tiny seal
stones or seal impressions UM and animals human hybrids do
(21:11):
exist in my non treat but it's also interesting to
see that there is no prevalence of bulls necessarily because
some of these human hybrid representations, including some of the
early ones tend to involve other animals um birds or goads,
(21:32):
for example. So how exactly one god from my non
brules to later Greek representations of the minotor as a
hybrid figure is not entirely clear, and I think this
process must have been quite complex, and exactly what happened
(21:54):
I don't know. Is it possible to infer anything about
the tone of how these images are presented in actual
mining artwork? So the depictions of bull leaping or of
animal human hybrids, including with bullparts, or as you mentioned,
with birds or goats, does this convey a sense of um,
(22:15):
of fearfulness or terror the way the minotaur would in
Greek myth? Or is the tone different? Does that make
any sense? Well, as I said, it's um, I don't.
I think we have to decouple bull representations in Minor
and creat and later representations, because really how we got
(22:37):
from one to the other, it's really complicated, and I
honestly don't know how this high and whether there is
a necessarily a direct link. Some people have even suggested
that the minor tours in later Greece are not necessarily
derived from my non creat but are derived from are
(23:00):
the Near Eastern civilizations later civilizations. But the way in
which bulls are presented in my norn Creed do they
show terror? I don't. Well, certainly not all of them. Um.
(23:22):
The contrary, some people UM describe the the acrobatics over
bulls like almost like a kind of dance over over bulls.
It's a like a very interesting showing kind of relationship
between human and animals. I wouldn't say they represent anything
(23:45):
necessarily terror. I mean, there are some representations where you said,
see human beings being gored by bulls, but many other representations.
Is is the human being who successfully produces these wonderful
(24:06):
somersaults over the boom, So I wouldn't say it's necessarily terror.
And the other hybrid figures, and they are so small, um,
they are not part of large compositions, it would be
difficult to say whether they have any fearful terror elements
(24:27):
in them. I would say probably. The answer to that
is again my hunch is probably no. It simply shows
an interesting fascination in the animal world. Now, of course,
the myths involved the greatness involved not only the minute
are but the labyrinth. Is there currently any archaeological evidence
(24:48):
to support the existence of the Manoan labyrinth of Greek myth,
or some actual structure or complex they would have inspired it.
I mean yes and no in the sense that there
is all building in my non tree that can be
described as a complicated maze, that is a complicated system
(25:08):
of parts or edges, designed as a puzzle through which
one has to find the way. No, but the ruins
of my non palaces, especially the ruins of cnaissance Um,
can have for us a kind of labyrin fine appearance.
(25:31):
And also, Sir after Evans, the excavator of Croissance, presented
the large stature that he excavated as the real Cretan labyrine,
because he connected the word labyrinth with labries, which is
a term used in later Greek text to indicate the
(25:57):
double axe. I And he also suggested that labyrinth meant
the house of the double ax, because he noted that
many mason's marks found at Cnaissance in very prominent locations
had the shape of this object had the shape of
a double axe. But I should like to remark that
(26:24):
the connection between the word labyrinth and labraries appears to
be much more tenuous than Evans suggested, because there are
linguistic difficulties in relating the these two words that have
been pointed out by several philologists, by several linguists. And
(26:46):
also I'd like to remark that yes, Mason's marks in
the shape of a double axe do appear very frequently,
and perhaps most frequently at Croisence than the my non sides,
but they're not exclusive to Souce. You can find in
them also at other minor on sides. And also that
(27:09):
there are other signs are the masons marks that are
also very common at Sauce. Now in addition to the
militar and the labyrinthy, of course, the other key part
of these stories is King Minos himself behind the you know,
the fantastic and the monstrous aspects of the particular character
(27:29):
that we find in Greek mythology. Is there a true
historic element to this king? Who knows? Perhaps possibly, But
the issue who really ruled in My non Crete is
very much debated. And perhaps we should bear in mind
(27:50):
that when we talk of my non Crete we speak
of about two millennia, and it is very likely that
political system the social organizations changed in the two millennia.
Some scholars think that perhaps some form of royalty and
(28:12):
perhaps even of Crossian supremacy may have existed in Crete,
especially in what archeologists called the neoplational period, that is,
from about seventeen hundred to fourteen fifty BC. But there
are also many scholars who prefer to see my norn
(28:35):
Creed as ruled by women or by some kind of
gender balanced elite class, almost like council or a corporation
of men and women together, rather than a single ruler.
But it's possible that for some part of the history
(28:59):
of my Now and Crete, for some periods, there may
have been a supreme ruler whose memory might have inspired
later stories about King Mines. All right, on that note,
we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be
right back with Nicoletta Momiliano. And we're back now. As
(29:20):
for the minotar, the mythic minotar itself, why do you
think the minetar resonates so strongly in Western traditions. Do
you think it reveals something about the broader human condition,
or rather, are we inflating and building on something that
would have had, you know, far different, more specific associations
for ancient people's Well, I think that at least for
(29:45):
some ancient people, for some Greeks, the story of the
minor Tour had more specific association um, because in a sense,
the Greek myths related to King Minos, the Minotour and
song could be seen almost like a morality tale, an
example of a punishment inflicted by the gods because King
(30:09):
Minors didn't keep one of his promises to the gods. Um.
But of course, the story of the Minotur, like many
many other Greek myths, Greek narratives, and not just Greek narratives,
but also Near Eastern narratives ken and has been endlessly
(30:33):
reimagined to address different aspects of the human condition at
different times and in different periods. And there are some
fascinating examples of really different imaginations and different symbolies of
the encounter, for example, between theseus and the minotor And
(30:58):
you can find many examples in literature or in the
visual and performing arts. From the last novel by andre A.
Gid says just the encounter is more almost like an
encounter between the individual and his own sexuality. Um. There
(31:20):
are other encounters in uh works by Picasso, in works
by the Greek famous Greek author Nikos Kazanzakis, in which
the encounter between theseus and the Minortor is almost like
an encounter between an older civilization and Minoran civilization and
(31:41):
the Greek civilization UM and so on. So the symbolism
changes all the time, and there are so many different examples.
So of course it is because it relates to um
different aspects of the human condition. I said, whether it's
seen as a symbolism of one's sexuality, to the animal
(32:07):
elements in human beings, almost like a struggle between different impulses.
So it can be reimagined and invented with different meanings
all the time. Now, in your book you you you
mentioned various examples of artistic performance or literary works that
are you know, based in some part on the minetar
(32:27):
myth or Mino and creed. Do you do you have
a personal favorite? Now, this is really the most difficult
question for me to answer, because you really put me
on the spot here because I have so many favorites.
It's it's very difficult for me to choose because also
(32:47):
it's so many different materials, as you said, for performance,
literary works and song in the visual arts. Probably my
favorite with work occupied by the material culture of my
non creed is Paul Kleis sketch titled the Snake God
(33:09):
This and Her Enemy that he created in ninet But
I also love um one of the sketches made by
Mark Chagall. One is an irreverent take on famous my
non fresco of bull leaping. And I also sound like
(33:32):
some of the paintings by a local Cretan painter, the
one who actually produced the cover the illustration for the
cover of my book Roussettos Panaga Takis. He has m
very very sexy my notor um and uh, and I
(33:53):
like it very much. It reminds me of salvatorro Da
L's surrealistic pain teens. And in the performing arts, I
have a very very soft spot for the gigantic snake
Godness that appears in the opera Mino Tour by the
(34:14):
British composer, a contemporary British composer, Sir Harrison birth Whistle.
And I also have a soft spot for the ballet
La Premier didem Phone, which was first performed in nineteen
twelve in Paris and was choreographed by the famous dancer
(34:36):
Baslav Nijinsky, and the costumes were created by Leon bas
and the costumes have some my non elements, and among
literary works, I like a poem written by Cecile Lewis
(34:56):
entitled Statuette Late Minn, which was written around ninety seven
and again is also inspired by the famous snake goddess
from Claissance. And I love the story the short story
The Ivory Acrobat by the American writer Don Delilon, and
(35:21):
the ivoryan Krobat is named after another the famous fine
Discovery from Cloissance. And I also like Don Delillo's novel
The Names, which has plenty of references to Minor and
cret so recently on the show. In considering a couple
of different Greek myths that feature a monster, one's the
(35:43):
myth of Perseus and Medusa and the other is Theseus
and the Minotaur. In reading both of them, I find,
as a modern reader, I feel a lot of sympathy
for the monster, for for Medusa, and for the minute hour.
It seems it seems very unfair to them what happens
(36:04):
to them, almost like they're not even really the aggressor
of the story. That the hero is kind of the
aggressor of the story, and both the case of Perseus
and and Theseus, so it is that the way of
reading the story completely alien to the context in which
they originated. Is that just our modern way of interpreting
(36:24):
a story, where you know, the people who originally told
and heard these stories probably would not have felt such sympathies.
Or is that element of kind of pity and unfairness
there even in the ancient understanding of these myths. I
honestly don't know, because certainly some a lot of modern
imaginations of the myth of Thesis and the minotur that
(36:46):
I've come across when working on my book sympathize with
the minotur completely um. For example, in g the minotour
is not the monster at it's a beautiful young man. Again,
in Sir Harrison bird Whistles Opera the minotor the sympathy
(37:07):
is with the minuitor, not with the other people at all. Um.
To say I mean to say that nobody in antiquity
ever felt something like this would be I think unfair
and unjust. There might have been some people in antiquity
who may have felt some sympathy for the monsters. I
can't exclude this a priority. I would have probably thought
(37:31):
that the majority of the people didn't, But why not?
I mean it's I mean, it's like saying that everybody,
every modern person now feels sympathy with the minutor. Perhaps
many people do nowadays, but not everybody might do. So
(37:51):
why should we treat the people who lived in antiquity
as a complete single block. Different people may have reacted
in different ways to these stories. Somebody a bit original
might have felt sympathy for the minotor why not? And
some people even thought that the minotoor was not an
(38:13):
animal at all. Even in antiquities. There are lots of
different explanations and different views, So I would not want
to say a priori that nobody in antiquity felt sympathy
with the minotor, although it strikes me as perhaps a
kind of sensibility and uh that it's a bit more modern.
(38:35):
But ancients could be very modern too in their field,
in their feelings in there, in the way in which
they present things that are not necessarily black and white.
But though this stray is quite a lot from Minoan crete,
these are more to do with the later periods with
Greek mythology. So it's it's Halloween season for many of
(38:57):
our listeners, so we're wondering if you could commend any
particular suitable minuteur related works for the Halloween season. Um,
Like you mentioned so many different things. For instance, I
noticed that you mentioned a minute our book by Russian
author Victor Pelvin. I read it it really enjoyed his
novel The Sacred Book of the Werewolf many years ago,
and I just hadn't been keeping I hadn't really kept
(39:19):
up with what other other things he had written. But
you you point out that that he he wrote a
minotar based work as well. Yes. Well, to be perfectly honest,
I can't think of, um, something that is particularly spooky
that is in the spirit suitable to Halloween. UM. But
(39:42):
many reimaginations of the myth of the mintor can be
a bit unnerving and disturbing. UM. And indeed, I would
say the book by Victor Peleevin that you have just
referred to, which was published in English with the title
The Helmet of Horrors, I think it's a bit of
(40:06):
an unnerving story because it reimagines the labyrinth of minus
any modern internet chat toom that sounds good. This has
been fantastic. Thank you so much for talking to us today.
Thank you so much. All right, well there you have it.
(40:29):
Thanks once again. So much to Professor Nicoletto Mamiliano again,
author of In Search of the Labyrinth, the Cultural Legacy
of Minoan Crete. It's out now. You can find it.
It it you know. It just came out. It's available
in paperback, hardback, and as an e book. In the meantime,
you would like to check out other episodes of Stuff
to Blow your Mind, such as our our previous episode
(40:50):
of the Minotaur on the Minotaur, or if you want
to look out for our next episode that is going
to deal a little bit more with the minotaur. We
can't yeah, we can't start. We're lost in the labyrinth. Um.
If you want to check any of that out. You
can find our podcast wherever you get your podcasts, wherever
that happens to be. We just asked that you rate
the review and subscribe. But you can find us at
(41:12):
stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. That'll shoot you
over to the I heart page for our podcast, and
if you go there, I think there's a link for
a store you can check that out. There's some t shirts,
some logos, some stickers, et cetera, including a few that
are mythological in nature. Huge thanks, as always to our
excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like
to get in touch with us with feedback on this
(41:32):
episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future,
just to say hello, you can email us at contact.
That's Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to
Blow Your Mind is production of I Heart Radio. For
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