Labyrinths

Hi Gwen,

I assume that because the core of the Bock info may have pre-dated the human/cattle connection in the far north... or that the bock-buck-male principle was in the language from the beginning.... I know that Vinci says that the original Crete was where northern Poland is today (Homer NEVER identified Crete as an island), and that specific area still has a HUGE traditional connection to cattle, in fact, still using decorated cattle in traditional wedding processions. In antique times this was still done in rural England!

So it may be not just the bull that was important.... The "Minoan" story is so huge in our learned mythology that we focus on the bull...It seems to me that pre-paternalism there may have been a more "separate but equal" focus....

The Bock story recognizes the NANNY goat as well as the BOCK. Since both the cow and the bull have horns there may have been some confusion as to who is indicated in ancient picturing...They did not seem to mind picturing a ****. In the Knossos bull-dancing depiction the **** is evident I think, but I don't think that scholars necessarily connect that with the minotaur story either. Minos may have been a king in the NORTHERN Crete and the already ancient tale just migrated south with the population moving south to the Mediterranean Kriti and Knossos. I don't think that anyone has found any indication that Minos was at Knossos, and they have certainly never located a labyrinth matching the story there.

Certainly the bull was symbolic of fertility...as was the Bock (male goat), Pan, the sword, serpent, and other items. One would think upon opening a grave and finding a sword placed point upward on the body, that it meant this man was a great warrior... but in truth, it indicated a "breeder", one who's seed had fathered a community, maybe even a nation....