Labyrinths

[rockessence]

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....

[Gwen Parker]

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...

Hi Rockessence,

That is an interesting observation, but it sure doesn't apply to the Minoan frescoes of "bull-dancing."  Those are clearly bulls!  Likewise, the cave paintings, bull sculptures, and the bull in mythology.  I'm sure you saw my "Cult of the Bull" thread, which offers very real examples of actual bull worship throughout the Med. Likewise, the Greeks certainly knew the difference between the goat and the bull, the horns of a bull certainly are different than those of a bull.

I like your method of tearing down archaeology to it's core and trying to decide how we knew what, when, but I think we have enough circumstantial evidence that the legend of Minos and Crete are linked.  It all seems to break down to how big was the world of the Greeks and just what it included.

Anyway, if, like Troy, you think the legend of Minos was elsewhere, did you have a particular place in mind, and what do you have to support that idea?

Gwen

[rockessence]

Hi Gwen,

Yes, as I mentioned above: "In the Knossos bull-dancing depiction the **** is evident I think"

RE: where would the "elsewhere" Minos be...Felice Vinci suggested in his "Baltic Origins of Homer's Epic Tales" that the original Crete was in the Pomeranian region (Homer never identified Crete as an island) in the region of the Vistula River, one of the main links to the vast river-system which were the north-south highways in the most ancient times. 

Minos and Crete are certainly linked as you say, but is the story of Minos possibly from before the occupation of Mediterranean Crete?   After all there is absolutely NO physical evidence of Minos in Mediterranean Crete, only popular myth.

Hey, get the book, you'll love it!

[Gwen Parker]

Hi Rockessence,

Well, of course there is no direct evdence because Minos (like Theseus) was a mythological king, not a real one.  The reason why the residents of Crete are called "the Minoans" is cause the bull leaping frescoes, the fact that they were an advanced civilization and they are close to Greece. It's a "circumstantial" connection.  I don't see how the evidence is any stronger in the Pomeranian region! 

This differs from Troy, of course, which was a real place, whereas the Trojan War (since there is no actual evidence for the Trojan War of the Illiad) it is still considered to be a myth - for the time being, at least.

I have actually read a lot of what has been posted by Felice Vinci, I try and have an open mind so my opinion would be that more evidence is needed to support his conclusions.

Gwen