There was never a group of people that considered themselves ‘Minoans’. The great Minoan civilization was given its name by a 19th century British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans. He gave the Minoans while he was exploring and excavating at Knossos in 1900. Sir Evans had thought he had discovered the palace of the legendary King Minos who was a reoccurring figure within Greek mythology.
The island of Crete began to become populated with small farming villages during the Neolithic Revolution period of world history, most likely around 6000 BC. As the Bronze Age arrived, trade routes began to spring up throughout the Mediterranean from the Middle East in search of copper, tin, and other resources. Due to Crete’s location as an island in the eastern…show more content… The greatest of these myths is that of Perseus and the Minotaur’s labyrinth. This all began when Minos failed to sacrifice a bull that Poseidon had sent him. “To punish him, Poseidon had made Pasiphae fall madly in love with it” (Hamilton 206). She gave birth to the Minotaur. Minos obviously wanted to conceal this beast, so he had Daedalus build a labyrinth and put the Minotaur in the center. Theseus eventually arrives as a tribute and kills the Minotaur with the help of Ariadne. The idea of the Minotaur’s labyrinth has been attributed to the complexity of the palace of Knossos’s halls and rooms by historians. This idea also holds weight due to the immensity of the bull within Minoan culture. Following the success of Theseus, King Minos punishes Daedalus by imprisoning him within the labyrinth along with his son Icarus. Daedalus creates wings for himself and his son and they fly out of the labyrinth, however Icarus flies too close to the sun and his wings melt and he falls to his death. Minos sent out after Daedalus with a shell saying if a man could thread it that man must be Daedalus. When Minos found him in Sicily Minos was killed either by war, which seems unlikely due to little proof of a Minoan army, or by boiling water being poured over him during a