The Minotaur
Once upon a time on the island of Crete, maybe about 1325 BC, there was a king whose name was Minos, and his wife was Queen Pasiphae (in the story; this is only a story). The gods were angry at Minos and Pasiphae (PAH-si-fay), and they made them have a monster for a baby, that was half man and half bull, and so it was called the Minotaur (tauros means bull in Greek).
The Minotaur, when it grew up, was wild and dangerous, and it ate people,
so Minos and Pasiphae kept it in a special part of their palace
at Knossos, which was called the Labyrinth. The story says that
the Labyrinth was designed by a very clever architect and inventor named
Daedalus.
Although Knossos was a real palace, which archaeologists have found and dug up,
there wasn't really a labyrinth in it, and probably the Minotaur was a story more than
something that really happened.
Knossos, built about 1700 BC (partly reconstructed)
To find out more about the Minotaur, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Monster in the Maze: The Story of the Minotaur (All Aboard Reading), by Stephanie Spinner and Susan Swan. A beginning reader book.
D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths, by Edgar and Ingri D'Aulaire (Look under Theseus).
At the Palaces of Knossos: A Novel, by Nikos Kazantzakis (1988). The story of Theseus retold, for kids.
The King Must Die : A Novel, by Mary Renault (1958). Not specifically for kids. There are some romantic scenes in the book, but not very explicit ones.
Daedalus and Icarus
The story of Theseus and the Minotaur
Crete in the Late Bronze Age
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Greek religion page
Main Ancient Greece page
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