Minoan Civilization

The most common type of domestic architecture was the Megaron...a meandering sort of building with a central open court in the middle of which was kept a fire. Example: Mycenea

Many mycenean tholos--or 'beehive' tombs also survive. They were large, domed stone structures covered with earth. Typically, they feature a monumental doorway with a triangular lintel. Example: Treasury of Atreus

According to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary it can be pronounced either /'mɪnətɔː(r)/ or / ˈmaɪnətɔː(r)/

The stories differ. In some, Theseus killed the Minotaur with his fists and battered the monster to death, as he had no other weapons. In another, Theseus kills the Minotaur with the sword of Aegeus.

linear b

I believe Minos had several daughters, but two of the more famous ones are Phaedra and Ariadne.

Ariadne helped Theseus defeat the minotaur (her half brother) and also helped him escape from the labyrinth by giving him a magical ball of thread that traced his path to freedom. However, Theseus abandoned her while she was sleeping despite all she had done. Dionysus - god of wine and revelry - found Ariadne (while she was still sleeping) and made her his wife. What happened to Ariadne after this is debated (she may have been shot by Artemis, turned to stone by Perseus, or become immortal).

Phaedra ended up marrying Theseus (despite his treatment of her sister) and had two children with him. However, she became bored with Theseus and tried to tempt Hippolytus (Theseus' son by Antiope) into having an affair with her. Hippolytus refused her, and Phaedra - bent on revenge - convinced Theseus he had raped her. Theseus, enraged, ordered Hippolytus' death. Phaedra, regretting her actions and beset by guilt and grief, killed herself.

the Spartans

In Greek mythology there was only one minotaur, and it seems to have had no purpose except to watch the labyrinth it was locked in to and rip apart any people it happened to find in there.

See related link.

They traded other people with food and other things.

The Minoans were, in fact, the very first entrepreneurs. They basically discovered and adapted and developed seamanship skills faster than anyone, as they originated on the island of Crete, in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea. Their most revered accomplishments were their most obvious; they dominated all trade in the Mediterranean area. They had access to a giant variety of other cultures, and therefore other resources. Those resources, while they may have been abundant in some areas, were in severe demand in other areas. When the Minoans figured this out, they would stock up on that particular resource for a dirt cheap price, then sail on to an area where that was in high demand and rip off the merchants over there. The Minoans, in a sense, were like Switzerland was in World War II; They traded weapons and supplies to countries at war, while keeping the warring nations at bay with neutrality. They traded swords, riches, and more importantly, cultures, affecting many other civilizations' developments.

i assume you are vaguely familiar with the story of daedalus and how he and his son where locked in a tower in crete so they could not share their secrets of the labrynth. in the tower daedalus and icarus develop 2 sets of wings created using feathers and wax. they attach the wings and launch out of the window. before hand daedalus warns icarus not to fly too close to the sun. halfway across the sea icarus forgets and flys to high. the wax melts and icarus falls into the sea and drowns. daedalus lands safely in sicily and manages to find safety in a castle. meanwhile, searched for Daedalus by travelling from city to city asking a riddle. He presented a spiral seashell and asked for a string to be run through it. When he reached Kamikos, King Cocalus, knowing Daedalus would be able to solve the riddle, privately fetched the old man to him. He tied the string to an ant which, lured by a drop of honey at one end, walked through the seashell stringing it all the way through. Minos then knew Daedalus was in the court of King Cocalus and demanded he be handed over. Cocalus managed to convince Minos to take a bath first, where Cocalus' daughters killed Minos. In some versions, Daedalus himself poured boiling water on Minos and killed him. The story im familiar with mentions how the princess manage to entangle him with some sort of magical rope that daedalus created before they kill him. in short King Minos does nothing to keep them from escaping Crete.

They established precedence for Classical Greece and thus Western civilization as a whole. The Minoans were the first true Western civilization, and by all accounts, very sophisticated by 2000 B.C. Their pottery, artwork, and architecture are known to be complex. Their palaces were especially resplendent. They had boardgames, a simple plumbing method, and dominated the Mediterranean through trade, spreading their culture and influence. All this pales in comparison to the fact that the Minoans had the first example of Western written language in Linear B.

Because this myth has Greek origins, and the word for bull in Latin (taurus) comes from the Greek word ταυρος (tauros), in Latin, it would been simply called "Minotaurus".

the queen of knosso may have been worship as representive of the mother goddess herself. because of this elevation status, Minoan women appear to have enjoy many freedom.

that anything is possible if you put your mind to it

Queen Pasiphae of Crete was the mother of the Minotaur, thus any son or daughter of hers would be the half-sibling of the Minotaur, including:

Catreus (King of Crete after Minos)

Androgeus (Killed by the Athenians and restored to life by Asclepius)

Deucalion (succeeded his older brother Catreus as King of Crete, father of Idomeneus: Odysseus pretends to be his second son Aethon when he speaks to his wife while in disguise.)

Glaucus (Polyidus found the boy dead, brought him back to life: Minos forced him to teach Glaucus the art of divination - he did - then was made to forget, later led an army that attacked Italy, introducing to them the military girdle and shield.)

Acacallis (loved by Apollo/Hermes).

Xenodice

Ariadne (loved by Theseus, married Dionysus).

Phaedra (loved by Theseus) .

Euryale (loved by Poseidon).

they lived in greec and they were part of it

europ history

They are myths but since they were large bulls with the upper body of a man, they should weigh about that. They could weigh as much as 2,000 pounds or a ton.

In Cretan mythology, Theseus slayed the minotaur. He did it with the help of a ball of string and Ariadne, who knew the minotaur in some ways too intimately. Not that way. The minotaur is a half bul half man . http://thenorthnode.wordpress.com/2008/10/21/theseus-and-the-minotaur/ Very nice looking blogsite, with a synopsis of the myth with a bit of discussion concerning wandering up that particular emotional labyrinthine alley surrounding it.

The Minoans were not involved in the Trojan War.

The Minoans (considered the earliest "Greeks" and the fathers of modern western civilization) were traders on the island of Crete. Academics are unsure of what caused the downfall of the Minoans, but we have some clues. The most popular theory suggests that in 1500BC a massive volcanic eruption 80km east of Crete caused a Tsunami that destroyed the Minoan naval fleet, and some of its city structures. This in turn led to a weakening of the city, given the Mycenean tribe ample oppurtunity to attack on defeat the Minoans.

The Myceneans were more violent than the Minoans. They had several city states on mainland Greece (in Pylos, Mycenea, Athens). The Myceneans were the people that took a leading role in the war against Troy (Troy is in what we now call Turkey). Somewhere along the way back home or during the war, around 1180BC, the Dorians (another, different, Greek tribe) took over the Myceneans and destroyed virtually everything.

Writing, art, culture and knowledge was all but obliterated. The Dorians had to start from scratch, and this period became known as the Dark Ages. However, from the ashes of the Myceneans developed something that would become far more powerful and influential. The Hellenic poeple. Hellenics are what we now call Greeks. The Classic greek period was born.

The Minoans were an extremely civilized and technological society that had running water, a huge, labyrinthine city on the island of Crete, and a well-established trade business based on their powerful navy. The Minoans believed in the Mother Goddess. Considered to be the society that the tales of Atlantis, and the story of the Minotaur come from, the Minoans were thought to have been destroyed by the eruption of a nearby volcano on the island of Salamis. If their entire civilization wasn't destroyed at this point, it would have been easy for the Myceneans to enter their unwalled cities at this point (which were normally defended by their navy, which would have been destroyed by the huge tsunamis the volcano caused) and enslave the Minoans and destroy their society completely.

The Minotaur (Minos Taurus) was the Bull of the great king Minos (son of Zeus, and later one of three Judges of the Underworld). He was the offspring of Minos' Wife and the Bull bestowed upon Minos by the god Poseidon, much to the chagrin of Minos. Minos kept the great Minotaur despite his embarrassment, but hid him, through the help of the greatest Engineer of his time: Daedalus. Daedalus created a giant structure from where the half-bull, half-man, could not escape - the famous maze. He makes his appearance on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus (Daedalus having built the great maze), and Theseus (the main who slew the Minotaur).

Minos, the king of Crete, prayed to Poseidon for a white bull that he could sacrifice in Poseidon's honour. When he received the bull, it was so magnificent he sacrificed a different bull. As punishment Aphrodite made Minos's wife, Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull. She got the craftsman Daedalus to construct a hollow wooden cow, she climbed into the cow and mated with the white bull. She became pregnant and gave birth to the Minotaur, a creature with the body of a man and the head of a bull. The only food the Minotaur would eat was men, so, on the advice of the Delphic oracle, Minos had Daedalus construct a giant labyrinth to imprison the Minotaur.