Daisy Dunn

Blue monkeys, bull-leaping and child sacrifice: why were the Minoans so weird?

These ancient Cretans might be some of the most mystifying people we've ever stumbled upon in modern times

Minoan gold ring showing a man leaping over a bull, 1450–1375 BC. Credit: © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford 
issue 04 March 2023

Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth & Reality at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford does not take the idea of a labyrinth too literally. It does not lead you through galleries to dead ends, nor are you left searching, like Theseus, for a ball of thread to find your way out again. The real enigma of the exhibition revolves around the Bronze Age civilisation at its heart.

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