Tales from the Island of Serendip 4 4

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A massive tsunami devastated the coastal areas of Crete and destroyed many Minoan settlements.

 

 

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So far no bodies have been discovered in the remains. One theory suggests that the islanders, warned by the initial earthquake, managed to flee.

 

'God only knows where these people are. I believe they were camped somewhere on the island waiting for the earthquakes to finish. And one day we will find them.' Professor Christos Doumas

 

 

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The nearby Minoan settlement at Akrotiri was entombed in a layer of pumice.

 

 

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Depending on what life has shown us, we may wish like Alice simply to awaken from a “horrible dream.”

 

 

.... I had forgotten how much I loved this movie GOD BLESS...

 

-jimbo(a friend of jesus) (thumbs u

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Speculation suggesting that Thera was the inspiration for Plato's Atlantis began with the excavation of Akrotiri in the 1960s.

 

 

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The theory gained increased currency as reconstructions of the island's pre-eruption shape and landscape frescoes located under the ash both strongly resembled Plato's description.

 

 

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Like Atlantis, Thera was destroyed in a matter of days. We are told that after the catastrophe in Atlantis, ' shoal mud' made the ocean impassable - the Theran volcano would have thrown out rafts of volcanic pumice, some of them three feet thick, making the oceans all around impossible to navigate. The Santorini Islands are surrounded by 530 square miles of volcanic rock on the ocean floor, in places close to the coast up to 260 feet thick.

 

 

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Just like Atlantis, Theran homes were decorated in 'red, black and white stone'.

 

 

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The Atlanteans were said to host 'bull-games' in the central sanctuaries of their city.

 

 

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Just as in legendary Atlantis, in the world of Bronze Age Crete and Thera the god most feared was Poseidon.

 

 

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THESEUS AND THE MINOTAUR

 

"When he had grown up and become a most ferocious animal, and of incredible strength, they tell that Minos had him shut up in a prison called the labyrinth, and that he had sent to him there all those whom he wanted to die a cruel death"

Giovanni Boccaccio

 

 

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The Mycenaeans were a military civilization whose semi-mythical conquest of Troy is described in Homer. The Mycenaean conquest of the Minoans occurred soon after the destruction of Thera and before the fall of Troy. Hence the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur may be interpreted as a metaphor for Mycenaean ascendancy.

 

 

 

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After ascending to the throne, Minos prays to Poseidon, to send him a snow-white bull, as a sign of support.

 

 

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He must kill the bull to show honor to the deity, but instead decides to keep it because of its beauty. He thinks, Poseidon will not care if he keeps the white bull and sacrifices one of his own. To punish Minos, Poseidon makes Pasiphaë, Minos' wife, fall deeply in love with the bull. Pasiphaë has craftsman Daedalus make a hollow wooden cow, and climbing inside, mates with the white bull.

 

 

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The offspring of this union is the Minotaur. Pasiphaë nurses him, but as he grows he becomes ever more ferocious. Being the unnatural offspring of a woman and a beast, he has no natural source of nourishment and thus devours man for sustenance. (There is evidence that the Minoans practiced human sacrifice and even cannibalism in their religious rites.)

 

 

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In desperation, Minos consults the oracle at Delphi, and on his return has Daedalus construct a gigantic labyrinth to hold the Minotaur.

 

 

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Now as punishment for their slaying of his son Androgeus, Minos required that seven Athenian youths and seven maidens, drawn by lots, must be sent every seventh year to be devoured by the Minotaur.

 

 

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When the sacrifice approaches, the young Athenian Prince Theseus heroically volunteers to slay the monster. He promises to his father, Aegeus, that he will put up a white sail on his journey back home if he is successful and will have the crew put up black sails if he is killed. On seeing him, Minos' daughter Ariadne instantly falls in love with Theseus and gives him a ball of golden thread to help him navigate the labyrinth, thus allowing him to retrace his path. (For it is only later, in medieval times, that labyrinths were designed with only one path.)

 

 

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Symbolically, Ariadne has become a mediator between pairs of opposites, the ‘guide into the labyrinth’ that enables the seeker to face the dark secret and return to daylight.

 

 

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There in the depths Theseus must confront the ‘dark twin’, which waits to devour him, what Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung, called the ‘integration of the shadow.’