THE MINOTAUR ECLIPSES

“Daedalus in countless corridors built bafflement, and hardly could himself make his way out, so puzzling was the maze. Within this labyrinth Minos shut fast the beast, half bull, half man, and fed him twice on Attic blood, lot-chosen each nine years, until the the third choice mastered him. The door, so difficult, which none of those before could find again, by Ariadne’s aid was found, the thread that traced the way rewound.”¹

The ultimate form of cosmic death and resurrection was encapsulated in the phenomenon of the totality of solar and lunar eclipses. Plutarch directly links the myths surrounding the Apis bull or calf with the phenomenon of eclipses. This introduces a new and largely unexplored dimension to the meanings that have been attached to the worship of the sacred bull. According to Plutarch the Apis was the embodiment of the spirit of Osiris and was born as a calf from a cow that had been inseminated by a beam of light that had come from the moon.

“The Apis, they say, is the animate image of Osiris, and he comes into being when a fructifying light thrusts forth from the moon and falls upon a cow in her breeding season… There are some who would make the legend an allegorical reference to matters touching eclipses; for the moon suffers eclipses only when she is full, with the sun directly opposite to her, and she falls into the shadow of the earth, as they say Osiris fell into his coffin. Then again, the moon herself obscures the sun and causes solar eclipses…”²

The reference to the cow being struck with a beam of light from heaven is a metaphorical device to implant the idea that it was inseminated by the gods. Plutarch goes further than this by implying that the legends surrounding the birth of the Apis are related to the eclipses of both the moon and the sun. “There are some who would make the legend an allegorical reference to matters touching eclipses…”

From continuous observation of the passage of the five known planets along the ecliptic (the path of the sun through the stars) ancient civilizations would have been able to decipher the 19 year Metonic cycle. The related knowledge of the 18 year saros cycle enabled them to predict eclipses, especially of the moon.

A visual phenomenon of the ecliptic is that it passes through the horns of the bull in the Taurus constellation. Later civilizations defined this area of the sky as the Taurus Constellation but it is likely that this cosmic gateway was defined by the distinctive stellar horns by the earliest human civilizations. Thus the formulae that determined eclipses was associated with the sacred bull and explains the statement by Plutarch that “there are some who would make the legend (of the Apis) an allegorical reference to matters touching eclipses.”

The documented close connection between the Minoan and Egyptian civilizations suggests that the myth of the Minotaur is linked to that of the Apis. Both cultures celebrated these deified manifestations of bulls as among their most important gods. Both cultures are also associated with labyrinths famed in their time.

The Minotaur is recognized as having an astronomical origin but this is usually interpreted as signifying the 8 year lunar-solar cycle. This cycle corrects the discrepancy between the length of the solar and lunar years. However, the Octaeteris cycle has no correlation to the extensive use of the 9 year time period in the Labyrinth myths.

One of the names attached to the Minotaur was ‘Asterios’ or ‘Asterion’ meaning that this was a bull formed of stars. Thus the myth is clearly set in the cosmos and the bull has an astronomical significance. “And she (Pasiphae) gave birth to Asterios, who was called the Minotaur. He had the face of a bull, but the rest of him was human; and Minos, in compliance with certain oracles, shut him up and guarded him in the Labyrinth.”³

Redevelopment of the palace in Knossos has been dated to period that encompassed the years 1860-1814 BC. This was a period when an extraordinary sequence of three solar eclipses passed directly over Crete. The myth of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth is associated with the palace in Crete and it can be shown that the concept of the Labyrinth is based on the phenomenon of eclipses.

“… but Heaven also laid it waste, for barrenness and pestilence smote it sorely, and its rivers dried up; also that when their god assured them in his commands that if they appeased Minos and became reconciled to him, the wrath of Heaven would abate and there would be an end of their miseries, they sent heralds and made their supplication and entered into an agreement to send him every 9 years a tribute of 7 youths and as many maidens. And the most dramatic version of the story declares that these young men and women, on being brought to Crete, were destroyed by the Minotaur in the Labyrinth, or else wandered about as their own will and, being unable to find an exit, perished there; and that the Minotaur, as Euripides says was: ‘A mingled form and hybrid birth of monstrous shape, two different natures, man and bull, were joined in him…”⁴

Plutarch states here that at the core of the myth are 7 females and 7 males that are sent as tribute by Athens every 9 years to the Labyrinth in Crete where they are devoured by the Minotaur or otherwise perish in the Labyrinth. In this astronomical context the 7 maidens represent the moon and the 7 youths represent the sun. They are sent to the Labyrinth every 9 years and these numerals indicate that the myth reflects a fusion of the Metonic and saros cycles.

The numeral 7 is intrinsic to the Metonic cycle and 9 intrinsic to the saros cycle, both numerals being incorporated into the myth. The 7 female and 7 male sacrificial humans are a reference to the Metonic cycle where the discrepancy between the solar year and 12 lunar months is resolved after 19 years. In order to achieve this resolution, and keep the moon derived months matching the sun derived seasons, 7 months were extracted (killed) over the course of the 19 year period. The differentiation between 7 males and 7 females symbolizes the opposing dynamics of the sun and the moon.

Decoding the Labyrinth reveals this result, which is essentially a fusion of the 19 year Metonic cycle and the 18 year saros cycle:

“… every 9 years a tribute of 7 youths and as many maidens.”

7+7 weeks (7 maidens and 7 youths) = 98 days (14 x 7 = 98) every 9 years.

“… were destroyed by the Minotaur in the Labyrinth…”

These 98 days were destroyed in the Labyrinth every 9 years, a period now defined as a sar or half-saros cycle. Doubling this to the full 18 year saros cycle results in the annihilation of 196 days (98 x 2 =196). 196 days equals 7 (sidereal) months of 28 days (7 x 28 = 196). The saros period of 18 years is aligned to the 19 year Metonic cycle where 7 months are extracted to resolve the discrepancy between the lunar and solar cycles.

The use of a 9 year cycle in the myth of the Labyrinth shows that the saros cycle had been understood at this early date when the myth of the Labyrinth and the Minotaur was being disseminated. The 9 year cycle is now termed the ‘sar’ being a half-saros cycle. In the 9 year half-saros cycle eclipses alternate between lunar and solar and therefore are consistent with the male/female duality in the Labyrinth myths. In the full saros cycle an eclipse will be replicated with an eclipse of similar characteristics every 18 years, albeit over a different region of the earth.

The Metonic cycle was utilized in Athens from 432 BC. “The account is also given that the god (of the sun) visits the island every 19 years, the period in which the return of the stars to the same place in the heavens is accomplished; and for this reason the 19 year period is called by the Greeks the ‘year of Meton.'”⁵

In the 9 year sar cycle, one half of the 18 year full saros cycle, there will be alternating solar and lunar eclipses every 9 years. This would have been discovered long before the full 18 year saros cycle because the very narrow path of solar eclipses, that repeat in different areas of the planet, hindered the search for an ecliptic cycle. A triple saros cycle of 54 years would be needed to partially correct the location of the eclipses in different areas of the earth. The lunar cycle of eclipses is evident over a much broader section of the planet allowing a connection to be made between a solar eclipse and then a lunar eclipse 9 years later.

Thus the 18 year saros cycle was discovered by default as a repeating pattern of 9 year cycles alternating between lunar and solar eclipses. The extraordinary concurrence of three solar eclipses during four years over the location of the Cretan Labyrinth illuminates the meanings behind the Labyrinth’s symbolism. The three solar eclipses (two of which achieved totality or near totality) over this region of the Mediterranean could have been integrated with lunar eclipses that occurred 9 years before and 9 years after each solar eclipse.

There were six lunar eclipses in this category, though not all would have been visible from this region. From those that were visible, due to the much greater visibility of lunar eclipses over large areas of the earth, a 9 year cycle connecting lunar and solar eclipses would have become evident. Other cycles, such as the Metonic cycle, were focused on resolving the discrepancy between the cycles of the sun and the moon. The nature of 9 year cycle where there is a repeated cycle linking the eclipses of the moon and sun would have been seen as having an extraordinary significance. This is confirmed by the myths that relate that the 9 year cycle was the law of the gods.

Plato states that the Cretans received their laws directly from the gods, in their case Zeus or his equivalent. The laws had a sacred nature being inspired by the gods and this inspiration was determined by a 9 year cycle.

“(Athenian) To whom do you ascribe the authorship of your legal arrangements, Strangers? To a god or to some man?

(Clinias) To a god, Stranger, and most rightfully to a god. We Cretans call Zeus our lawgiver…

(Athenian) Do you then, like Homer, say that Minos used to go every ninth year to hold converse with his father Zeus, and that he was guided by his divine oracles in laying down laws for your cities?”⁶

Here Plato references Homer, reinforcing the concept of a 9 year cycle of divinely inspired laws. Homer states that every 9 years the legendary Minos, founder of the labyrinth, consulted with Zeus himself.

“(Odysseus) There is a fair and fruitful island in mid-ocean called Crete, it is thickly peopled and there are nine cities in it… There is a great town there, Knossos, where Minos reigned who every nine years had a conference with Zeus himself.”⁷

“Daedalus in countless corridors built bafflement, and hardly could himself make his way out, so puzzling was the maze. Within this labyrinth Minos shut fast the beast, half bull, half man, and fed him twice on Attic blood, lot-chosen each nine years, until the third choice mastered him. The door, so difficult, which none of those before could find again, by Ariadne’s aid was found, the thread that traced the way rewound.”⁸

Priests observing the movement of the planets, or wandering stars, would have noticed that they pass in an ecliptic arc through the space between the Hyades and Pleiades clusters. The continual passage of stars through the cosmic gateway or heavenly portal could be linked to concepts of human resurrection. This region of the night sky is defined by the horns of the bull in the Taurus constellation. The distinctive nature of these horns formed of stars suggest that they inspired the most ancient religious cosmology.

The ecliptic line passes through the sacred bull’s horns that are formed of stars. This remarkable fusion of the ecliptic path and an evocative asterism of stellar horns potentially illuminates the Minoan ritual of bull-leaping. Depictions of this rite show the participants leaping through the horns of a bull. The so-called ‘Horns of Consecration’ when placed by the Minoans on high vantage points define an area of the night sky replicating the stellar horns that define the ecliptic gateway.

The myths of the Minotaur and the Labyrinth prove through their numerology that the Minoans were aware of the saros cycle, especially in its nine year half-saros or sar form. Knowledge of the saros cycle can therefore be attributed to one of the earliest European civilizations long before the current view of its discovery. An ability to predict eclipses appears to be a foundational element in religious belief in that it inspires the human instinct to probe the cosmos and its replicating cycles that were seen as the ultimate divine laws.

NASA data shows the three solar eclipses passing over or close to Crete. NASA computerized dates have to be adjusted by one year to conform with the historical calendar (and the year zero) so that -1857 becomes 1858 BC.

The data shows the nine year cycle of alternating solar and lunar eclipses. Using NASA data the documented nine year cycle is as follows:

Lunar eclipse 2 November 1849 BC (partial saros 16). Nine years later: solar eclipse of 27 October 1858 BC (annular saros 23). Nine years later: lunar eclipse 23 October 1867 BC (partial saros 16)

Lunar eclipse 20 May 1850 BC (total saros 1). Nine years later: solar eclipse 15 May 1859 BC (total saros 8). Nine years later: lunar eclipse 9 May 1868 BC (total saros 1)

Lunar eclipse 13 January 1852 BC (partial saros 14). Nine years later: solar eclipse 9 January 1861 (total saros 21). Nine years later: lunar eclipse 3 January 1870 BC (partial saros 14)

1. Ovid – Metamorphoses 8.130
2. Plutarch – Isis and Osiris 44
3. Apollodorus 3.1.4
4. Plutarch – Theseus 15
5. Diodorus Siculus – Diodorus of Sicily 2.47
6. Plato – Laws 1.624
7. Homer – Odyssey 19
8. Ovid – Metamorphoses 8.130