This guy is tough and he decides to fight back and try to kill the Minotaur.King Minos' daughter, Ariadne, falls madly in love with Theseus. The Minotaur demands human sacrifices, and every nine years, King Minos sends seven young men and women into the Labyrinth to meet their doom.One of these victims sent to his death is the hero Theseus. Heard of him?Next up, King Minos (the half-beast's step-dad) asks Daedalus to design a maze (the Labyrinth) in which to put the terrible Minotaur. Yes, we said bull.Pasiphae's union with the bull results in a horrible half-man, half-beast called the Minotaur. First, he builds a cow suit so that Crete's queen (Pasiphae) can get it on with a bull. (It pays to have friends in high places.)Daedalus still has the touch in Crete and he continues his building streak. Well those are very different endings.Either because he was feeling guilty or because he was banished, Daedalus leaves Athens and heads to the island of Crete.While he's hanging out there, Daedalus befriends King Minos, the island's ruler. But others argue that Talos died and that Daedalus tried to hide the murder by burying him. That'll teach him not to invent any more carpentry tools.Some people say that Athena saw the boy falling, and transformed him into a partridge. In a fit of jealousy, Daedalus throws Talos off the Acropolis, a tall monument in Athens. When his nephew (Talus) invents the saw, Daedalus realizes that the boy might be more talented than he is. Think Leonardo da Vinci, but with more powers.Unfortunately, he also has a jealous streak. He flies on to Sicily, where he mourns Icarus and builds a temple in honor of the god Apollo.The Less Short StoryDaedalus is an Athenian craftsman, famous for his ability to invent and build things. Daedalus is (of course) devastated by his son's death, but the show must go on. Sure enough, his wings melt, and Icarus plummets into the sea and drowns. He's having so much fun flying that he forgets the warning and flies too close to the sun. (Not good either way.)Icarus heeds his father's advice for a bit, but then he gets cocky. Daddy Daedalus warns his son to fly at a middle height: the seawater will dampen the wings and the sun will melt them. Desperate to flee the island, Daedalus uses wax to build some wings for himself and his son Icarus. Unfortunately, he angers King Minos, the ruler of the island Crete, and he has to hightail it out of there. This scene is a popular subject in art, making an appearance in Jacob Matham’s Landscape with Shepherds Watching the Flight of Icarus and Daedalus, which is another work in UMMA’s collection.How It (Supposedly) Went DownThe Short StoryDaedalus is a brilliant inventor-the Thomas Edison of his day. Ginnever’s “Daedalus” mimics the shape of the wings. However, Icarus got swept up in the wonder of flight and drifted too close to the sun, causing the wax to melt and resulting in his death. He created massive wings out of candle wax and feathers and set out, flying across the Mediterranean Sea. In his Metamorphoses, Ovid tells us that Daedalus was tired of living under the direction of King Minos and hatched a plan to escape his prison with his son, Icarus. This particular sculpture, however, alludes to a later part of the story of Daedalus described by the ancient writer Ovid. He navigated the labyrinth with the help of King Minos’s daughter, Ariadne, who gave him a ball of string so he could keep track of where he came from. You may have heard about the labyrinth specifically in the context of the great Greek hero Theseus, who was sent by his father to slay the Minotaur. According to the myths, King Minos of Crete forced him to create the labyrinth to hide the Minotaur - the horrible half-man, half-beast product of his wife’s infidelity. It now stands on the South University side of UMMA, which, if you’re a student or Ann Arbor resident, you may have walked past on your way to the Michigan Union or South Quad.ĭaedalus was a brilliant inventor in Greek mythology best known for his creation of the labyrinth on the island of Crete. The sculpture pictured above is Charles Ginnever’s Daedalus, a Cor-Ten steel structure from 1975.
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