Ariadne's Tribe: Minoan Spirituality for the Modern World
Walk the sacred labyrinth with Ariadne, the Minotaur, the Great Mothers, Dionysus, and the rest of the Minoan family of deities. Ariadne's Tribe is an independent spiritual tradition that brings the deities of the ancient Minoans alive in the modern world. We're a revivalist tradition, not a reconstructionist one. We rely heavily on shared gnosis and the practical realities of Paganism in the modern world. Ariadne's thread reaches across the millennia to connect us with the divine. Will you follow where it leads?
Find out all about Ariadne's Tribe at ariadnestribe.com. We're an inclusive, welcoming tradition, open to all who share our love for the Minoan deities and respect for our fellow human beings.
Meet the Minoans: Daedalus, Talos, and their micropantheon
I've written about Daedalus before, describing his connection with the Minoan demi-deities the Daktyls and Hekaterides. But as with so many of the members of the Minoan family of deities, he has more than one set of connections.
These clusters of connected deities are called micropantheons and are a great way to focus on one particular portion of the mythos, since a whole pantheon can be pretty intimidating. Besides, most of us have our favorites that we prefer to spend most of our time with. Micropantheons were so popular that they continued to be how most people approached religion in the eastern Mediterranean all the way into the classical era (and even later, really, with the local cults of certain Christian saints).
But back to the ancient world.
In the case of Daedalus, he's our smith-inventor god, the deity version of the old guy who spends his days tinkering in his garage, creating nifty, helpful gadgets. These days, this kind of activity might include electronics. But back in the Minoans' time, "high tech" meant bronze, the first metal people smelted that was hard enough to hold a sharp edge and be used for durable tools and (sadly) weapons. The image up top is a collection of Minoan bronze artifacts found in the sacred cave on Mt. Dikte, Crete.
This connection with bronze brings me to Talos, the so-called Man of Bronze from ancient Crete. The classical-era sources that tell what remained of his story by that time describe him as some kind of mechanical, robot-like being, perhaps run by a hydraulic system (he's described as having a single "blood vessel" that extended the length of his body). He is very much the embodiment of Bronze Age technology.
But his other connections are more tantalizing: He's also called the god of the Sun, and his name supposedly means "Sun" in the "Cretan dialect." Whether this refers to the version of Greek spoken on Crete, or to the pre-Greek language the Minoans spoke, I don't know.
This connection with the Sun, along with his name, showed us where he belongs in the Minoan pantheon. First, I need to explain that the name Daedalus is the Latinized version of the Greek name Daidalos (Δαίδαλος). I also need to explain that the letters D and T are linguistically very closely related and are sometimes interchangeable.
In other words, the end of Daidalos's name is effectively the same as Talos.
We consider them to be two aspects of the same deity, which makes sense, given both of their connections with bronze and metalsmithing. But there's a third deity in this cluster as well, one we were pointed to both by the linguistics and the reference to the Sun: Korydallos.
Note that he, too, has the talos/dalos bit in his name. And he's the Son of the Sun Goddess.
The Minoans were pretty technologically advanced for their era. I like to think Korydallos-Daedalus-Talos was a big part of that. These days, we find this deity triplicity to be a helpful guide in any kind of gadgety pursuit, from restoring a treadle sewing machine (thank you Daedalus!) to building computers (electricity belongs to Korydallos's mother, the Sun Goddess Therasia, and hence is within his domain).
The world changes, and the deities come along with us for the ride. I'm so very glad they do.
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