I'm watching a TV show that is not known for its historical accuracy. After "Athens, 3000 BC" flashes up we see some guys in ragged tunics underground, fleeing from what appears to be a minotaur. Present day, the characters discuss the well-known myth of the roll of golden thread (the what?) and the less well-known myth (yes, they got that part right!) of the "key to the labyrinth."
But it is when they bring out a medallion and confidently identify it as being made of a white marble only found on Crete that I couldn't take any more. Labyrinth in neolithic Athens, no problem. But the only distinctly Cretan marble I've been able to turn up in my own research is a silvery grey. If you are looking for a famous white marble, you want Paros, in the Cyclades. Well, at least the minotaur carving looked vaguely appropriate to neolithic cycladic art.
Yeah, for someone who is in the middle of plotting a book that is actually designed to be under-researched, I sure do get hung up on details that don't matter.
(Speaking of: my core reading list for THIS project is Emily Wilson's translation of The Odyssey, The Medici Conspiracy (about antiquities trafficking), and -- as soon as I can stomach the $17 price tag -- Donna Zuckerberg's Not All Dead White Men.)
Later on they claim Daedalus was scared of water and so wouldn't have gone to Crete. So at least they remembered something of the traditional myths. No explanation as to how Minos ended up in the wrong town, or why Daedalus could apparently write decent modern Greek (3,000 BC being a wee bit early for the Phoenician alphabet to take hold, much less the miniscule!) Or why the show just can not say the word "labyrinth." It is always referred to as a maze.
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