Swords N Shit

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An earlier depiction (c. 2020) of Apollo as a girl clad in a simple tunic and playing with other children. Figures are smiling and the image is brightly colored, indicating a celebratory outlook toward knowledge of the future.

don't present androgynously

use "binary" pronouns in any capacity

identify partially with a binary gender

have a "gendered" name

don't experience body dysmorphia

don't experience gender dysphoria

DO experience gender dysphoria/body dysmorphia but aren't sure what gender or body would suit them

just experience body/gender apathy instead

can't be open about their gender identity yet

you're all absolutely valid.

labyrinth: never give up! you can do it! just keep pushing!

In most languages the distinction between "labyrinth" and "maze" is so nonexistent that they don't even have separate words for them (e.g. in my native Spanish both words would be translated as "laberinto"), and historically speaking, the idea of a distinction between these two terms in English is EXTREMELY recent. For most of history the words "labyrinth" and "maze" in English have been treated as 100% interchangeable (and continue to be treated that way in most everyday contexts) because they're basically two words for the same thing, just with different etymological roots.

Photographer: Sarah Scott (All other photos Wikimedia Commons)

Here's a piece of the floor pattern in part of the Bronze Age palace of Knossos (c. 1700-1600BCE) on which the legend is based.

A few more fragments. As you see, this was a decorative repeating pattern that became the meander in classical decoration, later seen on Greek vases and Roman mosaics. (And yes, a version of it has been adapted by some assholes, but that's not the fault of the Minoans or any other world cultures that came up with variants of it.}

Interestingly, there's Minoan frescoes at Tell el'Daba, site of a former trading port on the Nile Delta in Egypt, dated perhaps a few centuries later (scholars are still arguing) — almost certainly from a quarter where Minoan merchants were living:

This one combines multiple motifs seen in different frescoes at Knossos, bull dancers and Minoan rosettes and another version of the labyrinth/meander— again, it's more decorative than a literal maze meant to trap people.

Sir Arthur Evans himself wrote of the complex floor plan of the palace: ''I see no reason for not thinking that the mysterious complication of passages is the Labyrinth." (From: Labyrinth: Knossos, Myth, and Reality, website for a recent exhibition at the Ashmoleon Museum.

Other scholars,picking up on his point, have argued that this building was indeed so complex and advanced — it had passive solar heated water tanks, indoor plumbing, light wells, and sliding panels to open and close antechambers, and it was multiple stories at a time when pre-Greeks were living in one-room huts — that visitors would've been overwhelmed....amazed, so to speak. And that's the source of the legend.

Maybe. We can't interview them to confirm.

What we do know is that there was a major systemic collapse between the Minoans and classical Greek period, even more drastic than that between the collapse of Roman dominance of Europe and the Renaissance. The Minoan writing was completely lost, as were most of its technologies and culture.

The stories that come down to are told by mainland Greeks over a thousand years later who were not themselves descendants of the Minoans, although at the height of their power, the Minoans may have conquered (or colonized?) the shores of southeast Greece. Knossos is on the island of Crete, 400km away from Athens across the Aegean Sea.

And despite the legend, we can't even be sure Athens was part of the Minoan empire. If I'm remembering correctly, Athens was just a small collection of huts during Knossos' heyday, not the major city-state it became in the classical period. Local tradition may have retconned its folk hero Theseus, its Superman, back to the time of the Minoans to explain their decline.

So the idea of the labyrinth-as-dungeon really only developed after the people who supposedly built it were long gone.

In the classical period, Greeks recolonized Knossos (whence the name), and here's their version of a drachma, the equivalent of Athens' owl-coin.

Romans loved the story too.

Here's Theseus and the Minotaur on a floor mosaic in Pompeii.

Here's one from a Roman villa in Austria.

And no, I haven't addressed the original question of whether the labyrinth has only one path, for the simple reason that it wasn't important to the story.

It's one of those nitpicky modern questions that could only exist after dictionaries were invented, for languages have accumulated such large vocabularies we look for ways to distinguish different words. It arises from a modern view of storytelling that demands consistency, continuity, and detail of a kind which wasn't important back then. For them, storytelling was more like fanart: interpretation and elaboration, including novel ways of tackling familiar material, were part of the fun.

I suspect that this "a labyrinth has one path" idea comes from some 20th century scholar who had a brainwave one day, looking at those Greek and Roman designs — hey, wait a minute, there's no branches! But that was a descriptive, not a prescriptive observation. We frequently run into trouble, both in scholarship and in everyday life, mistaking one for the other.

The observayion doesn't work for the original Minoan frescoes, because they were painted before the myth of the Minotaur arose, and serve a different purpose. They're not dungeon-mazes, they're decorations, so they don't work very well as maps. And again, Evans' observation about the Palace of Knossos being labyrinth-like is descriptive.

If you want to treat the myth literally, you might say the Greek and Roman style labyrinths are so complex that anyone navigating them to the center and back would likely get turned around without help, especially having to stop off and fight a monster in the dark.

Like, yes, a lot of Catholic clergy during the Middle Ages did practice magic in secret, but they weren't keeping it secret as some sort of sinister top-down conspiracy to deny magic to the Common People: they were mostly keeping it secret from their own superiors. It wasn't one of those "well, it's okay when we do it" deals: the Church very much did not want its local priests doing wizard shit. We have official records of local priests being disciplined for getting caught doing wizard shit. And the preponderance of evidence is that most of them would take their lumps, promise to stop doing wizard shit, then go right back to doing wizard shit.

I feel like nowadays people project that back ONTO the middle ages, but even back then they were like "there used to be magic and now it's gone"

"kids these days just aren't working hard like they used to"

"young women sure are dressing skimpier than when I was growing up"

These eyeglasses are also known by the name Astaneh-e ferdaws, meaning "Gate of Paradise," based on the symbolic associations between the color green and the concept of spiritual salvation or "paradise." Those associations, which are rooted in Islamic tradition, were especially common in Mughal India.

The lenses were crafted from two thin slices of the same emerald. Together, the lenses have a combined weight of about 27 carats, but given the precision, size, and shape of each lens, experts believe that the original emerald likely weighed in excess of 300 carats (more than sixty grams) before it was cleaved down in order to produce the lenses.

The emerald was found at a mine in Muzo, Colombia, and it was then transported across the Atlantic by Spanish or Portuguese merchants.

Each lens is encircled by rose-cut diamonds, which run along an ornate frame made of gold and silver. This diamond-studded frame was installed during the late 1800s, when modern stylistic elements were incorporated into the original pince-nez design.

The "Gate of Paradise" spectacles are often accompanied by a second pair of eyeglasses that were created during the same period, and they were almost certainly commissioned by the same person; these other spectacles are known by the name Halqeh-e nur, meaning "Halo of Light," and they feature lenses that were cleaved from a single diamond.

It's estimated that the original, uncut diamond weighed about 200-300 carats, which would make it one of the largest uncut diamonds ever discovered.

The lenses are so clear and so flat that they sometimes seem almost invisible.

Both sets of spectacles date back to the mid-1600s, and it's believed that they were commissioned by a Mughal emperor or prince. The identity of that person is still a bit of a mystery, but it has been widely speculated that the patron was Shah Jahan -- the Mughal ruler who famously commissioned the Taj Mahal after the death of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. Shah Jahan ruled as the Mughal emperor from about 1628 to 1658.

The emerald and diamond lenses may have been chosen for symbolic, sentimental, or cultural reasons, or they may have been chosen simply because they're pretty and extravagant; the original purpose and significance is still unclear, but there is evidence to suggest that they were actually designed to be worn by someone.

It has often been said that these spectacles possess mystical properties, including the ability to promote healing, to ward off evil, to impart wisdom, and/or to bring the wearer closer to enlightenment. Those beliefs mostly stem from Indic and Islamic traditions that ascribe spiritual qualities to both emeralds and diamonds. Emeralds are often associated with spiritual salvation, healing, cleansing, and eternal life, while diamonds are associated with enlightenment, wisdom, celestial light, and mysticism.

The "Gate of Paradise" and the "Halo of Light" spectacles were both kept in the collections of a wealthy Indian family until 1980, when they were sold to private collectors, and they were then put up for auction once again in 2021. They were most recently valued at about $2 million to $3.4 million per pair.

Sources & More Info:

Sotheby's: Mughal Spectacles

Architectural Digest of India: At Sotheby's auction, Mughal-era eyeglasses made of diamond and emerald create a stir

Only Natural Diamonds: Auspicious Sight & the Halqeh-e Nur Spectacles

The Royal Society Publishing: Cleaving the Halqeh-Ye Nur Diamonds

Gemological Institution of America: Two Antique Mughal Spectacles with Gemstone Lenses

Manuscript: From Satan's Crown to the Holy Grail: emeralds in myth, magic, and history

CNN: The $3.5 million Spectacles Said to Ward off Evil

Uhhhhhhhh that seems bad