When King Minos of Crete took the throne, he prayed to Poseidon for a sign of his right to rule. The god answered by sending a handsome white bull from the sea. Minos was a wise ruler, famous for his justice, but he offended Poseidon by refusing to sacrifice the white bull; he was so entranced by its beauty that he could not bear to part with it. As a punishment for his defiance, Poseidon made his wife, Pasiphae, fall in love with the bull. After satisfying her depraved lust, Pasiphae gave birth to the Minotaur - a terrible creature, half man, half bull.

The horrified Minos asked Daedalus, the inventor, to build a prison where the beast could be hidden away from the eyes of his subjects. Thus the labyrinth was conceived: a tangled network of underground passages from which the Minotaur would never escape.

In July 2009, a group from the University of Oxford went to Crete to investigate this famous myth. Led by Nicholas Howarth, a DPhil student in Geography, the group brought together students from diverse disciplines: Archaeology, Geology, Classics, and even Philosophy. Our journey led us to Messara, where we teamed up with members of the Greek Speleological Association to explore the 'Labyrinth Cave'. This complex cave system, with miles of narrow limestone passages, was once famous as the 'labyrinth of Minos'. In modern times, however, it has faded into obscurity, visited only by a few enthusiasts.

This website has two purposes: to bring its story to a wider audience, and to share our own story of what we found in Crete.