MS: Daedalus, the archetype of architect and artist, engineered automata, human machines, built a dancing ground for Ariadne, daughter of King Minos of Knossos, and famously designed the Labyrinth in which to imprison the Minotaur, the King’s monstrous son. Minos, in his arrogance, had refused to make sacrifice of a white bull given to him by Poseidon. In revenge the god had Pasiphaë, wife of Minos, lust after the bull, and the Minotaur, half human, half bull, was the result of their union. Daedalus was shut in a tower to prevent him spreading knowledge of how to navigate the Labyrinth, but Ariadne instead helped Theseus of Athens murder the beast by providing him with a thread that enabled him to find his way back to the entrance. Meanwhile Daedalus escaped Knossos by fashioning wings for himself and his son Icarus, who died in the process because he headed not for the horizon but flew up towards sun, which melted the wax retaining the feathers in his wings, and he fell into the sea.

A mythography of architecture, technology, monstrosity, arrogance, and the failure of family ties.