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Attic red-figure cup depicting Theseus and the Minotaur. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford

Theseus and the Minotaur

Year circa 500 BC (Archaic Period)
Dimensions Height 8.1 cm; rim diameter 20 cm; foot diameter 8 cm; width 26.7 cm; rim thickness 0.3 cm.
Materials Pottery, with painted decoration.
Accession AN1896-1908.G.261

On this red-figure cup we see Theseus lunge at the Minotaur, grabbing him by the horn with his left hand and attempting to stab him with the sword held in his right hand.

In Greek myth, Theseus was the semi-divine hero who killed the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man confined in a Labyrinth on the island of Crete. The Labyrinth was an ingenious maze commissioned by King Minos. Following his defeat, Theseus returned to Greece, and became king and the founder of Athens.

The cup has been reassembled from a group of separate fragments with added plaster, and so parts of the decoration are modern.

Another vase in the Greece Gallery shows an earlier version of the same scene.

Attic black-figure amphora depicting Theseus and the Minotaur, c.550 BCE. AN1918.64 . © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Attic black-figure amphora depicting Theseus and the Minotaur, c.550 BCE. AN1918.64 . © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Attic red-figure cup depicting Theseus and the Minotaur. © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford
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