I transfer pictures from several visits to these mosaics to sub-galleries in the Zeugma gallery to put some order in them. This is one such gallery. You will see my technique and equipment (and opinion on what looks best) changes over the years, as do the displays.

In 2023 I finally grasped the meaning of the cow's head to the left. This is not the period of the fall from heaven, but earlier. Pasiphae - Sister of the beautiful and wicked Enchanteress Circe (who once had changed Odysseus comrades into hogs) - had been given as spouse to King of Crete Minos. For some obscure reason - either her or Minos had pissed him off - Poseidon cursed the Queen to fall in lust with a White Bull belonging to the King. The Queen (waiting for the work to be finished on her throne) hired the King's Engineer in Chief Daedalus to assist in her endeavour to be coupled to the Bull. With the help of his son and apprentice Icarus, Daedalos built a hollow wooden cow, wrapped in a bovine skin and endowed with mechanical life. Hiding inside this contraption the Queen was able to copulate with the Bull. From their unusual union she conceived and bore the hybrid bull-headed child Asterion, also called Minotauros by the Greeks.

From the Enc. Britt. about Daedalus: (Greek: “Skillfully Wrought”), mythical Greek architect and sculptor, who was said to have built, among other things, the paradigmatic Labyrinth for King Minos of Crete. Daedalus fell out of favour with Minos and was imprisoned; he fashioned wings of wax and feathers for himself and for his son Icarus and escaped to Sicily. Icarus, however, flew too near the Sun, and his wings melted; he fell into the sea and drowned. The island on which his body was washed ashore was later named Icaria.