Editing Cretan Bull (section)

==Origin==
According to Jeremy McInerney, the iconography of the bull permeates [[Minoan civilization|Minoan culture]].<ref name=penn>{{Cite web |url=http://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/53-3/mcinerney.pdf |title=McInerney, Jeremy. "Bulls and Bull-leaping in the Minoan World", Penn Museum |access-date=2016-02-04 |archive-date=2023-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230621133120/https://www.penn.museum/documents/publications/expedition/pdfs/53-3/mcinerney.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>  The cult of the bull was also prominent in southwestern Anatolia. Bernard Clive Dietrich notes that the most important animal in the Neolithic shrines at [[Çatalhöyük]] was the bull. The bull was a [[chthonic]] animal associated with fertility and vegetation. It figured in cave cults connected with rites for the dead.<ref name=Dietrich>[https://books.google.com/books?id=eQO7haySEe8C&dq=cretan+bull&pg=PA101 Dietrich, Bernard Clive. "Some Older Traditions in Minoan Crete", ''The Origins of Greek Religion'', Walter de Gruyter, 1974] {{ISBN|9783110039825}}</ref>

The palace at Knossos displays a number of murals depicting young men and women vaulting over a bull. While scholars are divided as to whether or not this reflects an actual practice, Barry B. Powell suggests it may have contributed to the story of the young Athenians sent to the Minotaur.<ref name=Powell>[https://books.google.com/books?id=lNV6-HsUppsC&dq=cretan+bull&pg=RA1-PA329 Powell, Barry B., "Cretan Mythology", ''The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Greece and Rome'', Vol. 7, Oxford University Press, 2009] {{ISBN|9780195170726}}</ref> McInerney observes that the story of Pasiphaë and the Cretan Bull was not written until after Crete had come under Greek control. [[Emma Stafford]] notes that the story of the Cretan Bull does not appear before the Hellenistic period and suggests the connection between Crete and Athens is the result of the development of the myth of the Theseus cycle in late sixth century Athens.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=3JDj7MRQAn4C&dq=cretan+bull&pg=PA39 Stafford, Emma. "The Cretan bull", ''Herakles'', Routledge, 2013] {{ISBN|9781136519277}}</ref>