Occasionally I book up for something simply because it looks interesting and it is easy to get to – probably the only two criteria for me for a visit. So it was that I found myself in Oxford, close and cheap to visit from Reading by train, to visit the “Labyrinth: Knossos Myth & Reality” exhibition at the Ashmolean.
The headline teaser for the exhibition was as follows and I went pretty much solely on this and the recommendation of Stephen Fry who was quoted on the website saying how wonderful it was.
According to legend, an elaborate labyrinth was built at Knossos on the island of Crete to hold a ferocious Minotaur. Discover the palace of Knossos, and the search for the labyrinth, in this major exhibition in Oxford.
If you are sensing a but coming you would be right. Almost the moment that I stepped into the exhibition space I knew that I was out of my depth and my lack of a classical education had been exposed. While the exhibits were interesting and engaging there seemed to be an implicit understanding that you intimately knew the story on which this was based. I did not and this meant that I felt I wasn’t able to get the most from it. If anything all it served to do was suggest that I really ought to buy (and read) Stephen Fry’s Greek Myths series.
It wasn’t just the exhibition subject that left me at a loss but also some of what was written on the explanation cards next to objects – what was this CE and BCE that they referred to? I should have been able to guess of course but a quick search revealed that it was the secular form of BC/AD which made perfect sense but it was the first time that I had encountered it.
I came away feeling not quite that I was stupid but maybe that my education had been somewhat remiss. Although, in my and the education system’s defence, CE/BCE weren’t introduced into schools until c. 2018 CE and maybe my school concentrated on English rather than the classics but my hopeless spelling suggests not!