This project is co – funded by European Union. T

ESPERINO GENIKO LYKEIO LAMIAS

When the King of Knossos in Crete, Minoas decided to build a palace so unique that nobody could find one’s way out without knowing all its secrets, he invited the best known engineer of that time, Daedalus to design and build it. Daedalus did build a palace with so many corridors, the Labyrinth. King Minoas, however, imprisoned Daedalus as he considered him responsible for enabling his wife Pasifai to unite with a bull that Poseidon had given as a present to Minoas and to give birth to the legendary Minotaur, half man half bull. A different legend, however, tell us that Daedalus was imprisoned because he assisted the young princess and daughter of Minoas, Ariadne in leading Theseas into the Labyrinth to kill the Minotaur.

So Daedalus being a very inventive engineer and expressing the first attempt known in human history to fly, created two pairs of wings from feathers and wax, one for himself and one for his young son and apprentice Ikarus. They put on the wings and Daedalus warned Ikarus not to fly too high as there was danger that the wings would be destroyed. But Ikarus was young and like all the young did not follow his father’s advice. Thrilled with joy of flying he wanted to reach the sun and flew up and up, higher and higher towards the sun. The wax which was keeping the feathers together melted and the wings broke and young Ikarus fell into the sea near a long island and was drowned. The island took his name and has been known as Ikaria and the sea around it as the Ikarian Sea. Daedalus, however, managed to reach Sicily.