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DAEDALUS

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Originally appearing in Volume V07, Page 728 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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DAEDALUS , a mythical See also:

Greek architect and sculptor, who figures largely in the See also:early legends of See also:Crete and of See also:Athens. He was said to have built the See also:labyrinth for See also:Minos, to have made a wooden cow for Pasiphae and to have fashioned a See also:bronze See also:man who repelled the See also:Argonauts. Falling under the displeasure of Minos, he fashioned wings for himself and his son Icarus, and escaped to See also:Sicily. These legends seem primarily to belong to Crete; and the Athenian See also:element in them which connected Daedalus with the royal See also:house of See also:Erechtheus is a later fabrication. To Daedalus the Greeks of the historic See also:age were in the See also:habit of attributing buildings, and statues the origin of which was lost in the past, and which had no inscription belonging to them. In a later See also:verse in the Iliad (date, 7th or 6th See also:century), Daedalus is mentioned as the maker of a dancing-See also:place for See also:Ariadne in Crete; and such a dancing-place has been discovered by A. J. See also:Evans, in the Minoan See also:palace of See also:Cnossus. Diodorus Siculus says that he executed various See also:works in Sicily for See also:King Cocalus. In many cities of See also:Greece there were See also:rude wooden statues,said to be by him. Later critics, judging from their own notions of the natural course of development in See also:art, ascribed to Daedalus such improvements as separating the legs of statues and opening their eyes. In fact the name Daedalus is a See also:mere See also:symbol, See also:standing for a particular phase of early Greek art, when See also:wood was the See also:chief material, and other substances were let into it for variety.

This Daedalus must not be confused with Daedalus of See also:

Sicyon, a See also:great sculptor of the early See also:part of the 4th century si.C., none of whose works is extant. (P.

End of Article: DAEDALUS

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