Karl Kerenyi ( and Robert Graves ) theorizes that Ariadne ( whose name they derive from Hesychius ' listing of Άδνον, a Cretan-Greek form for arihagne, " utterly pure ") was a Great Goddess of Crete, " the first divine personage of Greek mythology to be immediately recognized in Crete ", once archaeology had begun.

Kerenyi observes that her name is merely an epithet and claims that she was originally the " Mistress of the Labyrinth ", both a winding dance-ground and in the Greek view a prison with the dreaded Minotaur at its centre.

On the one hand, the name " meander " recalls the twisting and turning path of the Maeander River in Asia Minor, and on the other hand, as Karl Kerenyi pointed out, " the meander is the figure of a labyrinth in linear form ".

Gods who ride such animals, notably Shiva and Dionysos, or who have canine servants, notably Orion and Osiris ( with Anubis his gatekeeper and embalmer ), were also regarded by Kerenyi as partly derived from Iachen, the sublimator, or an even older myth.

Mythographer Karl Kerenyi suggested that the consonance might ultimately derive from a deeper, pre-Indo-European language layer: indeed the sign combination ro-ja, which is someone with great power, is attested in Linear A.

" Kerenyi links the figure of Zagreus with archaic Dionysiac rites in which small animals were torn limb from limb and their flesh devoured raw, " not as an emanation of the Greek Dionysian religion, but rather as a migration or survival of a prehistoric rite.

Kerenyi ( 1951 p 174 ) notes from scholia that Aeschylus in Rhesus distinguished between two Pans, one the son of Zeus and twin of Arcas, and one a son of Cronus.

" Not all poets took Iphigenia and Iphianassa to be two names for the same heroine ," Kerenyi remarks, " though it is certain that to begin with they served indifferently to address the same divine being, who had not belonged from all time to the family of Agamemnon.

Kerenyi notes a Linear B inscription from Knossos, " to all the gods, honey ... to the mistress of the labyrinth honey " in equal amounts, suggesting to him that the Mistress of the Labyrinth was a Great Goddess in her own right.

Karl Kerenyi, in quoting this passage, remarks, " At the core of this richly elaborated myth, in which the poet even recalls the rhyta, it is not easy to separate the Cretan elements from those originating in Asia Minor.

The Old Men have been seen as everything from survivals of old Aegean gods who presided over the waves before Poseidon ( Kerenyi ) to embodiments of archaic speculation on the relation of truth to cunning intelligence ( Detienne ).

In Greek mythology, Epimetheus was the brother of Prometheus (" foresight ", literally " fore-thinker "), a pair of Titans who " acted as representatives of mankind " ( Kerenyi 1951, p 207 ).

* One of the impieties of Tantalus, according to Pindar, was that he offered to his guests the ambrosia of the Deathless Ones, a theft akin to that of Prometheus, Karl Kerenyi noted ( in Heroes of the Greeks ).

" We may justifiably ask ," observes Kerenyi, " Why was this great mythical hunter, who in Greece became a mysterious god of the underworld, a capturer of wild animals and not a killer?

The three sisters were Agave, Autonoë and Ino, who was a surrogate for the divine nurses of Dionysus: " Ino was a primordial Dionysian woman, nurse to the god and a divine maenad " ( Kerenyi 1976: 246 ).

Diodorus Siculus felt that Apollo must have repented this " excessive " deed, and said that he had laid aside his lyre for a while, but Karl Kerenyi observes of the flaying of Marsyas ' " shaggy hide: a penalty which will not seem especially cruel if one assumes that Marsyas ' animal guise was merely a masquerade.

" On Samothrace ... the mother was called Elektra or Elektryone ", Karl Kerenyi notes.

" In this form the story was certainly not ancient ," Karl Kerenyi noted.

Karl Kerenyi points out that the older tales mentioned two dragons, who were perhaps intentionally conflated ; the other was a female dragon ( drakaina ) named Delphyne in the Homeric Hymn to Apollo, with whom dwelt a male serpent named Typhon: " The narrators seem to have confused the dragon of Delphi, Python, with Typhon or Typhoeus, the adversary of Zeus ".

According to Karl Kerenyi and other scholars, the second Asterion, the star at the center of the labyrinth on Cretan coins, was in fact the Minotaur, as the compiler of Bibliotheca ( III. 1. 4 ) asserts: Pasiphaë gave birth to Asterius, who was called the Minotaur.

Heracles placed it under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius ( Kerenyi 1959: 144 ), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete.

Iachen was known in Minoan Crete as I-wa-ko, who became the Greek torch bearing son of Persephone-Iakchos, who was also associated with Sirius, as ‘ the light bearing star of the nocturnal mysteries ’ according to Kerenyi.

Silver staining was introduced by Kerenyi and Gallyas as a sensitive procedure to detect trace amounts of proteins in gels.

Karl Kerenyi, also involved in Greek mythology, was an associate of Carl Jung, who adopted mythological material in his psychological theories.

Hercules placed it under a great rock on the sacred way between Lerna and Elaius ( Kerenyi 1959: 144 ), and dipped his arrows in the Hydra's poisonous blood, and so his second task was complete.

Silver staining was introduced by Kerenyi and Gallyas as a sensitive procedure to detect trace amounts of proteins in gels.

Among those who responded were some of the Argonauts, Oeneus ' own son Meleager, and, remarkably for the Hunt's eventual success, one woman — the huntress Atalanta, the " indomitable ", who had been suckled by Artemis as a she-bear and raised as a huntress, a proxy for Artemis herself ( Kerenyi ; Ruck and Staples ).

* Kerenyi, Carl, The Gods of the Greeks 1951 ( paperback 1980 )

* Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks

* Karl Kerenyi, The Heroes of the Greeks ( 1959 )

* Kerenyi, Karl, 1951 The Gods of the Greeks pp 75 – 76.

* Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks ( New York / London: Thames and Hudson ) 1959, pp 331 – 36 et passim

* Kerenyi, Karl, The Gods of the Greeks, Thames and Hudson, London, 1951.

* Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks 1951

* Kerenyi, Karl The Gods of the Greeks.

* Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks ( 1951 )

Karl Kerenyi points out ( The Heroes of the Greeks ) " It is not easy to differentiate between the divine beast, the heroine and the goddess ".

* Kerenyi, Karl, The Heroes of the Greeks 1959.

* Kerenyi, Karl ( 1959 ) The Heroes of the Greeks.

* Karl Kerenyi, The Gods of the Greeks, 5 :" The Old Ones of the Sea "

In Greek a hunter who catches living animals is called zagreus, Karl Kerenyi notes, and the Ionian word zagre signifies a " pit for the capture of live animals "

Karyai had a famous temple dedicated to the goddess Artemis in her aspect of Artemis Karyatis: " As Karyatis she rejoiced in the dances of the nut-tree village of Karyai, those Karyatides, who in their ecstatic round-dance carried on their heads baskets of live reeds, as if they were dancing plants " ( Kerenyi 1980 p 149 ).