78 Chapter 4
the king of Crete is pursuing his escaped captive, looking for Daedalus in
all the major cities across the Mediterranean.
The earliest references to the escape from Crete by human- powered
flight are not written but artistic. The oldest image, discovered in 1988, is
fascinating for two reasons. It is Etruscan, not Greek, evidence that the
Daedalus flight legend had already reached Italy by word of mouth by
the seventh century BC, long before the myth was first written down. On
an Etruscan bucchero jug made in about 630 BC a winged man is labeled
Fig. 4.6. Icarus flying over fisherman in boat; King Minos in the city of Knossos. Roman lamp,
first century AD, inv. 1856,1226.470. © The Trustees of the British Museum.