In Greek mythology, the creature with the head of a bull and the body of a man was the Minotaur. Classical Greek art and later retellings usually show this human-bodied, bull-headed monster at the center of the Cretan Labyrinth.
The Minotaur was born to Pasiphaë, queen of Crete, after she was united with a divine bull. Its personal name was Asterion or Asterius, meaning “starry,” while “Minotaur” means “Bull of Minos.” King Minos ordered the architect Daedalus to build the Labyrinth near Knossos, where the creature was confined.
Athens was required to send young people to Crete as tribute, and the hero Theseus eventually entered the Labyrinth and killed the Minotaur with Ariadne’s help. The creature is often confused with a centaur, which combines a human upper body with a horse’s body, or a satyr, traditionally a human-animal woodland being. Some later artwork reverses the Minotaur’s halves, but the standard classical form has the bull’s head and the man’s body.