Intro --- Pre-maze --- Cretan --- Roman --- Chartres --- Turf --- Garden --- Other --- Design --- Designer
Dames of ancient days have led their children through the mirthful maze. The Traveller by Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)
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| Scratched on the back of clay accounting tablet at Pylos, Greece approx 1200BC |
Etruscan vase from Tragliatella, Italy approx 600 BC |
Cretan maze at Holmengraa, Northern Norway 1000-1600 AD |
Basket maze of the Tohono O'odham, from Arizona 1900-now |
  Coins from Crete 300BC-100BC |
The usual modern name for this design is Classical, but it predates Classical Greece and Rome. I prefer the name Cretan. The design occurs on Cretan coins. Crete was the location of the Labyrinth, the maze where the Minotaur lived. This was during the time of the Minoan rule in Crete. These coins actually date from after the time the Greeks conquered Crete (about 1250BC), so they are not Minoan, but they are still Cretan. Mazes of this type throughout Europe show the Minotaur in the centre (see myths), so it was obviously thought to be the original Cretan labyrinth. However, it couldn't be! This maze is unicursal, and you can't get lost in it. |
The three main ancient areas of this maze design seems to be the Mediterranean, Scandinavia (where there are many pebble mazes large enough to walk through) and the pre-European inhabitants of Arizona and Mexico (the baskets may be quite recent, but the design dates back centuries). There are accounts of the design in India, but it may have travelled there. There are English turf mazes of this design, but they are hard to date, and may be late copies of the design. It is certainly possible that the Scandinavian mazes may have come originally from the Mediterranean, perhaps via the Vikings, but it seems strange that there are no old mazes like this in Germany or France. The Arizona mazes seem to be independent. This is not impossible (see below).
Looking at these examples, you may notice that most of them, especially the oldest, are designs to look at rather than large mazes that you walk through. This may explain why it was mistakenly assumed to be the original Labyrinth. Once you walk through a unicursal maze, it's obvious that there are no branches, but the eye is easily fooled. This maze design is not particularly interesting to walk. There are long parts of the walk where you walk round the top, turn round, and walk all the way back.
Another point is that this maze is always drawn as the walls of the maze. This is explained by understanding how it is drawn.
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| 1. Draw a cross and four dots. | 2. Draw a line from the top of the cross, round the top-right dot, to the top-left dot. | 3. Draw a line from the top-right dot, between the lines, round the top-left dot, and then back round the top to the right of the cross. | 4. Draw a line from the left of the cross, round what you have drawn so far, round the bottom-right dot, then back round the other way to the bottom-right dot. | 5. Draw a line from the bottom-right dot, between the lines until you've gone round the bottom-left dot, and then back round the top until you reach the bottom of the cross. |
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This is a moving version to illustrate what I mean. You can see the initial cross and where the dots were in the oldest versions of the maze, so this is how they must have done it, and the logic of it may explain how it arose in different places. I feel that this method must have delighted people throughout history! |
Throughout this website, I have drawn the path diagrams in red and the walls in blue. so the first diagram is in red. It is easy to get confused with all those lines, especially at the top. |
This is redrawn in colours. You start on red, which turns to orange, then yellow, and so on through the rainbow. You work through the maze in a series of nested loops, from the outside towards the centre. |
This looks odd, but what I have done is cut from the bottom of the maze to the middle, being careful not to cut through a path. Then I uncurled the maze so it made a rectangle.
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It has been suggested that the Greek key was how the Cretan maze was first designed, but this seems rather obscure to me. This design always has its walls drawn, and in the oldest versions you can always see the original cross and dots even if the rest of the design looks a little wonky, so I'm sure that was the origin. Why should anyone want to make a Greek Key pattern into a circle? Anyway, the Greek Key trick works best with the paths of the maze. You can play the same trick with the walls design, but you get a lop-sided pattern, which is different to the design as always shown (see right). I suspect that this connection with Greek keys is just a coincidence. Mazes are always based on spirals, as you travel round circles (or squares) to get to the centre, and Greek keys are simple square spirals. |
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There is another way of scaling up a Cretan maze. You can still have two levels, but wind the path round the points an extra time. The fist diagram shows the walls (in blue), and the second is the path travelled (in red). Since this is quite a complicated path, there is also a rainbow pattern which shows how you walk the path.
| This pattern crops up in several places, for example on a tile in in Toussaints Abbey, Chalons-sur-Marne in France repeated four times, with the maze rotated. On the right is a pebble maze without the central cross. |  |
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Strawberry Fair mazeThis maze is simpler than the conventional Cretan maze. I saw it at Strawberry Fair 2000 in Cambridge (UK), made with sawdust on grass. The maze looks a little like a tree. You don't walk through to the centre and then have to retrace your footsteps. There's a long way to the centre and a very short way out again (or vice versa). The blue lines are the walls and the red lines where you walk. |
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Crich mazeThis maze is similar to the Strawberry Fair maze, but simpler. Again, it has a long path in and a short path out (or vice versa). The blue lines are the walls and the red lines where you walk.It is in the Crich Tramway Village, home of the National Tramway Museum, in Derbyshire. Apparently the Crich labyrinth is based on a traditional German design with interlocking spirals, known as the Wunderkreis or 'Wonder Ring'. The walls are made with blocks of local limestone and there are two stained glass panels at the start representing the local rocks, and the vegetation of the Derwent valley. A tall spiral marks the end. There is a beautiful view over the Amber Valley. |
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Glastobury TorThis is Glastobury Tor from the air, courtesy of Google maps. It is a hill sticking up from a flat plain, so visible from all around. Some people consider that the ridges round the Tor are a Cretan maze, but that is just wishful thinking, I'm afraid. I think that one theory is that they are terraces used for farming, as the land round used to flood regularly. Never mind, it is an extraordinary place. |
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This does not pretend to be a complete list. This is a very popular design of maze!
There are also English turf mazes with a Cretan maze pattern.
There are stories about mazes in many different cultures. Sometimes these are attached to particular maze designs, but sometimes the designs get attached to the stories, like the Cretan design above. Since this is the oldest design and so wide-spread, I have put the myths on this page, although they are not all necessarily connected to it.
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The Minotaur was a monster, half man, half bull, who ate men. He was born to the wife of King Minos of Crete. Minos told Daedalus, the inventor, to build a house that was so complicated that the Minotaur would never escape from it, so Daedalus built the Labyrinth. King Minos had a vast empire, and as a tribute he had people sent to to feed to the Minotaur. They were driven into the Labyrinth, and wandered around, lost, until the Minotaur found them. Part of King Minos' empire was Athens, in Greece. The son of the king of Athens was Theseus, a hero. He was so angry that Athenian people were being killed in this way that he volunteered to go. In Crete, Ariadne, the daughter of King Minos, fell in love with Theseus, and told him how to find his way through the Labyrinth. She gave him a thread, with one end tied to the door of the Labyrinth. Theseus could unwind the thread as he tried to find the Minotaur. When he wish to return, he could follow the thread back again, rewinding it as he went. Ariadne also gave Theseus a sword. He went in, found the Minortaur and killed him. Then he returned, and fled from Crete with Ariadne and the rest of the Athenians. |
People connected this story with the Cretan maze. However the original Labyrinth, if it ever existed, was not a unicursal maze. Theseus needed a thread to help him retrieve his path after he had killed the Minotaur, so the Labyrinth must have been a branching maze. This myth was not only the original Labyrinth (the name of the Minotaur's prison), it also explains the derivation of the word clue. A clue helps you solve a mystery, and it is derived from the word for thread. Theseus needed the thread to solve the maze.
| There is some historical foundation for this myth, surprisingly enough. There was a Cretan empire in the Mediterranean which included mainland Greece. It is called Minoan, after King Minos. There is a magnificent palace at Knossos. The archaeologists couldn't find a Minotaur, but they did find the palace itself very confusing, with many rooms, some at different levels, so it was easy to get lost. Perhaps ancient Greeks visiting Knossos told those at home about their experience, and this gradually changed into the story of the Labyrinth. And the Minotaur? Well, the Minoans loved bulls, and there is a fresco on the wall of the palace, showing an extraordinary display of acrobats jumping over a bull. This must have been incredibly dangerous, and no doubt people did get killed by the bull. |  |
There are many other stories about ancient labyrinyths, but unfortunately no designs have survived, or if they have, they are either the Cretan design (and the stories always emphasise getting lost, so that's wrong) or more modern designs such as Chartres. Herodotus (born about 484BC) describes visiting a Labyrinth in Egypt, above Lake Moeris, and nearly opposite Crocodilopolis. "It has twelve covered courts, with opposite doors, six courts on the North side and six on the South, all communicating with one another and with one wall surrounding them all. There are two sorts of rooms, one sort above, the other sort below ground, fifteen hundred of each sort, or three thousand in all." As you can see, he is describing a very complicated building with inter-connected rooms, rather than a maze as we think of it today.
Pliny (died A.D. 79) mentions a labyrinth by Smilis of Aegina on the island of Lemnos, and says that it was renowned for the beauty of its 150 columns and that remains of it existed in his time. He also mentions one at Samos, said to have been built by Theodorus, and says that "all of these buildings are covered with arched roofs of polished stone." Pliny also quotes from Varro (116-27 B.C.) a detailed description of a very extraordinary tomb at Clusium (the modern Chiusi), said to be that of the great Etruscan general Lars Porsena. This is the only Etruscan tomb described by the ancient writers, and is mentioned by Pliny solely because it was alleged to contain a subterranean labyrinth. Pliny seems rather doubtful about the accuracy of this account!
There are several references to cities as names of mazes. The English turf mazes were often called Troy town, and Troy is connected with Scandinavian mazes as well. Mazes can also be called after Jericho or Jerusalem. It's tempting to think that anyone not used to a large city will find its streets to be completely bewildering and maze-like. It's interesting that two of the names are associated with cities that are famous principally for being destroyed, so perhaps the maze is connected with the different levels of defences of a fortified city. Joshua circled Jericho seven times each time blowing a trumpet before it was destroyed, and the Cretan maze has seven circuits of its paths.
Virgil (70-19BC) describes the Troy game in the fifth book of the Aeneid. Iulus, the son of Aeneas taking part with his companions in a sport called the Ludus Trojae or Lusus Trojae (Game of Troy). According to the Roman tradition it was introduced into Italy by Aeneas. The game consisted of a sort of processional parade or dance, in which some of the participants appear to have been mounted on horseback. Virgil draws a comparison between the complicated movements of the game and the convolutions of the Cretan Labyrinth.
The church mazes were supposed to be used as substitute pilgrimages. Medieval people thought it was good for their souls if they travelled to holy places. The Holy Land was obviously the best, but that was very far, and often dangerous. So there were pilgrimages to other places as well, such as Rome, Santiago in Spain or Canterbury in England. There was a scale of value, so a number of visits to an easy place was worth the same as one to a harder place. It has been suggested that walking a local church maze a number of times also qualified. So travelling to the middle was a miniature version of travelling to Jerusalem.
In 1350, Higden, monk of Chester wrote "Rosamund was the fayre daughter of Walter, Lord Clifford, concubine of Henry II, and poisoned by Queen Eleanor, AD 1177. Henry made for her a house of wonderful working, so that no man or woman might come to her. This house was named Labyrinthus, and was wrought like upon a knot in a garden called a maze. But the queen came to her by a clue of a thredde, and so dealt with her that she lived not long after." There is no reference to this particular maze earlier.
The Chinese believed that demons could only travel in straight lines, so perhaps mazes are designed to baffle evil spirits. There is a story that the Scandinavian fishermen spent time ashore building pebble paths on the beach. Then they travelled through the maze so bad luck wouldn't follow them. Anyone sailing on the sea needs all the good luck they can get.
| This design is known as the House of I'itoi or Siuku Ki, used in the baskets of the Tohono O'otam and Pima tribes of Southern Arizona. I'itoi brought people to this earth from the underworld. He lives in the maze so people can't find him. But the maze also represents the ordinary person travelling through life. So the little man is either I'itoi, or us. |  |
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The Hopi have a circular Cretan unicursal maze design called the Sun Father. However, they also have another similar maze design called the Mother and Child (Tápu'at) which is square. This is not a unicursal maze, and does not have a centre. It is not really a branching maze, but it does offer a choice right at the start. Do you take the left entrance or the right one? The left entrance leads you round the edge of the maze, ending in a dead-end, shown by a dot. This represents the mother. The right entrance leads you round the centre, again leading to a dead-end. This is the child. |
| It is perhaps inevitable that any groups of myths involve fertility myths sooner or later! In fact, there seems to be surprisingly little. There is a story about the Saffron Walden turf maze, on the town common. It is said that a young woman stood in the centre of the maze, and the young men raced to reach her. Now this is nonsense! The maze paths are very narrow and it would be impossible to pass anyone. There are two ways that you could make it work. The first is that a man chased a woman through the maze. If she was given a few seconds start, then it would make an exciting race. The other possibility is that the woman was in the centre, and the men started off at every few seconds. Then each man concentrated in catching the man in front. When he did, he touched him (or possibly shoved him!) and made him give up. I still think that there can only have been a pair of men, or perhaps three, since the further back you were, the less likely you were to get to the front. Of course, complicated leagues could have been set up, so it would end up rather like the famous Bumps rowing races at near-by Cambridge. No proof, alas! |  |
I think that the round form of the Cretan maze has a certain similarity with the female symbol of a circle on top of a cross.
Some of the oldest designs use the square form. Would this suggest a symbol of birth, or possibly re-birth? Certainly there is often a connection between the Labyrinth and death. Those went in to meet the Minotaur expected to die, but Theseus returned.
Certainly many people have felt that a maze is a good symbol for life itself. A branching maze presents you with choices every so often. You can take a wrong turn, or there may be two paths which join up again, all of which mirror life itself. A unicursal maze also can represent life. We are born, we all die, and in between we travel the path of life which twists and turns, often in a bewildering way. We cannot see ahead, and the past is gone. When we reach the centre of our maze of life, we die.
Finally, I think that I must point out that possibly one reason for these mazes, possibly the main reason, was that the design is an attractive and intriguing pattern. Some people get over-excited about the 'meaning' of mazes, when a very important meaning is that they are fun!
© Jo Edkins 2008 - Return to Maze index
I kept the colours the same, so, hopefully, you can see what's going on. This technique makes it easier to compare different maze designs.
For example, if you make this shorter, without changing anything else, you end up with a