Labyrinth - Wikipedia. In Greek mythology, the labyrinth (Greek: .
Learn about Labyrinths. A labyrinth is a single path or unicursal tool for personal, psychological and spiritual transformation. Labyrinths are thought to enhance right brain activity.
Its function was to hold the Minotaur eventually killed by the hero. Theseus. Daedalus had so cunningly made the Labyrinth that he could barely escape it after he built it. Branching mazes were reintroduced only when garden mazes became popular during the Renaissance. In English, the term labyrinth is generally synonymous with maze. As a result of the long history of unicursal representation of the mythological Labyrinth, however, many contemporary scholars and enthusiasts observe a distinction between the two.
In this specialized usage maze refers to a complex branching multicursal puzzle with choices of path and direction, while a unicursal labyrinth has only a single path to the center. A labyrinth in this sense has an unambiguous route to the center and back and is not difficult to navigate.
Teenage Sarah is left to babysit her baby brother Toby and he will not stop crying. So Sarah tries to put the baby to sleep by reading him a story. When she accidentally conjures up the Goblin King from the fantasy.
The Romans created many primarily decorative unicursal designs on walls and floors in tile or mosaic. Many labyrinths set in floors or on the ground are large enough that the path can be walked. Unicursal patterns have been used historically both in group ritual and for private meditation, and are increasingly found for therapeutic use in hospitals and hospices. Ancient labyrinths. In Labraunda of Caria the double- axe accompanies the storm- god Zeus Labrandeus (. It also accompanies the Hurrian god of sky and storm Teshub (his Hittite and Luwian name was Tarhun).
It seems that the double- axe was the symbol of the beginning (arche) of the creation. The Linear B (Mycenaean) inscription . Something was being shown to visitors as a labyrinth at Knossos in the 1st century AD (Philostratos, De vita Apollonii Tyanei iv. In the 3rd century BC, coins from Knossos were still struck with the labyrinth symbol. The predominant labyrinth form during this period is the simple seven- circuit style known as the classical labyrinth. The term labyrinth came to be applied to any unicursal maze, whether of a particular circular shape (illustration) or rendered as square.
At the center, a decisive turn brought one out again. In Plato's dialogue Euthydemus, Socrates describes the labyrinthine line of a logical argument. Thus the present- day notion of a labyrinth as a place where one can lose . It is a confusing path, hard to follow without a thread, but, provided .
When the Bronze Age site at Knossos was excavated by explorer Arthur Evans, he found various bull motifs, including an image of a man leaping over the horns of a bull, as well as depictions of a labrys carved into the walls. On the strength of a passage in the Iliad. By extension, in popular legend the palace is associated with the myth of the Minotaur. In the 2. 00. 0s, archaeologists explored other potential sites of the labyrinth. Another contender is a series of underground tunnels at Gortyn, accessed by a narrow crack but expanding into interlinking caverns.
Unlike the Skotino cave, these caverns have smooth walls and columns, and appear to have been at least partially man- made. This site corresponds to an unusual labyrinth symbol on a 1. Crete contained in a book of maps in the library of Christ Church, Oxford. A map of the caves themselves was produced by the French in 1. The site was also used by German soldiers to store ammunition during the Second World War. Howarth's investigation was shown on a documentary. Herodotus, in Book II of his Histories, describes as a .
Inside, the building is of two storeys and contains three thousand rooms, of which half are underground, and the other half directly above them. I was taken through the rooms in the upper storey, so what I shall say of them is from my own observation, but the underground ones I can speak of only from report, because the Egyptians in charge refused to let me see them, as they contain the tombs of the kings who built the labyrinth, and also the tombs of the sacred crocodiles. The upper rooms, on the contrary, I did actually see, and it is hard to believe that they are the work of men; the baffling and intricate passages from room to room and from court to court were an endless wonder to me, as we passed from a courtyard into rooms, from rooms into galleries, from galleries into more rooms and thence into yet more courtyards. The roof of every chamber, courtyard, and gallery is, like the walls, of stone.
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- Labyrinth definition, an intricate combination of paths or passages in which it is difficult to find one's way or to reach the exit.
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The walls are covered with carved figures, and each court is exquisitely built of white marble and surrounded by a colonnade. The names of more than one king have been found there, the oldest. Pliny's description of the exposed portion of the tomb is intractable; Pliny, it seems clear, had not observed this structure himself, but is quoting the historian and Roman antiquarian Varro.
At about the same time as the appearance of the Greek labyrinth, an essentially identical pattern appeared in Native American culture, the Tohono O'odham people labyrinth which features I'itoi, the . The Tonoho O'odham pattern has two distinct differences from the Greek: it is radial in design, and the entrance is at the top, where traditional Greek labyrinths have the entrance at the bottom (see below).
A prehistoric petroglyph on a riverbank in Goa shows the same pattern and has been dated to circa 2. BC. Other examples have been found among cave art in northern India and on a dolmen shrine in the Nilgiri Mountains, but are difficult to date accurately. Early labyrinths in India all follow the Classical pattern; some have been described as plans of forts or cities. They are often called . Lanka, the capital city of mythic R.
The most remarkable monument is the Stone labyrinths of Bolshoi Zayatsky Island - a group of 1. These labyrinths are thought to be 2,0. In Roman floor mosaics, the simple classical labyrinth is framed in the meander border pattern, squared off as the medium requires, but still recognisable.
Often an image of the Minotaur appears in the center of these mosaic labyrinths. Roman meander patterns gradually developed in complexity towards the fourfold shape that is now familiarly known as the medieval form.
The labyrinth retains its connection with death and a triumphant return: at Hadrumentum in North Africa (now Sousse), a Roman family tomb has a fourfold labyrinth mosaic floor with a dying minotaur in the center and a mosaic inscription: HICINCLUSUS. VITAMPERDIT . Lambertus, Mingolsheim, Germany, following the Roman paradigm. Medieval labyrinths and turf mazes.
The full flowering of the medieval labyrinth came about from the twelfth through fourteenth centuries with the grand pavement labyrinths of the gothic cathedrals, notably Chartres, Reims and Amiens in northern France. These labyrinths may have originated as symbolic allusion to the Holy City; and some modern thinkers have theorized that prayers and devotions may have accompanied the perambulation of their intricate paths. These labyrinths, generally in coastal areas, are marked out with stones, most often in the simple 7- or 1. They often have names which translate as . They are thought to have been constructed by fishing communities: trapping malevolent trolls or winds in the labyrinth's coils might ensure a safe fishing expedition. There are also stone labyrinths on the Isles of Scilly, although none is known to date from before the nineteenth century. There are examples of labyrinths in many disparate cultures.
The symbol has appeared in various forms and media (petroglyphs, classic- form, medieval- form, pavement, turf, and basketry) at some time throughout most parts of the world, from Native North and South America to Australia, Java, India, and Nepal. Modern labyrinths. His use of it has inspired other authors' works (e. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, Mark Z. Danielewski's House of Leaves). Additionally, Roger Zelazny's fantasy series, The Chronicles of Amber, features a labyrinth, called . The avant- garde multi- screen film, In the Labyrinth, presents a search for meaning in a symbolic modern labyrinth.
In Rick Riordan's series Percy Jackson & the Olympians, the events of the fourth novel The Battle of the Labyrinth predominantly take place within the labyrinth of Daedalus, which has followed the heart of the West to settle beneath the United States. Australian author Sara Douglass incorporated some labyrinthine ideas in her series The Troy Game, in which the Labyrinth on Crete is one of several in the ancient world, created with the cities as a source of magical power. Lawrence Durrell's The Dark Labyrinth depicts travelers trapped underground in Crete. The labyrinth is also treated in contemporary fine arts. Examples include Piet Mondrian's Dam and Ocean (1. Joan Mir. Escher's Relativity (1.
Friedensreich Hundertwasser's Labyrinth (1. Jean Dubuffet's Logological Cabinet (1.
Richard Long's Connemara sculpture (1. Joe Tilson's Earth Maze (1. Richard Fleischner's Chain Link Maze (1. Istv. The Italian painter Davide Tonato has dedicated many of his artistic works to the labyrinth theme. In medieval times, the labyrinth symbolized a hard path to God with a clearly defined center (God) and one entrance (birth).
In their cross- cultural study of signs and symbols, Patterns that Connect, Carl Schuster and Edmund Carpenter present various forms of the labyrinth and suggest various possible meanings, including not only a sacred path to the home of a sacred ancestor, but also, perhaps, a representation of the ancestor him/herself: . In this they may be preserving its original meaning: the ultimate ancestor, here evoked by two continuous lines joining its twelve primary joints. Many people could not afford to travel to holy sites and lands, so labyrinths and prayer substituted for such travel. Later, the religious significance of labyrinths faded, and they served primarily for entertainment, though recently their spiritual aspect has seen a resurgence. Modern mystics use labyrinths to help them achieve a contemplative state. The Labyrinth Society. Octavio Paz titled his book on Mexicanidentity.