Man In The Maze Drawing
Cretan (classical) mazes and maze myths
Intro --- Pre-maze --- Cretan --- Roman --- Chartres --- Turf --- Garden --- Other --- Design --- Lay out --- Designer --- Games
Dames of ancient days have led their children through the mirthful maze. The Traveller by Oliver Goldsmith (1730?-1774)
The Cretan maze is the oldest known maze design. It is a unicursal maze, a single path without choices or branches. There is a square form and a round form (see above). It has been known over a long period of time, and in many cultures, and it's still popular today. Here are some examples throughout history.  |  |  |  |
| 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 |
| The oldest dateable version of this maze is the clay tablet shown above, which is approximately 1200BC. There are petroglyphs (carvings into stone) in Galicia, Spain, which probably date from around 2000 BCE, but there is no way to date them with any scientific accuracy. There are other stone carvings elswhere, but dating is always difficult and some claims are definitely questionable. There are English turf mazes of this design, but these, too, are hard to date, and likely to be late copies of the design. The photo on the right is the labyrinth petroglyph at Mogor, Galicia, Spain. It is © Jeff Saward and his website gives more information about these mazes, as well as others - it's worth looking at! |  |
Are all these different versions of this pattern derived from earlier versions? Except, presumably, for one originator! Or were the patterns in different countries spontaneously generated? There seems to be a massive geographical range, but, for example, there were trade links between India and Europe, and the Vikings got down to southern Europe, which might explain the Scandinavian designs. The Arizona mazes seem to be a peculiarity, but this could date to the Spanish influence in the area. So perhaps the design gradually spread to the different areas. It is not impossible, however, that the trick of drawing the maze (see below) was discovered by more than one person.
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 of the Minotaur. 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.
How to draw the maze
There is a secret way to draw the walls of this maze. Essentially you start with a cross with four dots round it in the corners of a square. Then you join the ends of the cross to the four dots, but you mustn't cross any line you've drawn already (there are paper and pencil games like this). When following the instructions below, don't draw the lines too close together.  |  |  |  |  | ||||
| 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. |
 | 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! |
How to walk the maze
The next diagrams show the way that you walk the maze. These are the paths that you walk on, rather than the walls.  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. |
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 Greek Key pattern. | 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. |  |
Scaling up & down
This maze's walls have 8 circuits and the paths have 7 circuits, but once you look at how to walk through the maze, you can see that it has two levels. Then it becomes easy to expand it to three levels. I have found one maze which has these three levels, but it doesn't look anything like the usual Cretan form, so perhaps the maze designer didn't realise that it was connected. Finally, just for fun, I reduced it to one level. The diagrams show the walls (in blue) because this maze is so linked to its walls. The end photo shows a 6 level Cretan maze, made by Nigel Bispham on his local beach of Carbis Bay near St Ives. Impressive!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. |  |
Examples of Cretan mazes
This does not pretend to be a complete list. This is a very popular design of maze!
Square Cretan mazes
Double Cretan mazes
3 level Cretan maze
| Round Cretan mazes
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There are also English turf mazes with a Cretan maze pattern.
Temporary maze outside Saffron Walden MuseumSaffron Walden has a famous turf maze and a good garden maze. In 2011, the town held a maze festival, with various temporary mazes scattered throughout the town. The museum had this Cretan maze. |  |
 | Temporary maze at Mill Road FairMill Road is a shopping street in Cambridge. Once a year, at the beginning of December, the street is closed to traffic for a street fair. This maze was made in Petersfield, a small common at one end. It is a standard maze, made using a rope. The walls are marked out with birdseed! I helped to make it. We used plastic bottles with the bottoms cut off to hold the seed and dribble it at the knots of the rope. After dark, the maze was lit with candles. (The tree is not actually part of the maze!) |  |
Centaur's Labyrinth in Mayer ArizonaA correspondent told me the following: Having worked with small human scale labyrinths for years as part of closing for field expeditions and courses a group of Grad students and I decided to scale up the paths to work with horses. Thos evolved into the Centaur's Labyrinth that we built at a YMCA camp, Chauncey Ranch in Mayer Arizona. It is a modification on a classic seven circuit with a 40 foot round pen in the center and 4 foot paths. We use it in a wise variety of ways: for contemplative practices with horses; playing and partnering with horses; sometimes kids just run through it. It was originally just dirt and rocks (lots of rocks, gathered from local river beds) It is an act of love keeping the weeds down each year. |
 |
 | Chakravyuha or Padmavyuha labyrinthThe Padmavyuha or Chakravyuha refers to a military formation in the Hindu epic Mahabharata. The oldest parts of this text date are about 400 BC, though the origins of the story probably fall between the 8th and 9th centuries BC. The thirteenth day of Mahabharat war described in the epic is remembered for the construction of Chakravyuha by Dronacharya. This formation was supposed to be nearly invincible as only Krishna and Arjuna could defeat the formation, both entering it and leaving it, and they were not present at this battle. But Arjuna's son, Abhimanyu, knew how to enter the formation, but not leave it. He died in the centre of the formation after killing many of the warriors. His father Arjuna said afterwards "Pale is the colour I behold of the faces of you all. I do not, again, see Abhimanyu. Nor doth he come to congratulate me. I heard that Drona had today formed the circular array. None amongst you, save the boy Abhimanyu, could break that array. I, however, did not teach him how to come out of that array, after having pierced it." (From The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2, translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli, available on Gutenberg.) This military formation is visualised as a maze. See carving, left, from Hoysaleswara temple, Halebid, India. It is very like a Cretan maze in the outer section, but the inside is a simple spiral. |  |
Other Cretan-style mazes
 | Yet another Strawberry Fair mazeThis one was at the 2019 Strawberry Fair. I was told that the designer wanted to have a maze with two entrances, where two people entered at the same time. They never met each other, except at the centre. Even there, a line divided them, but they could greet each other and even embrace over the divide. This was to symbolise our deeply divided world at the moment. My version is not the same as the original, but the maker of the maze (who wasn't the designer) said that she had altered it slightly to make it easier to walk. The original was symmetrical (which the Strawberry Fair version wasn't). I don't know what the original looked like, so this is my version. Each half is basically a zigzag. You could extend it if you wanted to. I could imagine a four-way version based on a Roman maze, or perhaps a more complicated two-way version, where the pathes interleaved each other rather than keeping to their own side of the circle. To tell the truth, I found the basic idea rather depressing than afirmative. The two people never do meet, after all.The blue lines are the walls and the red lines where you walk. |  |
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. |  |
Maze myths
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.
Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth
 | 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. |  |
Other descriptions of ancient mazes
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. He seems to be describing a very complicated building with inter-connected rooms, rather than a maze as we think of it today. His Account of Egypt is here. Here is his description of the labyrinth.
Being set free after the reign of the priest of Hephaistos, the Egyptians, since they could not live any time without a king, set up over them twelve kings, having divided all Egypt into twelve parts. These made intermarriages with one another and reigned, making agreement that they would not put down one another by force, nor seek to get an advantage over one another, but would live in perfect friendship: and the reason why they made these agreements, guarding them very strongly from violation, was this, namely that an oracle had been given to them at first when they began to exercise their rule, that he of them who should pour a libation with a bronze cup in the temple of Hephaistos, should be king of all Egypt (for they used to assemble together in all the temples). Moreover they resolved to join all together and leave a memorial of themselves; and having so resolved they caused to be made a labyrinth, situated a little above the lake of Moiris and nearly opposite to that which is called the City of Crocodiles. This I saw myself, and I found it greater than words can say. For if one should put together and reckon up all the buildings and all the great works produced by Hellenes, they would prove to be inferior in labour and expense to this labyrinth, though it is true that both the temple at Ephesos and that at Samos are works worthy of note. The pyramids also were greater than words can say, and each one of them is equal to many works of the Hellenes, great as they may be; but the labyrinth surpasses even the pyramids. It has twelve courts covered in, with gates facing one another, six upon the North side and six upon the South, joining on one to another, and the same wall surrounds them all outside; and there are in it two kinds of chambers, the one kind below the ground and the other above upon these, three thousand in number, of each kind fifteen hundred. The upper set of chambers we ourselves saw, going through them, and we tell of them having looked upon them with our own eyes; but the chambers under ground we heard about only; for the Egyptians who had charge of them were not willing on any account to show them, saying that here were the sepulchres of the kings who had first built this labyrinth and of the sacred crocodiles. Accordingly we speak of the chambers below by what we received from hearsay, while those above we saw ourselves and found them to be works of more than human greatness. For the passages through the chambers, and the goings this way and that way through the courts, which were admirably adorned, afforded endless matter for marvel, as we went through from a court to the chambers beyond it, and from the chambers to colonnades, and from the colonnades to other rooms, and then from the chambers again to other courts. Over the whole of these is a roof made of stone like the walls; and the walls are covered with figures carved upon them, each court being surrounded with pillars of white stone fitted together most perfectly; and at the end of the labyrinth, by the corner of it, there is a pyramid of forty fathoms, upon which large figures are carved, and to this there is a way made under ground.
Pliny (died A.D. 79) also mentions labyrinths in his Natural History book 36:
XIX. We must mention also the labyrinths, quite the most abnormal achievement on which man has spent his resources, but by no means a fictitious one, as might well be supposed. One still exists in Egypt, in the nome of Heracleopolis. This, the first ever to be constructed, was built, according to tradition, 3600 years ago by King Petesuchis or King Tithoes, although Herodotus attributes the whole work to the 'twelve kings,' the last of whom was Psammetichus. Various reasons are suggested for its construction. Demoteles supposes it to have been the palace of Moteris, and Lyceas the tomb of Moeris, while many writers state that it was erected as a temple to the Sun-god, and this is the general belief. Whatever the truth may be, there is no doubt that Daedalus adopted it as the model for the labyrinth built by him in Crete but that he reproduced only a hundredth part of it containing passages that wind, advance and retreat in a bewilderingly intricate manner. It is not just a narrow strip of ground comprising many miles 'walks' or 'rides,' such as we see exemplified in our tessellated floors or in the ceremonial game played by our boys in the Campus Martius but doors are let into the walls at frequent intervals to suggest deceptively the way ahead and to force the visitor to go back upon the very same tracks that he has already followed in his wanderings. This Cretan labyrinth was the next in succession after the Egyptian, and there was a third in Lemnos and a fourth in Italy, all alike being roofed with vaults of carefully worked stone. There is a feature of the Egyptian labyrinth which I for my part find surprising, namely an entrance and columns made of Parian marble. The rest of the structure is of Aswan granite, the great blocks of which have been laid in such a way that even the lapse of centuries cannot destroy them. Their preservation has been aided by the people of Heracleopolis, who have shown remarkable respect for an achievement that they detest.
The ground-plan and the individual parts of this building cannot be fully described because it is divided among the regions or administrative districts known as nomes, of which there are 21, each having a vast hail allotted to it by name. Besides these halls, it contains temples of all the Egyptian gods; and, furthermore, Nemesis placed within the 40 shrines several pyramids, each with a height of 40 cubits and an area at the base of 4 acres. It is when he is already exhausted with walking that the visitor reaches the bewildering maze of passages. Moreover, there are rooms in lofty upper storeys reached by inclines, and porches from which flights of 90 stairs lead down to the ground. Inside are columns of imperial por�phyry, images of gods, statues of kings and figures of monsters. Some of the halls are laid out in such a way that when the doors open there is a terrifying rumble of thunder within: incidentally, most of the building has to be traversed in darkness. Again, there are other massive structures outside the wall of the labyrinth: the Greek term for these is 'pteron,' or a 'wing.' Then there are other halls that have been made by digging galleries underground. The few repairs that have been made there were carried out by one man alone, Chaeremon, the eunuch of King Necthebis 500 years before the time of Alexander the Great. There is a further tradition that he used beams of acacia boiled in oil to serve as supports while square blocks of stone were being lifted into the vaults.
What has already been said must suffice for the Cretan labyrinth likewise. The Lemnian which was similar to it, was more noteworthy only in virtue of its 150 columns, the drums of which were so well balanced as they hung in the workshop that a child was able to turn them on the lathe. The architects were Zmilis, Rhoecus and Theodorus, all natives of Lemnos. There still exist remains of this labyrinth, although no traces of the Cretan or the Italian now survive. For it is appropriate to call 'Italian,' as well as 'Etruscan,' the labyrinth made by King Porsena of Etruria to serve as his tomb, with the result at the same time that even the vanity of foreign kings is surpassed by those of Italy. But since irresponsible story-telling here exceeds all bounds, I shall in describing the building make use of the very words of Marcus Varro himself: 'He is buried close to the city of Clusiuni, in a place where he has left a square monument built of squared blocks of stone, each side being 300 feet long and 50 feet high Inside this square pedestal there is a tangled labyrinth, which no one must enter without a ball of thread if he is to find his way out. On this square pedestal stand five pyramids, four at the corners and one at the centre, each of them being 75 feet broad at the base and 150 feet high. They taper in such a manner that on top of the whole group there rests a single bronze disk together with a conical cupola, from which hang bells fastened with chains: when these are set in motion by the wind, their sound carries to a great distance, as was formerly the case at Dodona. On this disk stand four more pyramids, each 100 feet high, and above these, on a single platform, five more.' The height of these last pyramids was a detail that Varro was ashamed to add to his account; but the Etruscan stories relate that it was equal to that of the whole work up to their level, insane folly as it was to have courted fame by spending for the benefit of none and to have exhausted furthermore the resources of a kingdom; and the result, after all, was more honour for the designer than for the sponsor.
Mazes as cities
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.
A medieval maze story
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.
Protection
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.
Arizona mazes
| 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. |  |
 | 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 (T�pu'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. |
Fertility myths
| It is perhaps inevitable that any groups of myths involve fertility myths sooner or later! In fact, there seems to be surprisingly little on this for mazes. 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! There are more games and history connected with the Saffon Walden maze here. |  |
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.
Pleasant pattern
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
Man In The Maze Drawing
Source: https://theedkins.co.uk/jo/maze/cretan/index.htm
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