The Labyrinth and The Myth
Crete, The Palace of Knossos,
The Labyrinth And The Myth
by Jane Buckman
The oldest know labyrinth image is the 7-circuit labyrinth that is commonly called the Classical or Cretan Labyrinth. Since this labyrinth is named after the island of Crete, the question that arises is "What is the nature of the connection between Crete, the labyrinth and the myth?"
Because of its name, it is generally assumed that the "Cretan Labyrinth" dates from the times of the Minoan civilization on Crete. But is this true?
Homer writes in the Iliad of the eighth century BCE, "Out in the dark blue sea there lies a land called Crete, a rich and lovely land, washed by the waves on every side..." He speaks in poetic form about Crete, the Palace of Knossos, the people, and the myth.
Up until Sir Arthur Evans' archeological excavations in the first quarter of the 20th century, these tales seemed to be Greek legend. Once layer upon layer  of Minoan culture was uncovered, Homer's poetics proved to carry historical truths. The site revealed a sequence of continuous development from 3000 BCE down to about 1150 BCE. The topmost layer was the Palace of Knossos. Earthquakes had destroyed it as it had the palace and pre-palatial dwellings beneath it. Evans named the culture "Minoan" after King Minos of whom Homer writes.
The myth of Theseus slaying the Minotaur in the center of the labyrinth is the most pervasive basis for the existence of the labyrinth in ancient Crete. The excavations unearthed a multitude of references to this myth. Found on the walls of the Palace of Knossos were golden double axes, wall paintings of the bull fight/dance, emblems of the goddess, all of which give credence to the historical origins of the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur.
There were brilliantly colored frescos of young women and men performing "bull vaulting". The painting is of a charging bull with one female figure grasping one of the bull's horns while another stands behind the animal ready for action. A male athlete is in the act of somersaulting over the bull's back. Homer's story of the myth speaks of seven youths and seven maidens sent from Athens to be sacrificed to the bull-monster. Could these bull-vaulting performances be the enactment of the myth? And could the youth in the arena with the bull be the myth's reference to the gathering of youth to enter the labyrinth with the Minotaur? In any case, It seems obvious that the bull was used in some form of ritual performance and that the myth was more than poetic fantasy.
A multitude of images and artifacts give evidence of the divine power held in the symbolism of the bull and the double axe - horns of consecration, golden  seals with dancing figures, statues of bulls, sacred horns, statues of a goddess holding the double axe, and maze-like meander pattern frescoed on the walls of a corridor. Great bronze double-headed axes stood on shafts some 6 1/2 feet high on either side of the altars of the goddess, where priestesses, celebrating her rites, held them in their hands or upon their heads. The double axes held in the hands of the 1500 BCE Knossos Goddess may be understood, like the serpents, as symbolizing her rulership over the related domains of life and death.
Some say the legendary labyrinth was the palace itself. This palace, also known as the "Palace of Minos" and the "House of the Double Axe," was made up of five great  palace complexes of labyrinthine complexity. It was multistoried with as many as one thousand five hundred rooms. Deep within this complex was the ritual center.
Homer's Iliad is often cited as making the link between ceremonial dancing at the center of the complex and the labyrinth in his image of Ariadne's dancing floor at the Palace of Knossos. He writes: "a dancing-floor like one that Daedalos designed in the spacious town of Knossos for Ariadne of the lovely locks "Here they ran lightly round"and there they ran in lines to meet each other."
Speculation has been made that perhaps one of the caverns on Crete is the labyrinth referred to in the myth. There is mention of extensive catacombs on the side of the ridge overlooking Knossos as well as a cave that opens on the side of Mount Ida that were explored by G. P. Tournefort, a French botanist, on July 1, l700. He writes: "This famous place is a subterranean Passage in manner of a Street, which by a thousand Intricacies and Windings, as it were by mere Chance, and without the least Regularity, pervades the whole Cavity" If a Man strikes into any other Path, after he has gone a good way, he is so bewildered among a thousand Twistings, Twinings, Sinuosities, Crinkle-Crankles and Turn-again Lanes, that he could scarce ever get out again without the utmost danger of being lost."
S. P. Cockerell's journals (early 1800s) tell of entering the cavern at a different opening in Mount Ida. Reminiscent of Adriane's golden thread, Cockerell used a great length of string wound upon two sticks to aid him in his exploration. "The windings," according to Cockerell, "bewildered us at once"The clearly intentional intricacy and apparently endless number of galleries impressed me with a sense of horror and fascination I cannot describe. At every ten steps one was arrested, and had to turn to right or left, sometimes to choose one of three or four roads."
Crete may indeed be the location of the earliest known labyrinth, but the evidence is far from compelling.
First, although labyrinth images are found in such disparate places as Brazil, Arizona,  Iceland, Europe, Algeria, Scandinavia, Egypt, India and Sumatra, none has ever been found in Crete that could be dated during the Minoan civilization. In fact, the only material evidence that a labyrinth existed in Crete is the labyrinth engraved coins dated c 500 BCE - almost a millennium after the Minoan civilization ended.
Up until recent times, the oldest verifiably dated labyrinth was a 7-circuit labyrinth incised into a clay tablet found in Pylos, Greece, circa 1200 BCE. More recently, however, an older 7-circuit image, dated 3000 BCE, was located on a ceiling of the Polyphemus Cave in Bonagia, Sicily.
Second, Homer's description of the dancing floor, although suggestive of a labyrinth, is open to another interpretation. In other cultures, elliptical lines that trace the path of the sun and moon or other symbolic patterns were inscribed in floors as guides for ceremonial dancing.
Third, the myth describes a maze not a labyrinth. A "maze" sets up challenges and confusion with its many pathways and dead ends. A "labyrinth" is unicursal, having only one pathway that leads you to the center. The labyrinth symbolically represents the journey into the other world and the return - a death of one state and rebirth into another. The symbolism of the maze as it is used in the Myth of Theseus and the Minatour however does represent this larger mystically meaning.
Finally, it seems that The Palace of Knossos became know as the labyrinth by a confusion of terminology. The primary emblem of the Palace of Knossos was  the double axe. The Lydian (ancient country on the Aegean) word for the double axe is labyrs. It was much later when visiting Greeks saw the bewildering ruins of the palace that the name labyrs came to be applied to its maze-like , complexity and in turn for the palace itself to be referred to as the labyrinth or maze.
Tracing the history of the connection between the labyrinth, the Palace of Knossos the myth and the Island of Crete can never be conclusive. Few cultures have survived as long or have had such a persistence of symbolic forms and images throughout its  uninterrupted development. What we find is a fascinatingly rich culture, full of grace and beauty,alive in its symbolic expression, and joyous in its dance and celebration of life and nature.
Jane Buckman is a professional artist with an interest in earth spirituality, symbolism, myth and sacred space. Her paintings and sculptures have been exhibited internationally since 1980. Visit her website at www.labyrinthwork.com - E-mail: info@labyrinthwork.com
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