Conspiracy file · Bronze Age Crete

Labyrinth

The maze King Minos had Daedalus build at Knossos to hold the Minotaur. Archaeology found a palace, not a maze, but the word was already on a Bronze Age tablet there, and the design has been walked as a path to God, or to the center of the self, ever since.

Also known as The Labyrinth of Crete · Daedalus' maze · Chartres labyrinth

On the record Timeline From the comics In Paranoid American comics Sources & further reading

From Secret Mystery School #3

The story

In Greek myth, Daedalus built the Labyrinth at Knossos, on Crete, so intricate that he could barely find his own way out. King Minos kept the Minotaur at its center and fed it young Athenians, until Theseus killed it and followed Ariadne's thread back out.

When Arthur Evans began digging at Knossos in 1900 he found a vast palace of corridors, storerooms and stairways, and it is easy to see how the legend grew. A Linear B tablet from Knossos records honey offered to the "Mistress of the Labyrinth". Some scholars link the word to labrys, the double axe carved on the palace stones; others disagree. Classical Knossos stamped a labyrinth on its coins.

The classic labyrinth has one winding path and no dead ends: a journey, not a puzzle. Medieval builders laid one into the floor of Chartres Cathedral in the early 1200s, and people still walk it as meditation. Esoteric writers read it as an initiation: a descent to the center, a meeting with the beast and a return changed. The Arcane Physiologoi in Secret Mystery School keep one on the floor for exactly that.

Memorandum for the recordSubject: Labyrinth

On the record

Arthur Evans began excavating the palace of Knossos in March 1900.
A Linear B tablet from Knossos (KN Gg 702) records an offering of honey to the "Mistress of the Labyrinth" (da-pu2-ri-to-jo po-ti-ni-ja).
Knossos issued silver coins with a labyrinth design in the Classical and Hellenistic periods.
Herodotus visited an Egyptian "labyrinth" near Lake Moeris and wrote that it surpassed even the pyramids (Histories 2.148).
Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book 8) says Daedalus made it so confusing he could hardly find his way back to the entrance.
Chartres Cathedral's floor labyrinth, laid in the early 13th century, is about 13 meters (42 feet) across, with eleven circuits.

The theory

Walking the labyrinth is an initiation: death at the center, rebirth on the way out (a common reading in esoteric and Jungian writing).
Medieval pilgrims walked church labyrinths on their knees as a stand-in for the pilgrimage to Jerusalem (a story first recorded centuries later).
The palace of Knossos was really a vast tomb and cult center, the true labyrinth (Hans Georg Wunderlich, 1972).
Some argue Daedalus' labyrinth was a real underground complex; the old quarry caves near Gortyn, on Crete, are the usual candidate.

Timeline

c. 1900 BCThe first palace is built at Knossos
c. 1400 BCA Linear B tablet records honey for the "Mistress of the Labyrinth"
c. 430 BCHerodotus describes the Egyptian labyrinth
c. AD 8Ovid tells the story of Daedalus in the Metamorphoses
Early 1200sThe labyrinth is laid in the floor of Chartres Cathedral
1900Arthur Evans begins excavating Knossos

From the comics

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From Secret Mystery School #3 · Pages 11-12

The Labyrinthine Trial

To prove their story, the philosophers send the group into the labyrinth drawn on their floor, shrunk to the size of mice. Sophia remembers how Theseus did it, and Phil offers Red Vines.

A labyrinth on the floor is a real tradition. The best known, in Chartres Cathedral, was laid in the early 1200s: one path, eleven circuits, no dead ends. People still walk it as a prayer.
Not a rope but a thread: Ariadne gave Theseus a ball of thread, a clew, to unwind as he went. That old word is where English gets "clue".

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