The earliest known mazes or labyrinths may be around 3,000 years old. I hey are rock carvings in the Camonica Valley in the Italian Alps, and although they cannot be dated precisely, some of the carvings are believed to be prehistoric, with others added at later dates. The origins of the maze symbol are difficult to trace, and there may well be earlier examples not yet discovered. Some of the carvings we illustrated in Chapter 6, for example the cup and ring marks, and the triple spiral and entrance stone at Newgrange, have strong similarities to maze designs, and there are many other examples of Neolithic rock art which arc also labyrinthine in concept. 'I'here may also have been labyrinthine buildings in ancient Egypt and in other early civilisations, notably at Knossos on Crete.
In legend the Cretan labyrinth is linked with the story of Theseus and the Minotaur. 'I'he labyrinth was built by Daedalus on the instructions of Minos, King of Crete (who later became a judge in Hades, the underworld - one of the numerous links to be found between the labyrinth and death). The labyrinth housed the Minotaur, half bull, half man, who was the offspring of Minos’s wife, Pasiphae, and a bull. The Athenians, as a result of some past adventure, were bound to send Minos seven young boys and seven maidens every ninth year (different authorities give different periods), and these were offered to the Minotaur. Theseus, the great. Athenian hero, may have been among the tribute on one occasion. Be that as it may, he resolved to kill the Minotaur, for if that could be done the tribute would thereafter be cancelled. Minos’s daughter. Ariadne was attracted by 'Fheseus, and wishing to help him she took the advice of Daedalus and gave him a clue of thread by which he could retrace his steps and escape from the labyrinth. Reaching the centre, he killed the Minotaur and leaving the labyrinth with the boys and girls intended for sacrifice, they all set sail for home. En route, they landed on Delos, where they celebrated their victorv with the Crane Dance.
J. G. Frazer’s interpretation of the Minotaur story, given in The Golden Bough, is an interesting one. He concludes:
On the whole the foregoing evidence... points to the conclusion that at Cnossus the king represented the sun-god, and that every eight years his divine powers were renewed at a great festival, which comprised, first, the sacrifice of human victims by fire to a bullheaded image of the sun, and second, the marriage of the king disguised as a bull to the queen disguised as a cow, the two personating respectively the sun and the moon.
The symbol of the labyrinth was also used elsewhere. An Etruscan terracotta wine-jar from Tragliatella, Italy, dating from the late seventh century BC and probably predating the Cretan Knossos, shows a maze and people in procession, poss-iblv depicting funeral rites. The maze may have been used to keep evil influences from the grave, and at the same time to show the initiate the route of death and rebirth. The recurring links with death again remind us of the maze-like spiral designs carved on the walls of a number of Neolithic tombs in Britain and Ireland.
During the several hundred years BC the maze symbol spread far and wide. Elaborate mazes have been found on Roman
Mazes of stones are found mainly in Scandinavia, but there are also examples in the Scilly Isles, this one being on St Agnes. It tvas said to have been made in 1726 by a lighthouse keeper, but he uas probably renetiing an earlier maze. Knotcn as Troy Town, it was photographed in 1885 along with the wreck of the Earl of Lonsdale.
Mosaic f>avements, two British examples being at Caerleon (Gwent) where a damaged mosaic was discovered in 1866 in the churchyard, and at Harpham (Humberside) where a large pavement was discovered in 1904 during the excavation of a Roman villa. It is now on display on a wall by the staircase in the City Hall, Kingston-up>on-Hull. d'he maze was also adopted by the early Christians, symbolising for them the path of life, and the design was carved on walls or made into pavements in churches and cathedrals, espeeially in Italy and France, with some painted mazes in Scandinavian churches. There are a few church mazes in Britain, the earliest possibly being the simple maze carved on the.orman font in Lewannick church (Cornwall). fifteenth-century roof boss in St Mary Redcliffe church, Bristol (.-von) has a maze carving only 4 inches across. Thornton church (Leicestershire) has a simple spiral maze of large stones, probably of pre-Reformation date, and the only two pavement mazes in British churches are at Bourn and Ely Cathedral (both in Cambridgeshire), .-lkborough church (Humberside) also has two mazes (see ‘Places to Visit’).
.9 typical utticursal maze, this one being the turf maze formerly on Ripon Common (Sorth Yorkshire).
This beautifully maintained turf maze is in a private garden at Somerton (Oxfordshire). Knotun as Troy Toun, its path is 400 yards in length.
4'here are maiiv types of designs used for mazes over the centuries, and the origins of any particular example can often be ascertained from the design used. The differences between the designs are too complex to describe here, but they can be found in books on this subject (see Bibliography). The main feature of the ancient maze designs, of course, is that there is only one-path from the entrance to the centre, with no side-tracks (a unicursal maze). The turf mazes which were once widespread in Britain are of this kind, and they are thought to have derived from church designs. The earliest may date from medieval times, d'he number of aneient turf mazes now surviving is very small. Many have been destroyed by cultivation or building, and many more have been lost through neglect - the grass must be cut regularly else they are quickly overgrown. The mazes which can still be seen are at. Alkborough (Humberside), W ing (Leicestershire), Hilton (Cambridgeshire), Brandsby (North Yorkshire), Breamore (Hampshire), St Catherine’s Hill, Winchester (Hampshire), Saffron Walden (Essex) and Somerton (Oxfordshire), several of these being described and illustrated in ‘Places to Visit’.
The name given to one now-lost maze. The Shepherd’s Race at Boughton Green (Northamptonshire) and the fact that the treading of its path was a popular event in the annual three-day fair, indicates that running the maze was often part of local festivities, a link back many centuries to the davs when funeral rituals and other dances were performed at mazes. (Jther names often used for English turf mazes (they were not found in Wales, Scotland or Ireland) hark back to their ancient and foreign origins - Troy Town, Walls of 'I'roy, City of Troy, Miz-Maze, Julian’s Bower.
D'he dances performed at mazes may once have been more elaborate than simply following the path of the maze. Some of the traditional dances still performed in Britain may have originated as maze dances. One such is the. Abbot’s Bromley Horn Dance (Staffordshire - see Chapter 18). Here the dancers carry sets of reindeer antlers with carved wooden reindeer heads fixed to them, three sets painted white, three black, and holding these before them, they perform a dance in single file. Every so often the leader doubles back, after having led the others into a circle; the blacks and whites are then face to face and engage in symbolic combat, after which the procession begins again.
'The meaning of this ritual dance is unknown, though it has been suggested that it may be a relic of a hunting dance. Its symbolism probably goes far deeper, and it has also been suggested that the ‘battle’ signifies the struggle between life and death, the white symbolising life and the black death. The single-file twisting dance has echoes of a maze dance; and the antlers and animal heads may possibly symbolise the Minotaur. 'I’he Crane Dance of Delos, first performed by Theseus and the rescued sacrificial victims, also followed a spiral path, first into the centre to symbolise death, and then out again in the opposite direction, symbolising evolution and rebirth. Other spiral dances were once performed in Britain. In Cornish Feasts and Folk-lore by M. . Courtney (1890) are descriptions of two spiral dances, the ‘snails’ creep’ being described thus:
'I'he young people being all assembled in a large meadow, the village band strikes up a simple but lively air, and marches forward, followed by the whole assemblage, leading hand-in-hand (or more closely linked in case of engaged couples), the whole keeping time to the tune with a lively step, d'he band or head of the serpent keeps marching in an ever-narrowing circle, whilst its train of dancing followers becomes coiled around it in circle after circle. It is now that the most interesting p? art of the dance commences, for the band, taking a sharp turn about, begins to retrace the circle, still followed as before, and a number of young men with long, leafy branches in their hands as standards, direct this counter-movement with almost military precision.
J. G. Frazer associates the Cretan maze with sun-worship, suggesting that the Crane Dance may have been imitating the sun’s course, and thus, ‘by means of sympathetic magic, to aid the gieat luminary to run his race on high’, d’his reminds us of prehistoric man’s preoccupation with the movements of the sun and other heavenly bodies, and also the associated fertility aspects, d’he Morris dancers to be seen so often dancing in countrv villages and towns in the summer-time (see Chapter 18) are also performing age-old rituals whose origins may lie in prehistoric fertility dances.
D’he mazes which are probably best known today are the hedge mazes, which have one correct path to the centre but many false routes which when followed become dead-ends (multicursal mazes), hence the popularity of these mazes with youngsters. Hedge mazes became popular in Britain in the sixteenth century. One of the earliest in England was planted at 'Fheobalds (Hertfordshire) c. 1560, but was destroyed by Parliamentary troops in the 1640s. 'fhe oldest surviving hedge maze in England is at Hampton Court Palace (Greater London), having been planted in 1690 and possibly replacing an even older maze. It is not a complex maze to follow, but its path nevertheless extends for about half a mile. In recent years hedge mazes have again become fashionable and new ones have been planted. In 1978 the world’s largest hedge maze, with yew hedges and covering an area of 380 feet by 175 feet, was planted at Longleat House (Wiltshire), The upsurge of interest in mazes shows that even now, in the late twentieth century, this svmbol has the same hold over people that it exercised 3,000 years ago.
World History
