Labyrinth

Maze refers to a system of lines or paths, which makes numerous changes in direction a track or pacing of the pattern to a puzzle. Mazes can be designed as a building, ornament, mosaic, planting and corn maze, as a drawing or Felsritzung. Also available in printed form exist pictures of labyrinthine pattern. Moreover, the term is used figuratively to denote a situation as unmanageable or difficult.

• 7.1 Generally comprehensible representations in German language
• 7.2 Scientific Literature

Demarcation

Labyrinths are not to be confused with concentric circles or spirals possibly even occur on the same substrate in the same context.

Word origin

The origin of the word Labyrinth ( Greek λαβύρινθος labyrinthos ) is unclear.

MacGillivray it wants on the praenomen of the Egyptian pharaoh Amenemhet III Labaris. traced. An old theory sees a connection between the words labyrinth and Labrys (which originally (could have meant double) ax or stone) with the local suffix- inthos. According to Karl Kerényi the word labyrinth called a quarry with many enclosures and corridors. One of the oldest sources of the word is a stone tablet found at Knossos in Linear B, which contains the words DA- PU -RI- TO- JO PO -TI -NI -JA. From DA- PU -RI- TO- JO the word labyrinth could be created.

Types of mazes

The forms of labyrinths are varied. Based on the lines ( of the directional pattern ) can be distinguished in two ways:

• Labyrinth in the original sense: a tortuous, branching free path, inevitably reaches its lines with regular change of direction to the destination, the center.
• Labyrinth in the broader sense: may contain a system with branches, the dead ends or closed loops. This kind of labyrinth is also called maze. There, getting lost is possible and usually meaning the plant.

The building, built Daedalus for the Cretan King Minos at Knossos as a prison for the Minotaur, had a branched duct system, such as the Ariadne thread used for orientation suggests. Archaeological such a labyrinth has not been established. Ornamental depictions of labyrinths may have been used in the Cretan bull cult.

Labyrinthine pattern with branches in Europe are occupied sporadically since the 15th century. Real mazes created in the 16th century. The first equipped with high hedges plants where you could verirrren, coming in the second half of the 16th century (Verona, 1570 ). From this point on the development of labyrinths takes in a broad sense (the " real" mazes ) an independent development that has led until now to more complicated patterns and path networks.

From the Cretan pattern may be Roman Christian pattern developed by fourfold repetition of the Roman, two by fitting into each other scaled. The fact that the patterns have really formed in this way is not assignable. Considerations, by cutting a spiral or concentric circles and connecting the resulting paths open pieces, the basic shape of the labyrinthine character had arisen, are speculations of the late 19th century and are baseless.

From these basic shapes to more differentiated pattern developed. The transition systems of the Roman labyrinth were modified in three ways: as came with serpentine patterns, spirals, and simple or complex meanders about.

History

Prehistory

The dating of labyrinths in rock carvings is disputed. A maze is in the wall of the rock tomb of Luzzanas in Sardinia, local " Tomba del Labirinto " called carved.

Antiquity

Greece and Crete

A clay tablet with a text in Linear B script carries on the back of a labyrinth. This is the oldest datable image comes from the Palace of Nestor at Pylos Greek and was built around 1200 BC

The ruins of the palace of Knossos are often called " Labyrinth of Knossos " means. A structure having the similarity with a conventional labyrinth, there has not been found until today. A clay tablet with ( Mycenaean Linear B script ) dating back to around 1200 BC from Knossos describes offerings and possibly means a maze or the palace as a whole. The term da- pu -ri -to -jo, meaning " structure in stone" means, perhaps the naming of the labyrinthine architecture.

Mazes with seven whorls were mapped between 431 and 67 BC on Cretan coins. It includes both round and rectangular mazes that are similar in figurative of a Swastika, a bundle of rods or meanders. Occasionally the Knossos inscription is added.

Egypt

Strabo reports on the located in the Faiyum Basin mortuary temple at the Pyramid of Amenemhet III. (1844-1797 BC) in Hawara, whom he describes as a labyrinth. In hieroglyphic spelling his name lprnt what is vocalized as lo - pe -ro- hunt ( "Palace on the Lake" ).

Etruscans and Romans

In an Etruscan Oinochoe from Tragliatella a spear carrier is incised, followed by two horsemen. At the tail of the last horse depends a Cretan labyrinth, in the first approach is " Truva " scratched. ( 660-620 BC). Matthews interpreted this as a reflection of the Troy game.

Set on a column of the peristyle in the house of Marcus Lucretius ( Via Stabiniana ) in Pompeii, a drawing together with the inscription Labyrinthus hic habitat Minotaur ( "Labyrinth, here lives the Minotaur "), which from the time of the disaster (79 AD. ) is likely to come.

Labyrinths are depicted on Roman floor mosaics. About sixty of these mazes are obtained. They are found throughout the Roman Empire. The ornaments are too small to be committed. Made between the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD Some show the Minotaur or the fight of Theseus with the monster in the center ( Minotauromachie ). Good condition is the labyrinth in the Villa of Theseus in Nea Paphos ( Cyprus ). Other mazes of the Roman period are surrounded with walls and gate - pictures. The mosaic of Loig near Salzburg ( 275-300 AD) has thirteen whorls and in the center a Minotauromachie.

The earliest known labyrinth in a Christian church located in Reparatus in El Asnam ( Wilaya de Chlef, Algeria), a spiral pattern with eleven whorls. The presentation is from 324 AD In the middle of the labyrinthine square is an anagram with the words Sancta Ecclesia.

Middle Ages

In many medieval cathedrals, there are floor mazes. They served to penance, in which the Penitent on knees followed the pattern and said at certain stations prayers. The labyrinth symbolizes the soul's journey to salvation and at the same time the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. Examples can be found in the Basilica of Saint- Quentin ( northern France, octagonal), in the Cathedral of Amiens (France) and in the Cathedral of Siena (Italy). It is the form of the Christian labyrinth, which is referred to the specimen in the Cathedral of Chartres as " Chartres - type". This most famous floor labyrinth goes on a drawing by Villard de Honnecourt back ( 1200/1210 ). It has a diameter of 12.8 m and eleven whorls. It is designed in blue and white stone, a ring of 112 regularly spaced prongs forming the outer edge. The round center corresponds with a diameter of 3.1 meters the inner part of the window in the main facade.

The labyrinth in the cathedral of Bayeux is composed of red and black brick, has ten whorls, diameter 3.75 m, about 1200). The labyrinth in the cathedral of Reims (square with corner bastions, eleven whorls ) from the early 13th century was destroyed in 1779.

A round finger labyrinth is carved vertically into the wall at the west entrance of the Cathedral of Lucca ( northern Italy); so it can be traced with a finger. A sandstone slab with labyrinth comes from the monastery church of San Pietro de Conflentu in Pontremoli ( in La Spezia, Italy). Turf mazes also symbolize the " Chemin de Jerusalem ", their dating is rarely backed up. Presumably, they imitate the floor labyrinths of medieval cathedrals.

In Scandinavian churches in Denmark and the south of Sweden, Norway and Finland, there are only simple murals. Make almost exclusively Cretan type represents the small-scale wall paintings, were mostly executed single color on a white background. They were hidden under wall paintings have been discovered and uncovered during restoration work at the end of the 20th century. In Denmark, are among other things in the old church of Skive ( Jutland, Cretan, red, 15 whorls, 125 cm), in the churches of Hesse bearing ( Funen, Cretan, red, 11 whorls, 0.4 m, 1481 ) and of Roerslev ( Funen, Cretan, red and dark gray, 15 whorls, 125 × 110 cm, 15th century), of Gevninge ( Seeland, Cretan, maroon, 11 whorls, 0.5 m, 14th century) mazes. In Sweden, the churches of Grinstad can ( Dalsland, red, Christian type that contains character errors, 11 whorls, 100 cm, half received ) and Hablingbo ( Gotland, Cretan, 18 whorls, 100 cm) are given; in Norway the Church of Seljord (Telemark, Cretan with modifications, maroon, 11 whorls, 0.8 m, possibly 12th century).

In Woodstock in England a brick labyrinth has been demonstrated in the 12th century, which is probably one of the earliest secular systems. It was known by the affair of Henry II with the beautiful pink lips. It is not obtained.

Modern Times

In the resulting only in incomplete transcripts architectural treatise of Antonio Averlino ( called Filarete ) from the 15th century, there are three drawings of labyrinths, which were apparently as designs for defenses. In Sebastiano Serlio Sette libri dell'architettura ( "Seven Books on Architecture " ) two square mazes are in the fourth book ( 1537 ) are shown, one with five and the other with seven whorls. They should be thought of as ornamental jewelry or as a planting scheme for flowers or herbs and occur in the subsequent period in many other places.

In the Palazzo Ducale in Mantua is a damaged wall fresco by an unknown artist, which was probably written between 1521-23 and Mount Olympus, in the midst of a water maze shows. In the Palazzo del Te in Mantua are numerous depictions of labyrinths and with reference to the Minotaur myth exists mostly as impresa.

In the late Renaissance occur patterns that significantly differ in a number of branches and dead ends of the way systems of the hitherto known labyrinths. These mazes are an independent development. The first walk labyrinths are found in the northern Italian gardens, plants with head high walls arise in Italian Mannerism. The early mazes are usually formed from espalier hedges, clipped hedges are more significant only in the Baroque. In contrast to the unbranched labyrinth mazes are characterized by a complex network of roads with many junctions, intersections and dead ends. Mazes convey the danger of Irrgangs, the pleasure of destination search and the game of hide and seek. Many mazes of the Baroque were created in the pleasure gardens of residential palaces to pass the time of courtly society, they find themselves but also as an attraction for anyone in the guest house gardens in the Netherlands in the early 17th century. In England, Henry VIII had in 1690 to create a maze at Hampton Court, the 66 × 25 m and measures is still preserved today.

The emergence of Mazes is a parallel development, neither the maze displaced as jewelry or as a symbol.

In the emblem books of the 16th to 18th century labyrinth representations are used as warnings about the involvement of the people in the " sinful world ". In the panel painting, two garden mazes found in Lucas van Valckenborch from 1584 and 1587th Bartolomeo Veneto painted around 1510 a young man with a round labyrinth on the chest and a decorated with Salomon node coat.

Labyrinths also arise in the following centuries. A floor maze adorns a hall in the Town Hall of Ghent (light and dark tiles, 13 × 11 m, from 1533 ), it forms the destroyed mosaic floor of the monastery church of St. Bertin at St. Omer after. In the cathedral of Ely ( Cambridgeshire) a floor maze in 1870 created new ( black and white tiles, 6 × 6 m). An example of a pavement maze can be found in the late 19th century began the New Town Hall in Munich. It is located in the left courtyard and provides a reduced to nine whorls pattern from Chartres - type is ( 17.5 × 18.5 m). In the Thorvaldsen Museum in Copenhagen is a floor labyrinth ( Roman type, red and white tiles, about 5 × 5 m, 1839-48 ).

Heavy datable are the Troy Towns, in the majority stone labyrinths, but also some turf mazes. The edges of the flights are made of stones, which are half buried in the soil. The labyrinth has no dead ends, but a single path which ends in the middle. Troy Town Maze on St. Agnes, Isles of Scilly, a stone labyrinth, 1729 created by a lighthouse keeper.

The accumulation of stone settings on the coasts of Scandinavia is striking. Most of them are works of Cretan type. The dating is difficult ( lichenometry ), few seem to date from the late Middle Ages, most of the buildings fall within the 18th and 19th centuries. Examples: on Blue Maiden ( Gotland, first described in 1741 ), Steinvåg at Gamvik ( Finnmark ) and twelve stone labyrinths on the Solovetsky Islands ( White Sea ).

Presence

In the second half of the 20th century, various artists took the labyrinth motif again, the sculptors and writers Michael Ayrton, of the ancient myth of Daedalus and Icarus devoted himself, the artist Alice Aycock, a representative of the concept art, and, 1980s since the years, the designer Adrian Fisher, the pavement mazes with depictions of the Minotaur ' created. A new interpretation of a church labyrinth was opened in Grey 's Court, near Reading in 1981 by Robert Runcie, Archbishop of Canterbury.

A walk pavement labyrinth was opened in Marzahn Recreational Park in Berlin in 2007. It is an enlarged replica of the Chartres labyrinth dar. The diameter of the plant, which is adjacent to the forecourt of a hedge maze, is 20.8 meters. It was designed by the landscape architect Thomas Michael Bauermeister. In the park of Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna a maze built with a feng shui stone adjacent to a 1999 restored Hedge maze. " Feminist mazes " can be found on the Zeughausplatz in Zurich and Frankfurt (woman commemorative maze ). The religious making sense of the maze is to make new experience with its medicinal plants and pastures figures, which opened in 2007, "Living Labyrinth" of the Catholic community of women in Germany ( kfd ) on the grounds of the monastery Helfta. Even in literature and film play a role mazes, as in Jorge Luis Borges, and in the novel The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco.

The allure of the mysterious and unknown origin of the maze left it mainly for esoteric, Christian and feminist groups to the projection of their ideas are. Numerous new mazes were created, maintained and used for events. There are both in the Anglo-American as well as in German-speaking countries a labyrinth movement, which deals with the meaning of the labyrinth. The pacing of a walk the labyrinth, which is understood as a symbol of the tangled path of life, is meditation, and calls on us to reconsider one's own life path. In addition, have been apprehended in Advent Labyrinth the symbolism of light. It represents Jesus Christ, who redeemed the people from the darkness. In the center about the light in the form of a candle or symbolized by a Gospel Book as the Word of God can be as objective are.

History of Research

A deeper exploration of labyrinths began with the growing interest in the ancient world in the early 18th century. So visited in 1700 as part of an expedition Joseph Pitton de Tournefort the cave at Gortyn in Crete, where it was thought the ancient Cretan labyrinth. In the 19th century, speculative theories that are largely oriented to the descriptions of ancient authors emerged. The Roman labyrinth mosaic of Loig in Salzburg was discovered in 1815, the wine jug Tragliatella salvaged 1877. Arthur Evans put 1922 free the ruins of the palace of Knossos, in which from now on - the labyrinth of Daedalus was seen - without clear justification. The Pylos tablet was unearthed in 1957.

William Henry Matthews (1882-1948) succeeded in 1922 with his book Mazes and labyrinths ( " Mazes and Labyrinths " ) a first systematic presentation. In 1967 with Il libro dei Labirinti ( " The Book of Labyrinths " ) by Paolo Santarcangeli ( 1909-1995 ) a more detailed description of the labyrinthine subject. The exhibitions in Milan and Munich ( Haus der Kunst, 1982) declining, extensive publication of Hermann Kern documented first catalog fashion the varied maze forms in detail. In the period following the work of reference point and source of further research was. The Briton Jeff Saward founded 1983, the small magazine Caerdroia.