In modern Turkey, Ireland, Greece and India, the history of labyrinth and labyrinth symbols can be traced back to the Neolithic Age. In Indian tantric literature, mazes often appear in the design of mandalas, while in Britain and Ireland, mazes often appear in the symbols of rings and cups in stone products, as well as in famous whirlpool designs, such as those found in the following places. New Granci.
As mentioned above, a maze is different from a maze in that a maze usually has only one path, while a maze can have multiple paths. Even so, the terms maze and maze are often used interchangeably. Scholars Alwyn and Brinley Rees discussed the importance of the maze and why this design seemed to have such a strong * * * sound to the ancients, especially the Celts:
In the past 30 years, a lot has been written about the ritual significance of the maze, which can be used to resist supernatural forces and is the only way for the dead to reach the spiritual world. Here, we will simply notice that the maze is related to the direction, while the two are related to the opposite direction. When crossing the maze, people will not go in any specific direction, but will reach a destination that can't be located by reference to the compass. According to Irish folk beliefs, fairies and other supernatural beings can make people lose their way ... when sailors get lost and carry paddles-when they have nowhere else to go-they arrive at a wonderful island. (346)
Then, the maze may help people find their spiritual path by purposefully removing a person from the same understanding of linear time and direction between two points. Walking through the maze, a person will get lost in the outside world more and more, and may accidentally find his real life track. The theme of the maze leading to fate is best explained in theseus and Minotaur, one of the most famous stories in Greek mythology.
Crete maze
The most famous maze appeared in the story of theseus, the prince of Athens in Greek mythology. This maze was designed by Daedalus for Minos, the king of Knossos in Crete, to accommodate the fierce Minotaur who was half man and half cow. When Minos and his brother competed for the throne, he prayed for Poseidon to give him a white bull as a symbol of God's blessing for his career. Minos should have dedicated this bull to Poseidon, but he was fascinated by its beauty and decided to keep it at the expense of his own much worse bull. Poseidon was angered by this ingratitude, which made Minos' wife Pacifi fall in love with the bull and mate with it. The creatures she gave birth to are uncontrollable, Minotaur, who eats human flesh. Minos asked architect Daedalus to build a maze to accommodate monsters.
Every year, seven young Athenian men and women are sent to Crete, and then put into a maze to be eaten by minotaurs.
Because Minos was not interested in feeding his own people to this creature, he levied taxes on Athens, including sending seven young men and women to Crete every year, and then putting them into a maze for Minotaur to eat. Daedalus's maze is so complicated that he can hardly cross it by himself. After the successful completion, Minos imprisoned him and his son Icarus in a high tower to prevent him from revealing the secrets of the building. Later, in another famous story in Greek mythology, Daedalus and Icarus tied bird feathers together with wax to form wings and flew out of the tower, thus escaping from the prison. Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax on his wings melted, and he fell into the sea and drowned.
However, before they fled, Athens sent 14 young people to Crete every year and were killed in the maze until theseus, the son of King Egus, vowed to end the suffering of his people. He left Athens voluntarily as one of the tributes, and the traditional black sails was hung on the ship to pay tribute to the victims. He told his father that if he succeeded, he would change the sail to white on his way home.
In Crete, theseus caught the attention of Minos' daughter Ariadne, who fell in love with him and secretly gave him a sword and a twine ball. She told him that once he entered the maze, he would tie the thread to the opening of the maze, and after he killed the minotaur, he could follow it back to freedom. Theseus killed the monster, saved the young people sent with him, fled Crete with Ariadne, but abandoned her on the island of Naxos on the way home. Afterwards, he hurried to Athens and forgot to turn the sails of the tribute ship from black to white. When Egos saw black sails coming back, he jumped into the sea. Then theseus took his place.
Labyrinth as a symbol of change
Aside from the purpose of the origin myth-because the Aegean Sea was named after the Aegean King after his death-the focus of this story is the adulthood of Prince theseus and how he ascended the throne. Theseus is a great hero. He saved his companion and his city from the curse of Minotaur, but he also has great defects, because he willingly betrayed the woman responsible for his success and unconsciously forgot to change the color of his father's death sail.
The maze in the story is the carrier of theseus's transformation from youth to king.
The maze in the story is the carrier of theseus's transformation from youth to king. He must enter an unknown maze, kill a monster, and then return to his familiar world; He did this, but he still kept the defects of his youth until he changed because of the loss of his father and had to grow up and take on the responsibility of an adult. The maze provided him with the opportunity to change and grow, but theseus, like many people, refused the opportunity until he was forced to change.
Archaeologist Arthur Evans (A.D. 185 1 to 194 1) discovered what he thought was Knossos during the excavation from A.D. 1900 to A.D. 1905. Although this view is questioned, the legendary maze is still related to the site of Minos Palace in Knossos, which ancient writers called the actual site rather than a mythical building. Evans was convinced of his discovery, and explained the myth of Minotaur through the Minoan jumping action (shown in the murals on the walls of the palace). In this action, animals, people and bulls seem to be a kind of creature by grasping the horns of the bull and jumping backwards.
However, whether Knossos has a literal maze is not as important as the maze as a symbol of change and transformation in the story. This same type of symbolism also appears in other places, especially in the most famous ancient labyrinth: the labyrinth of Amenemcht III in Egypt (BC 1860- 18 15).
Feather maze
Hawala's maze is impressive. According to Herodotus, it can be compared with any miracle in the ancient world. Miroslav Verner, a scholar, pointed out that Amenemhet III's maze complex was "mentioned by ancient travelers" and went on to say:
Herodotus, Diodo Rascius, Strappo and Pliny all mentioned it. According to Diodoros, Daedalus was so impressed with this monument during his trip to Egypt that he decided to use the same model to build a maze for Minos in Crete. (430)
Maze is an Egyptian temple with a complex constituency pyramid, including an ancient court village built in Hawala by Amenekht III of the 12 dynasty (from 2040 BC to 1782 BC). This maze is a mortuary complex that is more magnificent than any maze built at that time. Herodotus described this huge building:
What I saw with my own eyes is indeed a miracle of the past ... It has 12 roof courtyards with doors facing each other, six facing north and six facing south, which are continuous. There are two sets of rooms in it, some are underground, some are above, and there are 3000 rooms ... The passage of the rooms winding in and out of the yard is extremely complicated, which has left us countless surprises. Through, from the courtyard into the room, from the room into the colonnade, and then from these corridors into other rooms, and then from the room into other courtyards. The whole roof is made of stone, and so are the walls. The walls are full of carved figures, and each yard is surrounded by white stone pillars, which fits perfectly. Near the corner at the end of the maze, a 240-foot-high pyramid is carved with huge animals. The road leading here is built underground. (History, II. 148)
Strappo described the maze as "a huge palace composed of many palaces" and praised its grandeur as "comparable to the pyramids" (Geography, XVII. Pages 37-38). Diodorus pointed out that "in sculpture and in fact, in all the processes, they left nothing to enable the subsequent rulers to surpass them" (history, I.66), Pliny pointed out:
We must also mention the maze ... There is no doubt that Daedalus adopted it as the model of the maze he built in Crete, but he only copied one percent of it, including zigzag and dazzling complex backward passages. This is not only a narrow land, including many miles of "walking" or "riding", such as the examples we see on the mosaic floor or the ritual games we boys play, but we often let the door enter the wall to fraudulently suggest moving forward. (Natural History, XXXVI. 19)
It is believed that the maze of Hawala, like any temple in Egypt, reflects the afterlife. There are 42 halls in the whole structure. Strappo is related to the number of Noum (province) in Egypt, but it also corresponds to the 42 judges who dominate the fate of the soul, as well as Osiris, Thoth, Anubis and Magat, in the final trial of the Truth Hall. Then, a maze can be built to guide people through a confusing maze-like the afterlife landscape described in pyramid scriptures, coffin scriptures and Egyptian books about the dead-to lead a person to a state of enlightenment.
This impressive building complex rotted in an unknown place and was demolished; These components were then used in other construction projects. This place is such a good source of building materials that a small town grows around the ruins. Today, this great architectural miracle no longer exists, except for the pyramid of Majnik III in Hawala, Fayoum Oasis. Verner wrote that "due to the early destruction of the buildings, the original plan of the maze could not be accurately reconstructed", but he pointed out how the archaeologist flinders Petrie first entered it in A.D. 1889 and concluded that it was the same as the structure called the maze. The ancient maze (428).
Scholar Richard H. Wilkinson pointed out that "it was one of the greatest tourist attractions in Egypt during the Greek-Roman period" and the complex "represented an impressive display of the established temple plan" (134). Because the temple was deliberately built as a place of change, the theme of the maze as a symbol of change is as obvious here as the story of Daedalus's later design of the lost palace.
Maze and its significance
There have been some Zajac islands in the Bolshoi Theatre in modern Russia (about 500 BC) because of Russ Posner, king of Etruscan (about 580 BC), who built part of Italian tombs in many other mazes in the ancient world. Celtic maze is considered as a part of funeral ceremonies in England, Ireland and Scotland. Scholar Rodney castleton pointed out:
Labyrinths are constantly reappearing in different forms in different stages of Celtic cultural evolution, some of which are earlier than Minos Labyrinths. Labyrinth is closely related to knots as an idea: lines around the design. The difference is that in the knot design, the line has no starting point and no ending point, while in the maze, there are usually starting points and ending points. Both symbolize the journey. This may be a specific journey or adventure, or it may be the whole journey of life itself. Therefore, the maze forms the visual counterpart of epic folk stories, which usually consists of a long and tortuous journey with repeated plots. They may also symbolize a journey of self-discovery, a journey in and out of the self-center. In this way, ancient symbols appear in the form of Jungian prototype: a tool for self-exploration and healing. (439-440)
This is of course obvious in the tantric literature Datura from India, especially in Rigveda (BC 1500), where all kinds of books follow a maze-like route, and a person embarks on a spiritual road alone and finally makes his own inner journey with the outside world. Carl jung (1875-1961ce) regarded the maze as a symbol of the reconciliation between the inner self and the outside world. Scholar Mary Ardenbrook wrote:
Jung described the effect of "getting drunk with honor and victory". There is no longer internal or external, there is no longer "I" and "the other", and 1 and 2 no longer exist (he means that he has two different personalities inside); "Caution and timidity have disappeared, and the earth and the sky, the universe and everything in it have become one." ( 1)
Jung discussed the maze journey of his life stage:
When we have to deal with problems, we instinctively refuse to try to cross the darkness and darkness. We just want to hear clear results, completely forgetting that these results can only be brought when we venture into the darkness and reproduce it. But to penetrate the darkness, we must summon all the enlightenment power that consciousness can provide ... the serious problems in life will never be completely solved. If they look like this, then it must indicate that something is missing. The meaning and purpose of the problem seems to lie not in its solution, but in our constant efforts to solve it. Only in this way can we be saved from boredom and rigidity. ( 1 1)
Long before Jung expounded this concept so eloquently, people in the ancient world seemed to understand it. Finally, the maze is a complete journey of self. Although the ancient Egyptians or Greeks may not express it this way, their architecture and myths point to the same conclusion reached by Jung and other later psychologists: it is through the maze of their current environment that people can find the ultimate meaning of realizing a person's purpose and existence.