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Welcome to the Labyrinth

The theme of this blog is the labyrinth in almost all aspects. It has been around since 2008. Since 2012 Andreas Frei from Switzerland is part of it. About once a month a new post should appear.

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In a blog, the individual articles (posts) are arranged chronologically: the oldest at the back, the newest at the front. The structure is thus different from a website, where everything is always in the same place.

If you’re looking for something specific about labyrinths or just want to know what’s actually on the blog, you might like to have some sort of table of contents.

This now exists and can be found as the Contents tab in the menu under the cover image next to the About us tab.

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Most images and graphics are created by Andreas Frei and me (Erwin Reißmann), unless otherwise noted, and are provided under the license CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.

Reverence to the Classical Labyrinth

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Last year, together with my wife, I undertook a trip to Greece and Crete. In addition to many archeological sites, we also visited various museums there. I specially focused my attention on labyrinths. Well, I didn’t find any new, unknown labyrinth. However, I saw various figures, that can be used as patterns of labyrinths or have similarities with labyrinths. Here, I want to present some of them. 

First, we have a look at the National Archeological Museum, Athens. Here we can find the only real labyrinth, I have encountered during my journey. It is this the clay tablet form the palace at Pylos, on the reverse of which a classical labyrinth is inscribed. This is the oldest securely dated labyrinth labyrinth. It has one axis and seven circuits and the sequence of circuits is 3 2 1 4 7 6 5. 

As a reference of all the countless labyrinths of this type that have been created until now, I here want to show the orignial itself and how it is presented. Figure 1 shows the showcase, in which, together with other contemporary clay tablets from 13 BC, this labyrinth is presented.

Figure 1. The Showcase with Linear B Clay Tablets

In fig. 2 the labyrinth is shown from close up. 

Figure 2. The Labyrinth

Thus, I have shown my reverence to this labyrinth and in following posts I will present some patterns. 

Labyrinths of Ingolstadt and by Gossembrot

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In the second post of this series, I have pointed to two other labyrinths, that are made of double barriers (see related posts 1, below): The labyrinth of Ingolstadt, that was also designed by Agnes Barmettler (see link below), and Gossembrot 53 v (related posts 2).

Figure 1 shows the basic forms and patterns of these labyrinths compared. They have the following similarities:

  • 4 axes and 7 circuits
  • double-barriers at all side-axes
  • a “classical” main axis, meaning that the main axis looks the same as the axis of the Classical labyrinth
  • two full circuits that are not interrupted by one of the side axes
  • both labyrinths belong to a group of 4 related labyrinths, and thus are not self-dual or self-transpose.

However, remarkable are also the differences:

  • Both labyrinths belong to different groups
  • The full circuits of Ingolstadt lie on the outside (circuits 1 and 2)
  • The full circuits of Gossembrot lie on the outermost and innermost circuits (circuits 1 and 7)
Figure 1. The Labyrinths Compared
Figure 1. The Labyrinths Compared

In both labyrinths the labyrinthine course of the path actually takes place on five circuits. These are the innermost five circuits in the labyrinth of Ingolstadt. The two outermost circuits can be easily omitted and the third circuit can be directly connected to the fourth with the path directing to the center. In the labyrinth by Gossembrot, the outer- and innermost circuits are stronger integrated into the whole course of the pathway on the central five circuits (circuits 2 – 6) and cannot be omitted without further ado. Therefore Gossembrot looks more balanced. 

Links:

Related Posts:

  1. The Relatives of the Labyrinth at Leonhardskirchplatz
  2. Sigmund Gossembrot / 3