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The ancient textual and pictorial tradition are in contradiction to each other here, which probably cannot be resolved. Ariadne's thread suggests a branching la
by Archelaos 2y ago
The ancient textual and pictorial tradition are in contradiction to each other here, which probably cannot be resolved. Ariadne's thread suggests a branching labyrinth, but in ancient pictures we actually only find unicursal labyrinths.
For the textual tradition: https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Minotauros.html https://www.theoi.com/Ther/Minotauros.html
Some images of Roman labyrinths: https://www.labyrinthos.net/photopage02.html https://www.labyrinthos.net/photopage02.html
- zarzavat 2y agoMaybe they just found it hard to draw a branching labyrinth? It’s easy for us with Wikipedia and all, but if you’d potentially never seen a branching labyrinth then a non-branching labyrinth is a lot easier to draw. It’s especially hard for modern people to conceive of a world before the printing press where information wasn’t easy accessible.
- whythre 2y agoThe challenge may have also been artistic. I don’t know if those artists would have been up for a branching labyrinth. I have seen how medievals drew cats and they do not look right.
- spoiler 2y agoTIL labyrinth and maze aren't the same thing! I always thought they were synonyms. I grew up in Croatia, and there the word for both maze and labyrinth is "labirint"
- tengwar2 2y agoThey overlap in meaning to the extent that I would use either interpretation for either word. For instance in England there are chalk figures called miz-mazes (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizmaze https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mizmaze) which are non-branching.