Labyrinth

“Temple at the opening of the canal” (Brugsch). Hero dot us (ii. 148) says that it lay a little above Lake Moeris, near the city named after the crocodiles. Strabo, who visited it, states that it lay between thirty and forty stadia from the first sailing into the canal, and that Arsinoe lay about 100 stadia further on. It must therefore have been situated between Arsinoe and the entrance to the Fayum, and not on the further side of the Birket el Kurun, as some have thought. Hawara is identified by Petrie as the site of the Labyrinth. According to Hero dot us, “the pyramids may individually be compared to many of the magnificent structures of Greece, but even these are inferior to the Labyrinth. It is composed of twelve courts, all of which are covered; their entrances are opposite to each other, six to the north, and six to the south; one wall encloses the whole; the apartments are of two kinds, there are 1500 above the surface of the ground and as many beneath, in all 3000. The upper apartments I myself saw, and I pronounce them among the greatest efforts of human industry and art. The almost infinite number of winding pa ages through the different courts excited my warmest admiration, from spacious halls I pa ed through smaller apartments, and from them again to large and magnificent courts, almost without end. The ceilings and walls are all of marble, the latter richly adorned with the finest sculpture, and around each court are pillars of the whitest and most polished marble.” Strabo speaks of the long and intricate pa ages which led to the peristyle courts, all backing on to one wall—and of the hall of twenty-seven columns, connected with the courts, the number of them being equal to the nomes of Egypt. Pliny, who appears to have strung together a number of traditional reports, says there were sixteen nome courts with forty statues of Nemesis in them. He also mentions the crocodile burying places. Petrie, taking Hero dot us and Strabo for his guides, carefully surveyed the ground in 1889, and decided that no other site than Hawara was po ible for the Labyrinth. Here he found an enormous area—1000 ft. by 800 ft.—well defined with a bed of limestone chips, and traces beneath it of a foundation, evidently prepared to receive some enormous building. “Mere figures will not signify readily to the mind the vast extent of construction; but when we compare it with the greatest of other Egyptian temples it may be somewhat realized. On that space could be erected the great hall of Karnak and all the succe ive temples adjoining it, and the great court and pylons of it; also the temple of Mut and that of Khensu, and that of Amen-hetep III. at Karnak; also the two great temples of Luxor, and still there would be room for the whole of the Rame eum. In short all of the temples on the east of Thebes and one of the largest on the west bank, might be placed together in the one area of the ruins of Hawara. Here we certainly have a site worthy of the renown which the Labyrinth acquired.” From careful observations made on the spot, Petrie has recovered this much of the arrangement of the Labyrinth:—On the eastern side may yet be seen part of the limestone pavement, which has survived the needs of the French engineers who laid the Fayum railway and used it as their stone quarry. This pavement appears to have been double, and consisted of blocks of yellow limestone with fine white limestone slabs superimposed. A few of the blocks of the architraves still lie about, bearing the cartouches of Amen-em-hat III. (Dynasty XII.) and Sebekneferu (Dynasty XIII.), as do also the fragments of a clustered column, and the remains of three red granite columns. From the levels it is clear that the building was square, with structures thrown out on the east side; that “the level was uniform except along the N. edge (perhaps outside the building) and at the N.E. outbuildings; that red granite columns were used, but more likely only in the northern part of the site; and built pillars rather than monolith columns seem to belong to the part south of the cro wall.” It is quite evident that, unlike Egyptian temples, which consisted of one inner shrine with chambers or courts built round it, the Labyrinth never had a central shrine, but that each court formed a little temple by itself.