The Classical Labyrinth	Arcera, Spain	Padugula, India	Breamore, Hampshire, UK

he true labyrinth has no false pathways or dead ends to confuse those who follow its winding course. Puzzle mazes in gardens, as children's toys or in theme parks are all multicursal - many paths - to entice and fool the visitor. Instead, it consists of a single meandering pathway which leads inexorably from the entrance to the centre, and on occasions back out again. Throughout the world there exists a symbol - a series of concentric lines, carefully connected. This symbol and its family of derivatives has been traced back over 3500 years; it occurs in different cultures, at different points in time, in places as diverse as Peru, Arizona, Iceland, Scandinavia, Crete, Egypt, India and Sumatra. The lines of contact between these widely spaced bursts of labyrinth consciousness are difficult to trace, its origins remain mysterious.

     The mediums employed for its use have been many and varied: a simple symbol in a mythology, carved on wood or a rockface, woven into the design on a blanket or basket, laid out on the ground with water-worn stones in the desert or on shorelines, in coloured stone or tiles on the floors of villas, churches and cathedrals, or cut into the living turf on a village green - to name a few from the many varieties recorded. Sometimes the design is altered or developed, but more often the symbol of the labyrinth is employed with no significant variation. For the labyrinth symbol is as simple to construct as it appears complex to navigate.

     The labyrinth has often been employed as a symbol for the omphalos, the sacred centre or city: Roman mosaic labyrinths surrounded by fortified walls, protecting the centre of the labyrinth and the cities of the Roman Empire; symbolising the pathway leading to the top of Baboquivari, a sacred mountain in Arizona; as a painted threshold design in India, known as kolam, the fort. Throughout Europe the ancient labyrinths are known as Troy Town, City of Troy or Walls of Troy, the legendary city of the ancient Pagan world, or as Jerusalem in a later Christian context. In medieval Europe the labyrinth was used as a symbol of Christian faith, the one true path to eternal salvation. In many cultures the labyrinth has been used as a ceremonial pathway and as a dancing ground.