Saturday, January 5, 2008

Labyrinths

The theme of labyrinths has always interested me, and I built websites [display] that simulate those of Chartres (France) and Lucca (Italy).

Google Maps has just provided a link to an excellent video presenting an anthology of labyrinths throughout the world:



It's a pity that they speak, not of labyrinths, but of mazes. To my mind, a maze is merely a confusing entity capable of trapping visitors, like streets in some of the poorly-designed housing allotments that spring up these days on the outskirts of cities. [I'm thinking, say, of the north of Valence.] A labyrinth, on the other hand, is a carefully-planned system of paths designed to make it difficult to move either from the outside to the inside (in the case of a treasure), or from the inside to the outside (in the original Ancient Greek sense of a prison).

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