The Labyrinth

The Egyptian Pharaoh Amenemhet III constructed a funerary pyramid with a huge temple complex around it in the form of an incredible labyrinth. Designed to guard the Pharaoh’s mummy and grave goods from disturbance or robbery, the labyrinth was so lavish and cunning that it is said to have been both the inspiration and template for the famous labyrinth that Daedalus built at Knossos for King Minos of Crete – the one that supposedly contained the Minotaur. The upper level of the exterior temple is thought to have been an amazing 800,000 square feet in area, containing 42 major hallways – one for each province of Egypt, honouring that region’s gods – and twelve huge, lavish courtyards, along with thousands of lesser rooms. A bewildering maze of galleries and tunnels connected the courtyards, hallways and rooms into an almost impenetrable web.

The Greek historian Heterodotus visited the labyrinth in the 5th century BC. At this point, it was already nearly 1500 years old, and almost undoubtedly falling into disrepair. Even so, he was stunned by it:

“I visited this building and found it to surpass description: for if all the great works of the Greeks could be put together in one, they would not equal this labyrinth. The Pyramids likewise surpass description, but so the Labyrinth surpasses the Pyramids … The upper chambers I saw with my own eyes, and found them to excel all other human productions; for the passages through the houses, and the varied windings of the paths across the courts excited in me infinite admiration as I passed from the courts into chambers, and from the chambers into colonnades, and from the colonnades into fresh houses, and again from these into courts unseen before.”

Amenemhet's pyramid today, (c) Christiane Mueller-Hazenbos

Crypts devoted to the crocodile god Sobek ran below the surface level, equally confusing in design. Even four hundred years after Heterodotus, the Greek geographer Strabo declared that “no stranger can find his way either into any court or out of it without a guide.” Every wall was carved and decorated, and the pyramid was carved with gigantic decorative figures. Somewhere in the depths of the maze, a hidden tunnel led down and under the temple before arising inside the pyramid. Even then, the inside of the pyramid contained further mazes and catacombs. The pyramid was first explored from 1888 by the British archaeologist Flinders Petrie, and it took him two seasons to find his way through to the burial chamber.

Unfortunately, very little trace of the labyrinth survives today – even the field of limestone chips Petrie uncovered around the crumbling pyramid has now gone, carted off by enterprising locals.