This symbol represents a real mystery: in fact it appears in very different places and times. Its meaning is a mystery. Some researchers believe that it is a "ritual course", confining it to the religious-mystic field. Other say it may represent a human brain. But nobody of them is able to give an explanation about its so great diffusion in the world and in times so distant among them. Now let's see a brief list of the places in which the labyrinth was found:

Stone track on Isle of Gotland (Sweden)

Courtesy of www.geomancy.org

Decoration on an Etruscan vase found in Tragliatella (Italy)

Rupestrian inscription in Rocky Valley, just North of Tintagel, in Cornwall (England)

Courtesy of www.geomancy.org

Engraving on a coin of Cnosso (Isle of Creta)

Holy symbol of Hopi indians (Pueblo tribe of the southwestern United States)

Symbol present in the Manas Chakra (Rajastan, India)

Symbol present in the temple of Kom Ombo (Egypt)

Labyrinth reported by Daniele Zeri
For further informations about this discovery, keep on reading

Symbol present in the "Domus de Jana" of Luzzanas in Sardinia (Italy); it's dated about 6000 years old

Labyrinth reported by Stefano F.

Symbol present on a pottery fragment from Syria

Symbol present on a rock fragment found at Oraibi, Arizona

Stone track located in St. Agnes, Scilly Islands, United Kingdom

Carved rock discovered in Padugula, India

Drawing visible in Pompei, Italy; it's accompanied by this writing: "Hic habitat Minotaurus" (here dwells the Minotaur)

Carving located on a block of granite discovered in England, known as "the Hollywood stone"

Symbol present on a clay tablet found in the ruins of the palace of King Nestor in Pylos (Peloponnesus, Greece), dated 1200 BC

Carving on a rock at Mogor (Marín, Pontevedra) - Spain

 

 

Labyrinth reported by Oyvind

Rock painting in Potash Temple at Tikla, Madhya Pradesh

 

 

A NEW DISCOVERY

The national archeological park of rupestrian inscriptions of Naquane at Capo di Ponte (in Lombardia, Italy) offers one of the most important manifestations of rupestrian art in the world; the engraved figures in this area haven't been completely counted in a census, but their number is estimated to be in the range of ten thousands. The inscriptions cover a very large period of time, that starts from Epipaleolithic (about 10000 B.C.) to the Middle Ages. Over one of these megaliths (at about the half  of the Great Rock) there's a symbol that at the first look seems equal to the labyrinth.

On guide-books the following brief description is reported:
LABYRINTH (engraving N.5)
The engraving forms a meander, in which it's possible to follow a whole course, from entrance to exit: then a labyrinth. It comes into one's mind,  on this subject, the legend of the Cretan king Minosse, that made to build a labyrintine building, in which he could keep imprisoned the Minotaure, a monster with a human body and a bull head, whom Teseo succeeded in killing with the help of Arianna and of her thread. This labyrinth of Naquane is placed on a more weak human figure. Some researchers attribute the labyrinth to the ritual index of the agricultural world, connected in some way with the seeding and harvest periods and, then, also with the solar cycles. Another interpretation hooks this symbol to initiation courses. There are remarkable analogies with images of the same type present in the Etruscan world.
 

But the most interesting thing is that there aren't only simple "analogies", but the specular image of the engraving No.5 of the Great Rock is the EXACT SOLUTION of the true labyrinth!

What does it mean? No one can say it. However this fact confirms the precise knowledge of this symbol also in North Italy.
 
 
 

ALSO IN EGYPT

This symbol really seems to be know everywhere. One representation is visible also in the temple of Kom Ombo, that is located on the river Nile about 50 Km north of Aswan (Egypt). It can be found on the floor of a corridor posterior to the temple, where priests waited for the ceremony. The guides tell that this engraving, together with many others of various types which are in this place, would work as games, because sometimes priests had to wait even some days here.

Many thanks to Daniele Zeri, who reported us via e-mail this labirynth and its photo.
 
 
 

A POSSIBLE  INTERPRETATION

Looking better at the labyrinth and having present the description of the city of Atlantis furnished by Plato in the Critia, it could be thought that it represents nevertheless that the MAP of the aforesaid city!  Let's see how one can arrive at the following conclusion.  First of all let's remember thewords of Plato in this passage, extracted from Critia:
"...On this mountain had his abode one of the primordial men of that land, that was born from the ground; his name was Evenor and he had a wife named Leucippe, and they had an unique daughter, Cleito.  The young girl was already a woman when the father and the mother died; Poseidon fell in love with her and had intercourses with her and, breaking the land, he surrounded the hill, on which she lived, creating alternate areas of sea and of ground, the one concentric to the others; there were two of them of ground and three of water, circular as if processed at the lathe, having each the circumference equidistant in every point from the center, in a way that no one could come to the island, since ships and navigation didn't still exist".

And more:
"...( the sovereigns of Atlantis) first of all constructed bridges over the rings of sea which surrounded the ancient metropolis, and built a road that allowed to enter and leave from the royal palace.  And since the beginning they built the palace in the abode of the god and of their ancestors, and they continued to adorn it from generation to generation, since every king overcame, at the apex of the glory, the one who had preceeded him, until making building a wonder to see, both in amplitude and in beauty.  And, departing from the sea, they dug a canal three hundred feet wide, a hundred feet deep, fifty stadiums long, which arrived to the outer area creating a passage from the sea up to it that became a harbor; and the passage was wide enough to allow the entrance at bigger ships. Additionally, they opened at the level of the bridges the rings of ground that separated the rings of sea, creating a space sufficient for the passage of one trireme at a time from a ring to the other and they covered these canals creating an underground way for the ships; in fact the shores were raised of quite a lot above the level of the water.  Now the biggest of the areas, which could be reached from the sea through this passage, had a width of three stadiums and the area of ground that came after was likewise wide; but the two following areas, the one of water, the other of ground, were two stadiums wide and the one which surrounded the central island was only one stadium wide.  The island on which the palace rose had a diameter of five stadiums..."

And now let's try to elaborate the image of the labyrinth. Let's color alternatively the lines of the labyrinth in blue (water) and in brown (ground), operating a small modification at the center:

And now let's color in brown all the figure (we expand the strips of ground), adding the large canal mentioned by Plato that joined the rings to the sea:

Let's finally color the various parts, in a way to highlight the areas of the city, described in an accurate way by Plato in the Critia:

 If it really were the map of the city of Atlantis, its great diffusion would mean the presence, in the past, of notable links between the Atlantidean world and the various populations, if not even a straight breed of these last from Atlantis, after that it was destroyed from a dreadful catastrophe.

Images similar to the labyrinth are found almost everywhere; here there's a carving that is located on a block of basalt not far from the stone circle and from the heap cemetery at Cauldside Burn, Kirkcudbright, in Scotland:

And now a "crop circle", of unknown origin, the shape of which recalls the one of the labyrinth:

Basin stone located in a prehistoric tomb at Knowth, Ireland:

Other similar labyrinths are represented here:

Photo of the labyrinth at Troy farm

Labyrinth of Julian's Bower, near the village of Alkborough (England)

If you want more infos on labyrinths around the world, visit this site: