Monday 14 March 2011

Through the Labyrinth

XII Labyrinths as Personal Emblems.

Labyrinth sumbolism encompasses abstract ideas, generic terms, objects, and moral judments, to which interpretations of the labyrinth - as a tortuous path that threatens to lead one astray, as a world of sin, or as the underworld - bear witness. The labyrinth can also be associated with people. To those who wished to document their understanding of self able; to elect not ot view the labyrinth in terms of itself but, rather, as an allusion to its alleged inventor, Daedalus, the father of artists and architects, with whom the person would have wished to be compared and identified. The other possibility was to choose one meaning associated with labyrinths and to employ it - often in combination with a motto as a personal atrribute.

In Herodotus's time, the word "labyrinth" was used in a metaphorical sense to describe a large notable structure, worthy of Daedalus.

A similar case would appear to be represented by a Greel inscription in Imperial Rome, which a certain Quintus Julius Miletus ordered to be carved on a monument in a place designated a "Labyrinth". In the inscription he addresses his fellow guild members, the marmorarii (stonemasons), who were under the protection of Greco-Egyptians god Sarapis, as follows: " To the living this is a maze; you, friends, should always take pleasure in the labyrinth."

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