Editing Labyrinth (section)

===Cretan labyrinth===
[[File:Gaziantep Zeugma Museum Daedalus mosaic 1871.jpg|thumb|A [[Roman mosaic]] from [[Zeugma, Commagene]] (now in the [[Zeugma Mosaic Museum]]) depicting [[Daedalus]], his son [[Icarus]], Queen [[Pasiphaë]], and two of her female attendants]]
[[File:Edward Burne-Jones - Tile Design - Theseus and the Minotaur in the Labyrinth - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|Theseus in the Minotaur's labyrinth, by [[Edward Burne-Jones]], 1861]]
When the [[Bronze Age]] site at [[Knossos]] was excavated by archaeologist [[Arthur Evans]], the complexity of the architecture prompted him to suggest that the palace had been the Labyrinth of Daedalus. Evans found various bull motifs, including an image of [[Bull-leaping|a man leaping over the horns of a bull]], as well as depictions of a [[labrys]] carved into the walls. On the strength of a passage in the ''Iliad'',<ref name="dancingground">{{cite web 
 |url=https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.01.0133%3Abook%3D18%3Acard%3D591
 |author=Homer
 |title=Iliad
 |at=xviii.590–3
 |publisher=Tufts University
 |series=Perseus Digital Library
}}</ref> it has been suggested that the palace was the site of a dancing-ground made for [[Ariadne]] by the craftsman [[Daedalus]],<ref>{{cite journal
 |last=Miller
 |first=Paul Allen
 |date=July 1995
 |title=The Minotaur Within: Fire, the Labyrinth, and Strategies of Containment in Aeneid 5 and 6
 |journal=Classical Philology
 |volume=90
 |issue=3
 |pages=225–240
|doi=10.1086/367466
 |s2cid=161753794
 }}</ref><ref>"Furthermore he wrought a green, like that which Daedalus once made in Cnossus for lovely Ariadne. Hereon there danced youths and maidens whom all would woo, with their hands on one another's wrists. The maidens wore robes of light linen, and the youths well woven shirts that were slightly oiled. There was a bard also to sing to them and play his lyre, while two tumblers went about performing in the midst of them when the man struck up with his tune."

: The Iliad: Transl, by Samuel Butler:[http://classics.mit.edu/Homer/iliad.18.xviii.html]</ref>
where young men and women, of the age of those sent to Crete as prey for the Minotaur, would dance together. By extension, in popular legend the palace is associated with the myth of the Minotaur.

In the 2000s, archaeologists explored other potential sites of the labyrinth.<ref name="skotinogortyn">{{cite web 
| url = https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/architecture/has-the-original-labyrinth-been-found-1803638.html 
| work = The Independent
| title= Has the original Labyrinth been found?
| author = Steve Connor
| date = 16 October 2009}}</ref> [[Oxford University]] geographer Nicholas Howarth believes that "Evans's hypothesis that the palace of Knossos is also the Labyrinth must be treated sceptically."<ref name=skotinogortyn /> Howarth and his team conducted a search of an underground complex known as the [[Skotino cave]] but concluded that it was formed naturally. Another contender is a series of tunnels at [[Gortyn]], accessed by a narrow crack but expanding into interlinking caverns. Unlike the Skotino cave, these caverns have smooth walls and columns, and appear to have been at least partially man-made. This site corresponds to a labyrinth symbol on a 16th-century map of Crete in a book of maps in the library of [[Christ Church, Oxford]]. A map of the caves themselves was produced by the French in 1821. The site was also used by German soldiers to store ammunition during the [[Second World War]]. Howarth's investigation was shown on a documentary<ref name="natgeodocumentary">[http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/the-holy-grail-5048/Overview National Geographic Channel: The Holy Grail (and the Minotaur)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110101072958/http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/episode/the-holy-grail-5048/Overview |date=1 January 2011 }}</ref> produced for the [[National Geographic Channel]].