By Phil Williams

Have you ever lost your way in a hedge maze and feared you were doomed to spend the rest of your days there? Prague's own Mirror Maze atop the Petřin Hill offers the entertainment of distorting mirrors behind a castle façade, but you're unlikely to get too lost. In fact, you are unlikely to die in any maze today, because trapping people in a complex puzzle is something that went out of fashion a few millennia ago.

The most famous labyrinth of history (notwithstanding David Bowie’s, in the 1986 Jim Henson movie, appropriately titled Labyrinth), is that built for King Minos of Crete to hold the Minotaur. It is reputed to have comprised 1,300 rooms spread over 12,000m² of land, linked by small corridors, staircases and courts. Known as a subterranean complex, it has alternatively been suggested that it was merely a very elaborate natural cave. Its location, Knossos, now shows little of its former glory, but just imagine the necessities of housing a bull-headed, child-eating monster.

Before the tunnels of Crete, there was the Egyptian Labyrinth built 4,000 years ago. It now exists only in Herodotus' records from the fifth century BC. Herodotus wrote of a structure more impressive than  even the Great Pyramids. It was a memorial crafted by twelve Egyptian Kings, comprised of three thousand rooms spread over two stories of baffling links, near the superbly named Crocodopolis, the city of crocodiles.

The greatest description of an ancient labyrinth comes from the Roman antiquarian, Varro, who lived a century before Christ. He spoke of the Etruscan Labyrinth, below the city of Clusium, covering 10,000m², with five vast pyramids in the center and another four pyramids above, and noted it even had bells on top. Pliny, the Roman historian, protested that this complex memorial was entirely useless, as the only ones who could appreciate it would be hapless victims who got lost there. Built as a tomb, it is unlikely that many people had reason to explore it. Still, it was impressive in theory.

Today, the title of ‘World’s Largest Maze’ is fought over predominantly by farmers with large cornfields and too much time on their hands. The Guinness Book of Records title goes to the Peace Maze in Northern Ireland, which covers 11,200m² and has a two-mile long path. Though covering similar areas to their ancestors, today's mazes only take up to two hours rather than a lifetime to navigate, and their several dozen paths hardly compete with thousands of interconnected rooms. But at least you won't die trying.

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