The Labyrinth at Knossos burned to the ground in the 15th century BC, yet the idea of the labyrinth survived. Through the centuries, in Greece and throughout the Mediterranean, a common symbol began to be associated with the labyrinth and its legends. Known today as the Cretan or 7-circuit labyrinth, it consists of a single path winding back and forth to a center point in a series of seven concentric rings.
The earliest known use of the 7-circuit labyrinth symbol occurs on a clay tablet from the Mycenaean palace at Pylos in Greece. A fire destroyed this palace around 1200 BC, baking the clay tablet and preserving it for archaeologists. The labyrinth was probably a scribe's doodle, because the other side of the tablet was part of the palace records, and lists a number of men who were each owed a goat!
In the following centuries the identical labyrinth, however, turned up on an Etruscan wine jug in Italy, on rock outcrops carved in Spain, on a roof tile of the Parthenon and even as graffito in an Egyptian quarry. The labyrinth also begins to be associated with another Greek legend, that of the fall of the city of Troy, around this time.
