The Curious History of Mazes by Julie E Bounford
192 pages, AMZN
Before I delve into my review of the book I want to mention that the Amazon page for this book is excellent if you click on the link above. Specifically, the “From the Publishers” section - each chapter has an illustration and a quick summary.
The book is a great mix of the history, uses, and symbolism of mazes and labyrinths around the world. The illustrations and examples are excellent and I really enjoyed the breaks to solve unique mazes along the way.
What I learned in this book (at least some of it):
“In some Meso-American cultures, it was believed that the wicked could be “mazed” in the underworld, so their souls would not return” ; Which to me seems like a nice pitch to a new horror movie
I have never seen a Sidereal maze before, based on the constellations. Very interesting and fun to solve (page 45 in kindle version). Or the Switch Maze (Page 105).
I learned about the city of Saffron Walden in England, a city with a hedge maze and the largest turf maze in Europe at 132 feet from corner to corner. Seems like a nice place for a maze museum ?
That Francesco Segala, an Italian architect from Padua in the 15th century may have created the first picture mazes ever (with illustrations in the book !)
The first 3 dimensional maze was built in the 1830’s by Stuart Landsborough using wodden board to create a second story on a maze.
The strategy game Nine Men’s Morris that was popular to be played at turf mazes.
There are 270 labyrinths on the London Underground, created by English artist Mark Wallinger in 2013 to mark the Underground’s 150th Anniversary. You can see some of them here.
Cloud cities by Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno, which you should just see to understand.
There is a nice illustration comparing the classical and medieval labyrinth designs (figure 2 page 46) that I found interesting.
What this book does best: The mix of mazes with history and examples makes for a fun reading experience. The mazes are a break from reading - unless you get to a hard one - then the reading is the break!