Lost LABYRINTH Of Egypt Scanned

Early Explorers

A structure which evoked so much wonder and admiration in ancient times hardly failed arouse the curiosity of later generations, but no serious attempts to locate it seem to have been made by Europeans until several centuries later. It was then far too late to observe any of its glories, for it disappeared in Roman times, and a village sprang up on its site, largely constructed from surrounding debris.

Paul Lucas (1664 -1737 CE)

The artist, Paul Lucas (1664 Rouen - 1737 Madrid), and Antiquary to Louis XIV of France, is one of
the earliest sources of information from Upper Egypt, visiting Thebes and the Nile up to the cataracts.

In the book in which he subsequently published the account of his travels, he gives us some idea of
the state of the remains in his time, but his account is very rambling and unreliable.

His drawing is a partial view of the ruins of the alleged labyrinth. Remark the ruins on top of an intact and proportional colossal temple.

Lucas states that an old Arab who accompanied his party professed to have explored the interior of
the ruins many years before, and to have penetrated into its subterranean passages to a large chamber surrounded by several niches, "like little shops," whence endless alleys and other rooms branched off.

A statement that supports the probability that the labyrinth survived the Ptolemaic in Roman times unaffected. By the time of Lucas's visit, however, these passages could not be traced, and he concluded that they had become blocked up by debris.