35.0660°N, 24.9480°E.
Cretan Labyrinth at Gortyn is a labyrinth installation in Gortyn, Crete, Greece. The built of stone. Documented age: Ancient (Pre-Roman). Current condition: intact. The cave/quarry system near ancient Gortyn in south-central Crete has been proposed since antiquity as the 'true' labyrinth of the Minotaur myth — an alternative to Knossos. Documentation sources: Kern 2000. The labyrinth pattern occurs nowhere in nature; every documented instance traces back to a human hand. The labyrinth is one of several hundred sites of this type catalogued globally; each preserves the same unicursal walking-pattern with regional variation in scale, material, and date. The labyrinth tradition spans at least 4,000 years of documented practice across northern Europe, the Mediterranean, the British Isles, North America, and the Indian subcontinent.
The unicursal design — one entrance, one path, one centre — distinguishes the labyrinth from a maze, which contains choices and dead-ends; the labyrinth never branches.