, probably somewhat earlier than, the Hawara temple; and since
the derivation of the word 'labyrinth' from the Labrys or Double
Axe, making the palace the House or Place of the Double Axe, seems
quite satisfactory, the Egyptian Labyrinth in all likelihood derived
its name from the House of Minos at Knossos. Apart, however, from
any mere question of names, there appears the interesting parallel
that the two most famous Labyrinths, the first palace at Knossos,
and the great Hawara temple, actually belong to the same period--a
period when, as we know from the other evidence, there was certainly
active intercourse between the two nations.

Mr. Hall has pointed out[*] the resemblance between the actual
building at Knossos and the descriptions left to us of its Egyptian
contemporary. The literary tradition of the Labyrinth of Minos
is that it was a place of mazy passages and windings, difficult
to traverse without a guide or clue, and the actual remains at
Knossos show that the palace must have answered very well to such
a description, while the feature of the Hawara temple which struck
both Herodotus and Pliny was precisely the same. 'The passages
through the corridors and the windings through the courts, from
their great variety, presented a thousand occasions of wonder.'
The resemblance extended to the material of which the buildings
were erected. The fine white limestone of Hawara must have closely
resembled the shining white gypsum of Knossos, and though the Egyptian
Labyrinth has passed away too completely for us to be able to judge
of its masonry, yet the splendid building work of the Eleventh
Dynasty temple of Mentuhotep Neb-hapet-Ra at Deir-el-Bahri, with
its great blocks of limestone beautifully fitted and laid, affords
a good Middle Kingdom parallel to the great gypsum blocks of the
Knossian palace. Of course we cannot attribute to Cretan influence
the style of the Egyptian building in this respect. For hundreds
of years the Egyptians had been past masters in the art of great
construction with huge blocks of stone, so that, if there is to
be any derivation on this point, it may rather have been Crete
which followed the example of Egypt. But it may not be altogether
a mere coincidence that, in a period of Egyptian history which
we know to have been linked with an important epoch of Cretan
development, there should have been erected in Egypt a building
absolutely unparalleled, so far as we know, among the architectu