The Origin Story Of Labyrinth Designer Giacomo Aureo
Labyrinths are found at ancient history sites all around the globe, and perhaps the most well documented are: Chartres Cathedral’s floor design in France, the Greek legend of the Minotaur, and the ancient Greek coins featuring both circle and square-style labyrinths.
My personal labyrinth intrigue began with science and math Social-Media influencers displaying various styles from several cultures - this Native American type in particular.
Physicist Dan Winter shows how the ancient South-West American variation is in golden ratio by overlaying it with phi-spirals, and he also explains the spiritual / metaphysical potential of labyrinths in this article. Mathemagician Jain108 demonstrated how 9 dots arranged in a square can then be easily connected to create a basic 3-circuit labyrinth, and shown here in a similar fashion is a 25 dot, 7-circuit type.
These inspirations piqued a curiosity and formed a mental visualization of a square-style labyrinth with the mouth at a corner as opposed to a side. There was no prior art that fit the vision, though it seemed simple enough to work out for myself to satisfy the curiosity. Possessing very basic illustration skills, in January 2021 I finally got around to scratching the doodle itch by purchasing a sketch pad, some colored pencils, and erasures - then after a few failed attempts, a child-like rooster-scratch drawing was produced.
It was a set-back to learn that the erasures didn’t erase the colored pencil markings, so the next step of precision-drawing on-paper was bypassed to instead design on a laptop computer. ReallySketch.com was the simplest in-browser program found for lines and arcs - as it provided built-in precision, an erasure that worked, and a handy undo button.
After circulating this image to a few online labyrinth websites, no one claimed to have seen anything just like it, oddly, considering its simplicity.
Jeff Saward of World Wide Labyrinth Locator responded “I've not seen it drawn in quite that fashion, square and with the entrance and exit at an angle, as you have it drawn, but serpentine labyrinth designs, where the path loops from one circuit to the next in a linear progression, are not so unusual - they exist as mosaic designs in the Roman empire and similar designs occur (albeit with far less circuits) amongst prehistoric rock carvings.”
The design process revealed this concept’s pattern could be expanded ad infinitum, yet the smallest size possible (for this style) is on a 7x7 grid, which is comprised of only one singular line.
If the mouth is opened up to both sides of the corner, then the 3 diagonal lines are the same length, parallel, and can be expanded with ease. Otherwise, the 3 diagonal lines aren’t all parallel which makes it far more difficult to expand, and why it's referred to as a locked-box type of square-style labyrinth.
There was another unsettled issue in my mind about an image circulating online that displayed concentric squares with inscribed circles - where the third square’s corners poke out of the fourth circle, and the 5th square’s corners poke out of the 7th circle. So I altered the innermost square’s ratios from a 4-square to a 9-square, which made a significant difference at the seventh circle, displayed here.
Applying this realization to the labyrinth’s center and mouth sections led to the discovery of the near-Phi ratios inherent in this design set - the first clue being the 3-5 rectangle at the open corner.
By using the Harmonizer design tool - the diagonal near-phi ratios jumped off the image and struck me as truly special. A simple labyrinth design that incorporates sacred geometry!
It’s nice to have a calculator so easily accessible in smartphones these days - that electronic assurance provides confidence in sharing this type of work, and the Phi Calculator app claimed these ratios were of bronze significance, as opposed to silver or gold.
*A scalable design.
By increasing the grid from 15x15 to 89x89 (a Fibonacci Sequence number) and keeping the path at a consistent width while using whole numbers, it brings the near-Phi ratio into silver significance, precision displayed below using a Jelda Golden Section Caliper.
But what about gold significance, and actual Phi? Was that level of exact precision possible with whole numbers?
Online spreadsheet programs certainly make complex calculations simple enough for someone like me to formulate, though my solution was of course also developed by utilizing the trial-and-improvement method. Since the silver square labyrinth ratios are very close to Phi with a mouth of 17 base units, and the spreadsheet formula calculated actual Phi (in an 89 unit grid) to be 16.99748750 base units, I simply plugged that number in without the decimal place until the path width was a whole number of 1,200,041,875. Naturally, dividing by 5 leads to a smaller number, which also ends in 5, then again and again until landing on a number that didn’t divide evenly when also producing a whole-number sized mouth section.
A labyrinth mouth of 2,719,598 base units produces a path width of 1,920,067 units, and is the smallest whole number data set found that satisfied my curiosity that - yes indeed, the diagonal-line axis of this square type can be crafted in actual Phi ratio - while using whole numbers! *Note that when doing so, the open-corner rectangle’s near-Phi significance becomes diminished, depending on the width of the line/wall.
The idea stuck like cement, and the notion of striking alchemical gold was electrically felt like a lightning arc of a Tesla Coil.
Handle With Care
Similar to how Sacred Geometry is outside of both creation and destruction, though not necessarily transformation due to different monikers, color filters, and size alterations - discovery of these eternal concepts may offer a settling feeling for those on a spiritual quest when meditated upon - due to concentrated focused attention, and the turning inside-out aspect that's shared by all labyrinths.
Although the names and categorizations of these particular labyrinths seemed satisfactory, I had originally shared these designs under an existing authorship profile that presents completely unrelated concepts, therefore developing a fresh persona to keep the ideas separate, seemed appropriate. Figuring that an Italian pseudonym would be most fitting for an artist’s profile considering my actual surname is of Italian heritage, Google Translate was then used to tinker with a new pen name.
My Italian Grandmother would sometimes call me “Giacomo” which is Italian for James (my birth name,) so my original thought was “James of Fire” due to my Sun-sign zodiac in Leo being a fire element. However in Italian, Fuoco (fire) sounds too much like an offensive phrase in English, so the thesaurus was then consulted until “Aureo” came up for “Golden.” A precious metal name works well since my Lunar zodiac element is metal (sign of Rooster.)
Giacomo Aureo had a good ring to it, complemented the golden ratio aspects of the designs, and rhymed well enough - so from then on, Giacomo Aureo (for James Golden) dawned upon the online labyrinth scene with fresh discoveries - a set of contemporary classics! For the record, and according to Google, aureo also translates to golden in Latin, Spanish, and Portuguese, however in French it translates to dawn.
The new handle is still settling in - for months I mistakenly and embarrassingly had my ArtPal profile name spelled wrong, and my American-sounding pronunciation would likely leave a native Italiano speaker cringed, yet it fits well enough, even with a botched enunciation.
Back On The Path
The one-line unicursal 3-circuit serpentine-style labyrinth is transferable to limitless shapes, not just the square. Note the near-Phi significance in the Circle + image, where the diameter is 16 and the path is 2, as well as the plus-sign to inner-arc correlation.
The Circle/Square labyrinth inside the CentraPhiEd Seal of Might is explained here, and below shows near-Phi significance in two places.
The Triangle labyrinth has a touch of near-Phi significance as well, though not as obvious. These 2-D on-paper/screen discoveries had become an artistic reality, but why stop there? Going inter-dimensional along the vertical axis greatly expanded my consciousness, and voila - pyramidal, cubic, rectangular, and even octahedral labyrinths were conceptualized, though they’re again, not limited to a square base.
Learning 3-D computer aided design seemed to be no easy task, yet paying someone else to design all the finer details seemed far more complicated than stumbling through it on my own. The vision had pulled me along thus far, and the in-browser design program 3Dslash.net is basic enough for kids to learn, yet suitable enough to bring the pyramidal vision to reality via downloadable .stl files for 3-D printing.
Pyramid types (with gentle or steep slopes) could utilize flagpoles and a sailboat mast concept where rolls of canvas can be the pyramid faces that feature art printed/projected onto, showcasing an illuminated, glowing night time effect. A permanent glass exterior could also be neat. Cubic & Rectangular Heights are most suitable for indoors, though when outside, ceilings/roofs aren't required. Octahedron Types can be dug into the ground - with options to walk up to the top and an elevator down to the surface level, or below. Water types could feature small boats towed to the center and back. 2-D Types can be taped, knitted, painted, tiled, stenciled, etched, building wrapped, inlaid brick, burn brands, etc.
Worth noting, when walking a 3-D labyrinth with walls, people can keep their “heads up” as opposed to a 2-D visual focus aimed towards the ground.
After pushing through a software learning curve, and untangling several mind-knots, I’ve reached a self-satisfactory proof-of-concept stage, and am now seeking contributions from professional architects and structural engineers to develop plans for 1) a large-scale megalithic addition to Earth - dedicated to the classical elements of nature, 2) a museum that showcases artworks along a single winding hall - dedicated to consciousness itself, 3) a city-park hanging garden - open to the public, and 4) cemetery monuments - dedicated to generations past and future.
Synchronicity Chimes
In August 2021, I reached back out to Jeff at Labyrinth Locator to inform him of my new Giacomo Aureo handle and website, and he came back with: “Thanks for that (email,) nice website, and by the strange way these things happen, this labyrinth in Germany was uploaded to the Labyrinth Locator website today - I'm sure you will be interested to see the design of this one!” Although it’s difficult to examine the labyrinth’s exact particulars via Google Earth imagery, the link shows a square-style labyrinth that has the entrance and exit at a corner, although not quite the same as the type I’ve named and displayed.
Southern California certainly possesses plenty of natural beauty, and I just happened to live on a rental property with an ideal yard for a simple, real world test. Using a tape measure, twine, and rocks found in the yard, a 30’x30’ Bronze Square Labyrinth was first arranged. Before completion, a Riverside County work crew was in the area using a camera drone to check electrical-line safety to determine any potential need to conduct wildfire prevention services - and per my request, they were nice enough to snap and email an overhead image of my rock-art labyrinth design.
The mountain-side room rental (found on Craigslist.com’s rooms/shared section) ran its course, and I’ve since relocated closer to the pacific ocean, though it was certainly a pleasure to arrange and regularly walk the version 1 Bronze Square Rock Labyrinth in such a private and serene location. *For reference, the white poles stick out of the ground ~6'.
What locations do you think would be considered optimal for a megalithic-sized Pyramidal Labyrinth?
-Giacomo Aureo, 2022
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