The aim of the present survey is to investigate the processes implemented for conceiving and setting up two major types of mazes which have come down to us on various media (stone, mosaic, painting, ceramic, coins…) from Prehistoric times to Roman Empire (and, for some, even later). Based on a corpus of 83 mazes, the two sets usually known as ‘Cretan’ and ‘Roman’ could be characterized and differentiated. Most of them show the walls of the Labyrinth and the path exists only in negative. And, at variance with the original myth (Theseus and the Minotaur) there is only one possible path, which shows no dead ends or crossings. This first part of the study is devoted to Cretan mazes, the apparently complex structure of which is usually composed of two pairs of imbricated laces, although extensions and variants exist. This structure can be modeled by a square pattern to which several sets of concentric equidistant arcs of circles are connected. Based on this model, a set up process can be proposed, enabling to memorize the design and reproduce it by heart. This is doubtless why Cretan mazes could persist along centuries and be found as far as America and India

中文翻译：

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古代迷宫的几何学，第一部分：“克里特岛”迷宫

本次调查的目的是调查从史前时代到罗马帝国在各种媒体（石头、马赛克、绘画、陶瓷、硬币……）上构思和设置两种主要类型迷宫的实施过程（并且，对于某些人来说，甚至更晚）。基于 83 个迷宫的语料库，通常被称为“克里特岛”和“罗马”的两组可以被表征和区分。他们中的大多数都展示了迷宫的墙壁，而路径只存在于否定中。而且，与原始神话（忒修斯和牛头怪）不同的是，只有一条可能的道路，没有死胡同或交叉路口。研究的第一部分致力于克里特迷宫，虽然存在延伸和变体，但其明显复杂的结构通常由两对叠瓦状花边组成。这种结构可以用方形图案建模，该图案连接了几组同心等距圆弧。基于这个模型，可以提出一个设置过程，能够记住设计并用心复制它。毫无疑问，这就是为什么克里特岛的迷宫可以持续几个世纪，远至美国和印度都能找到