How long is the pathway?
Similarly the path length from entrance to centre is claimed to be anywhere between 450 feet (Matthews, 59) and 965 feet (294 m, according to Kern). This is clearly a considerable range, which should suggest caution in believing any of these figures, however reliable the source may seem. Several books give the path length as 666 feet, a number that is surely too good to be true, often quoting Jean Shinoda Bolen's Crossing to Avalon, published in 1994. But Bolen gives her source as Barbara Walker's The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objects (1988), which in turn quotes Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock's Magical & Mystical Sites from 1976. Turning to this source, we discover that this information comes from an unnamed “old book about Pagan Rome,” clearly not a reliable basis for the subsequent faith in this almost magical path length.
The thing to bear in mind is that, almost certainly, none of the authors confidently quoting numbers for this measurement have actually taken a tape to the path and measured it in person. At best these numbers are estimates based on approximate diameters, at worst just wild guesses! John James, who has personally measured much of Chartres Cathedral, gives a path length of 261.5 metres (858 ft), which seems very plausible, although it is not specified exactly where his path measure begins and ends. Based on actual measurements and a mathematical model of the labyrinth, I calculate that the path length from the entrance to the very centre of the labyrinth is somewhere around 262.4 m (860.9 feet), but it is still worth checking if you ever happen to be in Chartres Cathedral with a pedometer - but be careful to push it along the exact dead centre of the path!
How long is the pathway?Similarly the path length from entrance to centre is claimed to be anywhere between 450 feet (Matthews, 59) and 965 feet (294 m, according to Kern). This is clearly a considerable range, which should suggest caution in believing any of these figures, however reliable the source may seem. Several books give the path length as 666 feet, a number that is surely too good to be true, often quoting Jean Shinoda Bolen's Crossing to Avalon, published in 1994. But Bolen gives her source as Barbara Walker's The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols & Sacred Objects (1988), which in turn quotes Elizabeth Pepper and John Wilcock's Magical & Mystical Sites from 1976. Turning to this source, we discover that this information comes from an unnamed “old book about Pagan Rome,” clearly not a reliable basis for the subsequent faith in this almost magical path length.The thing to bear in mind is that, almost certainly, none of the authors confidently quoting numbers for this measurement have actually taken a tape to the path and measured it in person. At best these numbers are estimates based on approximate diameters, at worst just wild guesses! John James, who has personally measured much of Chartres Cathedral, gives a path length of 261.5 metres (858 ft), which seems very plausible, although it is not specified exactly where his path measure begins and ends. Based on actual measurements and a mathematical model of the labyrinth, I calculate that the path length from the entrance to the very centre of the labyrinth is somewhere around 262.4 m (860.9 feet), but it is still worth checking if you ever happen to be in Chartres Cathedral with a pedometer - but be careful to push it along the exact dead centre of the path!
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