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The oldest known example of a spiraling labyrinthine design is an ivory carving found at Mal'ta, Siberia. There is disagreement between the experts as to the age of the object, but it appears to have been carved sometime between 24,000 B.C. and 18,000 B. C. The lines are formed by a circuit of dots repeated seven times. Theoretically, the mystical importance of the number seven could be traced back to Siberia and the Altai-Baikal region. Purportedly, female shamans in Siberia and Mongolia held the seven-star constellation of Ursa Major in reverence. The shaman's chief deity was an Earth Mother and Mistress of Animals, and in their mythology Ursa Major belonged to the Goddess. In his book, Dawn Behind the Dawn, Geoffrey Ashe further surmises that "Her (Earth Mother) cult and symbolism, passing from tribe to tribe, played a part in forming the Paleolithic Goddess substratum across Siberia and Europe".(2) Even today the number seven is considered a "lucky" one. It is also interesting to note that if you complicated a seven-circuited spiral by making the line double back, running alternately clockwise and counterclockwise, the design becomes a labyrinth.(3) This backward circuit pattern of seven is found later in the design of the floor labyrinth at Knossos, Crete.
Rectilinear serpentine forms or meanders are most closely associated as the precursor to the labyrinth. Meander designs figure prominently on the pottery of agrarian Neolithic tribes, as well as wall decorations and a variety of other objects they produced. The presence of the Goddess is made manifest with the snake and the bird, both symbolizing water and the realms inaccessible to humans. The snake sheds it's skin, a sign of rebirth and regeneration. The bird flies in the sky and swims on the water, creating a zig-zag pattern as it moves. To Neolithic people, these animals were at home in the realm of the Goddess, and therefore representative of her mysteries.