In Greek mythology, Daedalus is presented as the most skilful man of his time. He was an architect, sculptor and stone worker. He was a favourite of King Minos. For Minos, he designed the labyrinth, a structure full of complicated and confusing windings that no one could come out of. The labyrinth was used to keep the Minotaur—a monster resembling a bull from its head to its shoulders, the remainder of its body being like a man. King Minos imprisoned Daedalus so that the secret of the labyrinth remains a secret. Daedalus escaped the prison by making himself wings out of bird feathers held together with wax, and found refuge in Sicily at the court of King Cocalus.
King Minos was furious and obsessed with capturing his rogue architect. He knew that finding a man who could alter his appearance would be impossible by muscle alone. So, he designed a brilliant psychological trap. He knew Daedalus’ fatal flaw—he could never resist an impossible puzzle. Minos travelled from kingdom to kingdom, presenting a unique challenge and offering a massive reward to anyone who could solve it. He carried a spiral triton seashell (a conch) and a linen thread. The challenge was to pass the thread completely through the winding, microscopic spirals of the shell from the opening at the bottom all the way through the tiny hole at the very tip.
King after king tried and failed. The internal twists of the shell were too narrow, dark, and complex for any human hand or tool to navigate. Eventually, Minos arrived in Sicily. King Cocalus took the shell and secretly showed it to his resident genius, Daedalus. Daedalus looked at the shell, smiled and solved it almost instantly using nature instead of brute force. Instead of trying to push a heavy linen thread through, he found a live ant. He tied an incredibly fine, nearly weightless strand of silk thread around the ant’s body. He smeared a tiny drop of sweet honey right around the microscopic hole at the tip of the shell. He placed the ant into the main opening at the base of the shell. Smelling the honey from deep within the dark, winding labyrinth, the ant naturally marched forward. It navigated every twist and turn perfectly until it emerged from the top, pulling the silk thread behind it. Daedalus then tied Minos’ heavier linen thread to the silk thread and pulled it all the way through. King Cocalus proudly returned the perfectly threaded shell to King Minos, claiming his prize. Minos took one look at the shell and declared, ‘Only Daedalus could have thought of this.’ He thus traced his genius architect using an impossible puzzle.
