By Jay Jean Jackson

The Buyuk Menderes (Great Meander) river in Türkiye begins its 382-mile-long journey from a spring in Dinar (ancient Phrygia) twisting and curving its way through the countryside until it reaches the Aegean Sea near the Ancient city of Miletus.

Watery source

It was a critical water source which had contributed to the development of many ancient civilizations including Priene, Magnesia, Myus, and Tripolis. It was so significant to the Ancient Greeks it was featured on some of the first coins minted 2,600 years ago in the Lydian city of Tripolis. It is the longest river to flow into the Aegean.

To wonder

The word Meander is a word we still use today in English, to walk without aim or direction, or a description of a river but it also gives its name to the labyrinth type motif used so often in art and architecture adopted by the ancient Greeks.

Greek derivation

While it is a symbol used by other cultures, such as the Europeans and Chinese, it was the Greeks that popularised it and named it after the Meandros, It even appears in Homer’s Iliad in the catalogue of the Trojans.

A labyrinth or maze can be created using the patterns of the meander key. The most renowned in Ancient Greek myths was the Cretan labyrinth in Knossos commissioned by King Minos to hold the Minotaur, a monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man.

In Greek mythology, Meander was the son of titan Oceanus and Tethys. According to a story by Pseudo Plutarch, Meander declared war on Pessinus, now Ballihiar. He vowed to the mother of the gods that, upon victory, he would sacrifice the first people to congratulate him. Woefully this turned out to be his mother, son, and sister.

He had no choice but to carry out his vow, but was so traumatised he cast himself into the river giving the Meander its name.

Modern-day puzzle

The Meandros River is still a puzzle to scientists, who are not sure how the river has carved such a serpentine path. Its course has changed frequently down the ages, creating some oxbow lakes and forming Lake Bafa.

In 1926 it seems even Einstein considered the physical laws that could explain its numerous curves.

The Buyuk Menderes has shaped human history, created words and puzzles.

The Meander Key is also a symbol for eternity and for the continuous geometric decorative border often seen on everything from temples to textiles representing the undulating flow of human life through reproduction.

The history of a well-used word, a key pattern, and the mythology behind the design of mazes is something we rarely think of when talking about aimlessly wandering or seeing a river twisting and turning it way through the countryside.

But the Meanderos gives us a great river of words and meanings that still beguile us today.