The Büyük 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. It was a critical water source which had contributed to the development of many ancient civilisations, including Priene, Magnesia, Myus, Tripolis etc.

It was so significant to the Ancient Greeks that it was featured on some of the first coins that were minted some 2,600 years ago in the Lydian city of Tripolis. Not only that, but it is also the longest river to flow into the Aegean.

Meander is a word we still use today in English, to walk without aim or direction, or a description of a river. Furthermore, it also gives it name to the labyrinth type motif used so often in art and architecture which was adopted by the ancient Greeks, a symbol which had been used by other cultures, including the Europeans and Chinese. However, it was the Greeks that popularised it and named it after the Meander. 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. For instance, the most renown in Ancient Greek myths being 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 the titan Oceanus and Tethys. According to a story by Pseudo Plutarch, when Meander declared war on Pessinus, now Ballıhisar, 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 that he cast himself into the river, giving the Meander its name.

The Meander River is still a puzzle to scientists, who are not sure how the river has carved such a serpentine path. Also, its course has changed frequently through the ages, creating some oxbow lakes and forming the Great Lake Bafa. In 1926, it seems even Einstein considered the physical laws that could explain its numerous curves.

The Büyük Menderes has shaped human history, created words and puzzles. The Meander Key is also the symbol for eternity, 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. What a great river.