Wood Carving

Picture of Wood Carving from a church in Ranworth, Norfolk, England is courtesy of "LeoL30" who published it on Flickr a. Notice that the hexagram is standing on two points. We are used to see it standing on one point. I don't know (yet) if there's a different meaning to each such position.

Islamic Mosaic Discovered in Ramla, Israel

Ramla Mosaic with Solomon’s Seal

CC picture by Anita363 (c) from Flickr (Mosaic Mosaic)

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Myriam Rosen-Ayalon from the Hebrew university in Jerusalem wrote in Israel Exploration Journal, Vo. 26, Jerusalem, Israel; pp. 104-119 about the eighth century mosaic that was found in 1973 in the yard of Mr. Sami Khuri of Tav-Kav-Beth Street in Ramla while he was preparing for canalization. The mosaic has three fragments.

On fragment B which is 3.20 meters wide and 4 meters long there are four hexagrams on a geometric composition complemented by floral motifs and isolated birds. Within each hexagram there is a fruit that looks like a citrus.

I found the references Myriam Rosen-Ayalon made to other Islamic findings very useful for my future research:

The six-pointed star sometimes occurred in pre-Islamic floor mosaics but mainly as an isolated motif. In some mosaics, the star was used as a frame for large compositions, or as a dominant subject, while in others it is just an isolated detail among a great variety of other geometric motifs. Three such examples are found in mosaics uncovered here:

Bethlehem,

Roglit

and el-Makr.

Its ornamental use was continued for a long period, and can be seen on some fragments of stone carving in the synagogue o Capernaum, though probably unconnected to the Jewish symbol adopted in recent times…

it appears on funerary slabs from the second century of the Hijra, either completely isolated , or three in a row, or next to a slightly different motif of crossing squares.

A wood carving from Takrit in Iraq, perhaps a sarcophagus, dated to the

Abbasid period 9th century C.E. has a particularly elaborate decoration including six-pointed star is kept at the Metropolitan Museum 33.41.la.de

 A wood carving from Takrit

From: Maurice Dimard, Ars Islamica, 1937, p. 296 

Another wood carving bearing the star motif is part of the minbar (pulpit) of Kairouan, dated A.D. 786-808 and also said to be from Mesopotemia.

Whithin the Umayyad period this motif is found at Khirbat al-Mafjar.

It exists as an isolated item and also in an overall pattern, as in our mosaic, in a grille decoration of a stucco window…Umayyad carved marble slab from the Grewat Mosque of Damascus.

A wooden panel from the Al Aqsa carvings …(A.D. 780)…http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/works-of-art/33.41.1a-e

Brewer

Picture is courtesy of Matthias Trum who wrote for Technical University Munich a thesis titled

Historical depictions, guild signs and symbols of the brewing and malting handcraft

Matthias' caption for this picture is

oldest depiction of a brewer is Pyprew (old german word for brewer) Herttel from 1425. The text on the picture states: "The 46th brother, who died here, was named Herttel Pyrprew" …One can see the brewing kettle with two rings attached to the sides plus two wooden vats. Above the brewer on a stick the hexagram...

Destroying Stars of David in Baghdad

I already wrote about the phenomenon of Arabs mutilating Stars of David, but here is an eye witness, Raed Jarrar, who wrote on his blog:

Speaking about Israel and David stars, Egypt was full of ornaments taking a six-sided-star shape. That reminded me of one of the funny memories about my university days in Baghdad. The municipality asked the Architectural department to send out all the students, and I was one of them, to check the streets of Baghdad for "David Stars". It was so stupid and ridiculous because the six-sided-star is more a middle Eastern symbol than a Jewish one, and neither myself nor the professors in the department thought it's a good idea to go and check for such stars on houses and ask the owners to destroy them. No one liked the idea, but no one dared to say No of course. Everyone said the famous statement "Good morning, Mr President, thank you for everything. Thank you very much for everything. I like you", but in Arabic at that time.

No wonder there are so few ancient Stars of David left in the world...it seems that archaeologists find only those which escaped the mutilators' eyes!

Petroglyph

 scienceviews.com reported about unusual Petroglyphs (rock drawings)  found East of Cedar City, Utah

 In order to make the glyphs more legable, someone traced them with white paint. This should not be done. 

Moghul Art

Hexagram inside a hexagon in a latticework in the Humayun's Tomb
in Delhi, India.
A few days ago I saw a film about the Moghul dynesty which ruled India until 1857 - there were times when they were the richest rulers in the world. These are the guys behind the Taj Mahal...and they loved hexagrams. I hope to find more photos of their superb hexagrams.

Picture is courtesy of "diametrik"  who published it on Flickr 

Baptist Synagogue

Picture is courtesy of William Lebovich, architectural historian/photographer, who is its copyright holder. It appeared on the Washington Post in an article by Frank Van Riper with the following caption:

Lobby of 19th Street Baptist Church still has mosaic floor from when it was B'nai Israel Congregation. Stained glass window at back now features a praying Jesus.