Saturday, February 10, 2007

Nomidia

There's a photo of an interlaced hexagram with round edges in the Catalogue des Mosaiques Romaines et Paleochretiennes du musee du Louvre, Paris, 1978 by Francois Barette p. 32.
This hexagram is inside a medallion which is part of a mosaic pavement of 8X7 meters together with 35 other medallions found in Roman Nomidia.

Tomarkin

Rabin Square, Tel Aviv. General view of Yigal Tomarkin's Statue: triangle on triangle create a Magen David or a Yellow Badge.

David Wakstein

Steven Plaut quoted on his blog a Ben Gurion University professor who wrote about his visit to the Tel-Aviv Museum of Arts where he found himself in an exhibition by David Wakstein called "Explosion". 
While I don't regard myself qualified to judge the artistic quality of the paintings, I would like to give you a few examples of the works of art: A map of the world and on it hands engraved with a Star of David and blood dripping from them. A Star of David combined with a Swastika. Two red canvasses, on one of them two small circles with the Star of David, on the other a small circle with a Swastika. I happen to remember that this masterpiece is called "settlers".

Red and Blue

Migene Gonzalez-Wippler wrote The Complete Book of Amulets & Talismans. I asked her about the origin of the hexagram and here is what she wrote:

The hexagram or Star of David has been used in many historical, religious and occult contexts. Its origins are lost in the sands of time. In Hinduism it is a mandala symbol that has been found in Hindu temples built thousands of years ago. It represents the perfect state of balance between Man and God. But according to well-known scholar Gershom Sholem the Star of David can be traced to Aristotle, who used triangles in different positions to represent basic elements. This theory finds some support in the interesting fact that two of the three Hebrew letters in David's name are Daleth. In ancient times Daleth was written in a form that resembled a triangle. In Greek the letter Delta is also shaped like a triangle. So we have two triangles
(two Daleths or two Deltas) which are interlaced to represent balance out of chaos. That could be the Greek connection found by Professor Sholem. As you probably know the triangle that points upwards represents the fire element (color red) and the male principle in kabbalistic symbolism. The triangle that points downwards represents the water element (color blue) and the feminine principle. You must have seen some Star of David symbols where the upper triangle is red while the lower is blue. Tradition says that by balancing the opposite elements of fire and water in the hexagram David was able to unite the 12 Tribes of Israel. In Kabbalah the hexagram is associated with the sixth sphere of the Tree of Life (Tiphareth) that represents the sun.

Hexagrams have also been found in cosmological diagrams in other religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism. And, surprisingly enough, the hexagram can also be found in mosques and on other Islamic objects. The hexagram also appears in Solomon's fabled seal so that it could presumably have been known to him.

But it is also possible that because it is a simple geometric shape, like the square and the circle, the triangle may have been used in many ways, including the hexagram, by many different peoples across the ages.

Friday, February 09, 2007

House of Ge and the Seasons

Doro Levi in his monumental work titled Antioch Mosaic Pavements, Princeton 1945, pp. 346-7 described the mosaics found on House of Ge and the Seasons. His diagram shows four rooms. In room no. 1 there are five medallions, four of them representing the seasons. The center one representing Ge (Gaia), the Greek earth Goddess. In the second room
In the central panel of corridor 2, the round medallion within square contains a star of David formed by the interlacing triangles, one in cable and the other in guilloche

It is interesting to compare this mosaic to the one found in Villa Romana del Casale

in Sicily, where each season is contained in a hexagram of its own.

In the same book Doro Levi shows a photo of another hexagram from antioch that was found in Cilicia in room no 1. Between each two points there is a rhomb and in it a smaller rhomb. Inside the hexagram there's a hexagon and in it a circle. This hexagram mosic is part of a large pavement with many busts.

Esoteric Palace

Esoteric Palace hexagramRenaissance summerhouse built in the years 1555 – 1556 by Ferdinand I of Tirol, by his own design, in the shape of a hexagram according to cosmological ideas influenced by alchemy. In Europe similar buildings can be found, even though not frequently, only in Italy and France.

Menorah within a Star of David

Researcher Uri Ofir claims that the Magen David is part of the Tabernacle Menorah, but here it looks like the Menorah is part of the Magen David. This is what happens when you go straight ahead on the globe - soon you find out that you are in the opposite direction...
Picture is courtesy of "ibn-i batuta" who published it on Flickr.