ORIGINAL QUERY:
Date: Fri, 03 Feb 2006 16:27:07 +0100
From:
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Have been an avid on-line reader of Nexus since I visited Roncesvalles several years ago & spotted a geometrical relief on a stone in a wall there. So far as I have been able to find, there has been no discussion of this geometry, which looks like a medieval mason's work. I can see the circle geometry and guess that there is square geometry there too. What seems to be a mason's square is carved beside the geometry.
This is an isolated relief photographed carved on one of the stones in the wall of the Augustinian abbey at Roncesvalles, Navarre. The first buildings on this site are twelfth century with additions and renovations up to the 1930s. The stone on which the relief is carved and the material immediately around it appears to be similar to that used in the oldest buildings at Roncesvalles, purposely built to service the pilgrim route to Santiago. This pilgrim route is of particular interest for the fluid movement of builders and designers between France and northern Spain as Romanesque architecture developed into Gothic. Does anyone have any ideas as to what it might mean?
Comments
We now know the imposed equilateral triangles as the Star of David, and as the result is a hexagon. This is traditionally related to the Six Days of Creation (the Hexaemeron), and thus refers to the Authorship of the Cosmos -- God.
Concentric with the Star, is a floriated circle with six 'petals', the inner circle being omitted. This expansive figure can be related to light-geometry, as light expands as a circle, and the six 'petals' can be interstood to refer to subsiduary light sources, such as planets or stars. Such a figure is common in High Gothic stained glass windows, and even the combination of circular geometry with the rectilinear Star can be related to the straight armatures needed to strenghten the otherwise curvilinear geometry of such windows, especially at the head or top of the window. So the mason may have been especially concerned with the tracery common in elaborate windows of the Gothic.
In the centre is a cross formed by quadrants of a cricle -- the same circle as the 'petals'? This of course signifies Christ.
The full figure then represents a) the Process of Creation; b) the resulting Cosmos, and; c) the presence of Christ who will by His Second Coming terminate the Cosmos. The real mystery is why such a scheme, its complexity better suited to treatment in stained glass, be carved in such an incidental way on a piece of stone. I suggest that it may be a 'masterpiece', i. e., a work executed -- probably to a given theme, thus explaining the relatively complex geometry -- by an apprentice before his full membership of the mason's guild.
Michael wrote:
"
As you know, Santiago of Compostela is the saint of Thunder. So, this sign could have been a reference to Santiago.
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davidstern
The German Wikipedia mentions that in the early middle ages the Star of David was used by Jewish, as well as Christians and Muslims as a talisman against demons and the danger of fire. Churches, Bible manuscripts as well as Christian and Jewish signatures on official documents were decorated with the symbol.
There is another link from the German Wikipedia to a lenghtly pdf.document on the history of the hexagram going much more in detail, yet in German as well: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hexagramm --> www.boudicca.de/hexagramm.pdf
(Unfortunately the document lists no references, which makes it appear very questionable to me.)
I shall look at it when I get home from work tonight from the perspective of my Star Key at:
www.geocities.com/ResearchTriangle/Forum/5375/
It is likely to be interpretable within that framework.
Ghyka, M.: Estética de las Proporciones en la naturaleza y en las Artes. Ed. Poseidón, Bs. As., 1953.
Ghyka, M.: El número de oro. Vol. I: "Los Ritmos". Vol. II.: "Los Ritos". Ed. Poseidón, Barcelona, 1992.
Gimpel, J.: Los constructores de catedrales. Biblioteca Fundamental del Hombre Moderno. Centro Editor de América Latina. Bs. As., 1971.
You could also see bibliography about iconography of Medieval Art, like
Lorente, J. F. E.: Tratado de iconografía. Ed. Istmo, Madrid, 2002.
Revilla, F.: Diccionario de iconografía y simbología, Ed. Cátedra, Madrid, 1995.
In particular, in Ghyka, El número de oro, Vol. II (Los ritos), cap. II (La lámpara debajo del almud), lámina I and III, there are shown some signs very similar to the one you have sent. One of them is lnked to the name of IEHOVA. Most of these diagrams have a Pythagorean source. Were employed by medieval masonry for identification, and were linked to some rituals of initation.
It´s a very complex subject to study.