Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied SymbolsInman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols
Inman, Thomas
Christian art and symbolism; Symbolism
Fig. 4 is emblematic of the virgin and child. It identifies the two with
the crescent. It is singular that some designers should unite the moon
with the solar symbol, and others with the virgin. We believe that the
first indicate ideas like that associated with Baalim, and Ashtaroth in
the plural, the second that of Astarte or Venus in the singular. Or, as
we may otherwise express it, the married and the immaculate virgin.
Fig. 5 is copied from Sharpe's Egyptian Mythology, p. 15. It represents
one of the Egyptian trinities, and is highly symbolic, not only
indicating the triad, here Osiris, Isis, and Nepthys, but its union
with the female element. The central god Osiris is himself triune, as
he bears the horns symbolic of the goddess Athor and the feathers of the
god Ra.
Fig. 6 is a Hindoo sectarial mark, from Moor's Hindu Pantheon. The
lozenge indicates the yoni. For this assertion we not only have evidence
in Babylonian gems, copied by Lajard, but in Indian and Etruscan
designs. We find, for example, in vol. v., plate xlv., of Antiquites
Etrusques, etc., par. F. A. David (Paris, 1785), a draped female,
wearing on her breast a half moon and mural crown, holding her hands
over the middle spot of the body, so as to form a "lozenge" with the
forefingers and thumbs. The triad in this figure is very distinct; and
we may add that a trinity expressed by three balls or three circles is
to be met with in the remotest times and in most distant countries.
Figs. 7, 8, 9 and 10 are copied from Cabrera's account of an ancient
city discovered near Palenque, in Guatemala, Spanish America (London,
1822). Although they appear to have a sexual design, yet I doubt whether
the similarity is not accidental. After a close examination of the
plates given by Cabrera, I am inclined to think that nothing of
the ling-yoni element prevailed in the mind of the ancient American
sculptors. All the males are carefully draped in appropriate girdles,
although in some a grotesque or other ornament, such as a human or
bestial head, a flower, etc., is attached to the apron or "fall" of the
girdle, resembling the sporran of the Highlander and the codpiece
of mediaeval knights and others. I may, however, mention some very
remarkable sculptures copied; one is a tree, whose trunk is surrounded
by a serpent, and whose fruit is shaped like the vesica piscis; in
another is seen a youth wholly unclothed, save by a cap and gaiters, who
kneels before a similar tree, being threatened before and behind by some
fierce animal. This figure is peculiar, differing from all the rest in
having an European rather than an American head and face. Indeed, the
features, etc., remind me of the late Mr. Cobden, and the cap is such as
yachting sailors usually wear. There is also another remarkable group,
consisting apparently of a man and woman standing before a cross,
proportioned like the conventional one in use amongst Christians.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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