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
It is described as a marble statue, now in the Guarnacci Museum. The
letters, which are Etruscan, and read from right to left, may be thus
rendered into the ordinary Latin characters from left to right, MI:
GANA: LARTHIAS ZANL: VELKINEI: ME - SE.; the translation I take to
be, "the votive offering of Larthias (a female) of Zanal, ( = Zancle
= Messana in Sicily), (wife) of Velcinius, in the sixth month." It
is uncertain whether we are to regard the statue as an effigy of the
celestial mother and child, or as the representation of some devout lady
who has been spared during her pregnancy, her parturition, or from some
disease affecting herself and child. Analogy would lead us to infer that
the Queen of Heaven is intended. Figure 14 is copied from Hislop's Two
Babylons; it represents Indranee, the wife of Indra or Indur, and is to
be found in Indur Subba, the south front of the Caves of Ellora, Asiatic
Researches, vol. vi., p. 893.
Indra is equivalent to Jupiter Tonans, and is represented as seated on
an elephant; "the waterspout is the trunk of this elephant, and the iris
is his bow, which it is not auspicious to point out," Moor's Pantheon,
p. 260. He is represented very much as if he were a satyr, Moor's
Pantheon, p. 264; but his wife is always spoken of as personified
chastity and propriety. Indranee is seated on a lioness, which replaces
the cow of Isis, the former resembling the latter in her feminine and
maternal instincts.
Figures 15, 16, are copies of Diana of the Ephesians; the first is from
Hislop, who quotes Kitto's Illustrated Commentary, vol. v., p. 250; the
second from Higgins' Anacalypsis, who quotes Montfaucon, plate 47. I
remember to have seen a figure similar to these in the Royal Museum at
Naples.
The tower upon the head represents virginity (see Ancient Faiths, second
edition, Vol. i., p. 144); the position of the hand forms a cross with
the body: the numerous breasts indicate abundance; the black colour of
Figure 16 indicates the ordinary tint of the feminine lanugo, the almost
universal colour of the hair of the Orientals being black about the yoni
as well as on the head; or, as some mythologists imagine, "Night,"
who is said to be one of the mothers of creation. (See Ancient Faiths,
second edition, Vol. n., p. 882.) The emblems upon the body indicate the
attributes or symbols of the male and female creators.
Figure 17 is a complicated sign of the yoni, delta, or door of life. It
is copied from Bonomi's Palaces of Nineveh, p. 809.
Figure 18 signifies the same thing; the priests adoring it present the
pine cone and basket, symbolic of Ann, Hea, and their residence. Compare
the object of the Assyrian priest's adoration with that adored by a
Christian divine, in a subsequent figure. (See Ancient Faiths, second
edition, Vol. I., p. 88, et seq., and Vol. n., p. 648.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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