Trade Secrets

[Mick Harper]

We pointed to 'wolf' names as being significant in TME eg Wolfram von Eschenbach but couldn't really come up with many, so this is a useful addition. Is someone compiling a list?

[Boreades]

A friendly Templar historian has alerted me to a historical mystery almost on my doorstep. It's the tympanum inside the St.Peters church in Charney Bassett.



The orthodox history appears to be suitably straightforward.

There above the chancel doorway is a carved tympanum, wonderfully incised with vivid figures. The tympanum is traditionally described as 12th century work, but is it, or is it a remnant of centuries earlier Saxon work? The carving shows two winged beasts like dragons facing each other and flanking a figure of Christ. Around the central semi-circle is a band of what look like acanthus leaves. In the centre of the arch is a boss, protruding from the surface of the stone like a halo above Christ's head.

http://www.britainexpress.com/counties/ ... assett.htm

It gets more interesting when we learn the scholars are in discord.

The very readable church guide reprises five opinions given by scholars about the typmanum. One scholar categorically states that it belongs to the first half of the 12th century, based on the fact that the flanking beasts are dragons, which did not really become popular in church carving until that time. The second opinion is completely in disagreement and finds the tympanum to be almost certainly Saxon, calling the dragons Norse in style, and suggesting that dragon depictions, especially facing each other towards the centre of the tympanum, had almost completely died out befoe 1100. Another scholar suggests that the 'dragons' are winged beasts bearing Jesus up to heaven, while another points to a similar carving at Reading Abbey, dating to 1120-1140. Who to believe if the scholars can't make up their minds?

I would have hazarded a guess at another possible meaning, as the church is within line of sight of Dragon Hill, a short distance to the south. But Christopher Howse, writing in The Telegraph, has much grander ideas.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/1214 ... hurch.html

A hurried glance on an overcast day might take him for Daniel in the lions’ den. But wings grow from the shoulders of the beasts, which grip with beaked jaws the upper arms of the man between them. They are clearly griffins. He nevertheless stands resolutely with his hands round their necks.

Perhaps he is Alexander the Great. If that sounds far-fetched, consider a curious carving on the outside north wall of St Mark’s in Venice. It depicts a man standing in a sort of chariot, pulled through the air by two griffins, led on by bait on two sticks held aloft by Alexander (for it is he). The carving was not made for St Mark’s but fixed to its wall in the Middle Ages, along with other marvellous plunder from Constantinople.

Yes, but what's Alexander got to do with it, and what does it mean?

The tale it illustrates is the celestial journey of Alexander. It was as familiar to everyone in the high Middle Ages as the story of Icarus. Chaucer mentions it more than once. It was part of common culture, like the dream of Scipio, described by Cicero, a journey into what we call space, looking down on the Earth. As a wonderful traveller, Alexander also finds his way into the Koran, in Sura 18, under the name Dhul-Qarnayn, the Two-Horned One. What Alexander is doing in the Koran is not clear. But then, why is he on the wall of a church? As far as St Mark’s goes, its external decoration incorporates any fine sculpture available. It was only in 1865 that modern scholars realised Alexander was the subject of the bas relief there. But he features in Romanesque sculpture all over Europe: on a capital at Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy, a wall in a Georgian church now in Turkey, or on the cathedral at Vladimir in Russia. Otranto cathedral has a large mosaic of the celestial journey. The feature to look out for is the two sticks with their meaty bait held aloft by Alexander.

But these are all geographically closer to the doings of Alexander. What's that got to do with this church?

But at Charney Bassett, no such sticks are being held up. So does it depict Alexander the Great on his voyage through the air after all?

Oh dear, nothing.

The surprising thing is that a decorative motif known to scholars as the Master of Beasts occurs even more widely and earlier than Alexander’s image. In Luristan, in Persia, bronzes 3,000 years old showed a man standing between two rampant lions or more fantastical creatures. In the Christian era such a depiction may easily be mistaken for Daniel in the lions’ den, an established image of faith. It seems that the carving at Charney Bassett is one more version of the Master of Beasts theme.

That's better. Something we can get our teeth into.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Master_of_Animals

[Mick Harper]

Very interesting but I fear that it will have to be your teeth for the present. I can see some maybe connections to domestication but it's a stretch. Talking of stretches, what does line-of-sight actually mean in this context? Alexander seems to wander into a lot of tales -- similar to Hercules. I wonder what he represents and whether our 'history' of him may not be just another tale he has wandered into.

[TisILeclerc]

http://www.britroyals.com/arms.htm

Could modern coats of arms be carrying on with this tradition?

Instead of having a 'human' figure surrounded by animals we have an abstract idea surrounded by animals?

Apparently Alexander wanted to have a look at heaven hence the Griffocopter. But a passing angel asked why he wanted to see heaven when he understood nothing of the earth. So, as in all morality plays, he returned to earth, very 'umble. Mind you he was the one for short cuts as with the Gordian knot.

One legend involving griffins is the Ascension of Alexander the great. According to this story, Alexander captured a pair of griffins and, having starved them for three days, hitched them to his throne and, teasing them with chunks of roast beef held above their heads on lances, flew heavenward for seven days. Alexander would've stolen a peek at God Himself if an angel had not asked him why he wanted to see the things of heaven when he did not yet understand the things of earth. Chastised for his presumptuousness, Alexander flew back to earth. Representations of Alexander's ascension were placed in French and Italian cathedrals during the 12th century.

http://mythmaniacs.com/griffin.htm

[Boreades]

Looks like a good match to me, with the royal family adopting the role of the "corporate" individual.

[TisILeclerc]

Here's a trade secret that's recently become unravelled. Or even ravelled.

A length of ivory that had been deemed to be a musical instrument has now been reassigned as a tool for making rope.





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/ ... ument.html

I think this highlights the need to have skilled tradesmen and craftsmen working alongside archaeologists at every step of the way.

[Mick Harper]

Of course, but no chance. Lords of Academe cannot be in trade. It should be noted that 'craftsmen' in this context always turns out to be eg blokes who can knap flint and stuff like that. In other words, hobbyists not professionals. This is important because hobbyists start from the academic assumption about how/why/what and just get good at it, thereby reinforcing the paradigm, whereas professionals get there independently but are then ignored if what they do contradicts the paradigm.

Mind you, professionals can be a bit of a disappointment too. One of my family is a stonemason but was uninterested in and uninformative about uncial miniscule and other such matters of immediate and pressing concern.

[Boreades]

That's what you get from Operative Masons.
What you need is Speculative Masons.
They have a far more enquiring mind.

[TisILeclerc]

My father told me a long time ago about a friend of his who had served his time as a cabinet-maker or something like that to do with joinery.

They were at a museum looking at furniture when one of the museum people came up and started to talk about it. They didn't quite know when it was made or anything else for that matter.

The craftsman immediately went into Sherlock Holmes mode and described how it had been made by two men with adzes and not planes. That would give a hint as to its age. He showed how to look at the top with the light bouncing off it. And there were the marks, very slight of two tools working from the centre to the two ends. They were a bit different from each other showing that there were two tools being used.

Then he started on the type of wood, the joints and so on.

The curator took him off to look at more exhibits to see what he could make of them.

That kind of observation comes from practical experience. Rather like a violin maker who could tell a performing violinist a thing or two about the instrument he is playing. Something not to be gained from doing your grade eight.

[Boreades]

Not a lot of people know that a new Temple of Mithras is being built right now in the middle of London.

Well, actually, they're reassembling the bits and pieces they found in 1954. The first time round, they stuck the bits and pieces together with cement. A more sympathetic reconstruction is due to open in 2017 in the basement of the new Bloomburg HQ as "The London Mithraeum".

Pictures and words here: http://www.mola.org.uk/projects/commerc ... nstruction

The Temples of Mithras in Britain are also very important.

Why? Because they are a missing link between
a) the really big Roman Temples (like the ones in Jerusalem that are mistaken for King Solomon's temple)
b) the Roman civil engineering skills in Britain right up to Brexit 412AD (and beyond, given the high % of Roman Army veterans that stayed in Britain)
c) the skills needed just a little later to built the first British stone-built monasteries and churches

They might also be the real origin of Freemasonry in Britain, with all its similarities to Mithraic ritual.