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+--- Thread: Medieval sirens and mermaids (/thread-2970.html)
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - bi3mw - 13-10-2019
@JKP: Exactly, the shape of the fishmouth is like that of the basins where the nymphs are standing otherwise.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Monica Yokubinas - 13-10-2019
I'll just leave this here for your reading enjoyment on the fish symbolism and You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view..
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Linda - 13-10-2019
(13-10-2019, 01:38 PM)-JKP- Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.To me it has always looked more like someone emerging more than someone being swallowed (or someone somehow associated with the fish) but what I find most interesting about it is that the fish's mouth has been drawn almost bowl-shaped, almost like a baptismal font.
Quote:@JKP: Exactly, the shape of the fishmouth is like that of the basins where the nymphs are standing otherwise
Agreed, this is why i like the parallel with Anaximander's origins of humans, wherein they incubated in the mouths of fish as they would not likely have withstood the primieval climate.
As i see the history of cartography referenced elsewhere in the vms i take this possibility seriously, Strabo considers Anaximander and Hecataeus to be the next geographers after Homer. As such works were being translated in the early 1400s i see this as quite likely to be known by someone connected with either Greek translations or within the cartography community of the time.
The locality that i place this port, or river mouth, as i take these basins to indicate, in is in Arabia, on the northeastern Red Sea shore. At the end of the ice age there were rivers there, now it is dry and pocked with volcanoes. But during the ice age it may well have been a haven for modern human civilization, especially with the extra warmth of the volcanic activity. There is a natural protected lagoon there due to the previous erosion caused by the multiple rivers that flowed through the area. The rift in the red sea seems to be involved too, and it seems to follow the curve of the fish. The Red Sea itself looks like the fish, if it were straightened out and had a pointed face if its mouth were closed, with its two gulfs as double tail and islands for eyes, it may be a mnemonic for drawing it.
Here you can see the area i mean in between Al Wajh ("the oldest coastal city") and Umm Lajj. The feature looks a bit like the nymph, with arms, and a feature like the water spray is also in the landscape at her right hand, but it is dry leftover erosion, not actual water. But because the quire appears to be about water, i take this page to speak of former landforms, just as it speaks of the origins of humans and animals. Note the peninsula on the opposite shore can be thought of as analogous to the lizard's head in the vms drawing, which would be inland in yet another water level situation. There also seems to be volcanic context in that each of these corresponding animal locations has volcanic landforms associated with them. But that would make sense given the ice age. You can see that the water origins would be the same as that which led on the other side to the Persian Gulf. Some think this river to have been one of the original four paradise rivers, now dry.
Also you can see that the water body in the vms seems to have been drawn to a previous shoreline, from when water levels were higher, that is analogous with the brown colour on the map, the green part goes with the green water. This may be an indication of river ports eventually being found inland. Thus was happening at the time with many former Roman ports, the sedimenation and changes in climate made it so that previously navigable rivers had to either be abandonned or reengineered. The current Po delta south of Venice is only there due to human influence, if left as it was the silt would simply have overwhelmed the Venetian lagoon. So i see it as referring to multiple processes over long periods of time, all to do with water and life, geography, history, and prehistory.
![[Image: Duba+to+Nahom+with+Shaded+Relief.png]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-a2dbtwNDxd8/UXmN7jfl4TI/AAAAAAAAQxo/-zQ53qKFnq4/s1600/Duba+to+Nahom+with+Shaded+Relief.png)
I do wonder a bit about the cleft in the fish mouth, and the item on her leg, across from her belly, that sort of disappears into nothing.
The cleft does seem to exist in the rift under the sea, as drawn, in a triangular shape, although i don't know how they would know that. Or maybe it is an inverted point to be used as a mnemonic for drawing the Sea.
Here is a google maps view of the rift, the lagoon, and above it the feature i believe to be analogous to the nymph, check out her right hand on the left with the spray feature, and the other hand is the black volcano feature.
Dropped pin Near Tabuk Province Saudi Arabia You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Sorry the sharing is not working out when i try them. I will leave them here in case they work for others, may have to zoom out, the pin was supposed to be the nymph head but may have moved.
You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. this one zoomed into Al Wajh in map mode for me...zoom out and go satellite to see what i am talking about.
As to the leg bit, it seems analogous to another dry feature that starts at Khurayyim Sa'id, which flows inside and outside the lagoon i mentioned, which matches the two pointy ends as drawn. When i looked up that place just now, it led me directly to ancient ports mentioned by Strabo, Pliny and others. That seems more than coincidental to me, both with regard to ancient geography and what i was saying about ancient river ports now being located inland, here is a clear historical example pointed out in a feature that seems otherwise out of place. Maybe it is confirmation bias on my part but it does seem to fit exactly with what i am trying to describe.
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Let me know what you think.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - davidjackson - 13-10-2019
(13-10-2019, 12:57 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's difficult to say because in my opinion, if we really take the image as it is, it's not a mermaid but rather a person standing in a fish mouth. The most common parallel in European art would be Jonah emerging from the whale.
There is a beautiful 1th century carving of Satan emerging from a snake's mouth to tempt Eve in the garden that is a close parallel for this exampler.
It was on the doors of Notre Dame in Paris.
This was bought to my attention by Prof Nancy Mandeville Caciola in Serpent and Lies, Speculum 93/1. She outlines several other examples from the period and time that were sculptures in common view. All are much the same : a woman emerges from a serpent in order to tempt.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Searcher - 13-10-2019
I also think that Jonah is the closest character, but in the conditions when no myth about a women emerging from a mouth of a fish (a whale) is known in nowadays we, as always, can only suppose whether it implies Melusina depicted in a strange (unusual) way or someone (something) else.
You know, I wrote that my impression about this page is that it shows death and rebirth (or resurrection). The nymph in the mouth of the fish, in particular, can mean rebirth. Of course, my impression is just an impression, it may be not important. I just want to add that there are researchers who learned different myths and compared them to each other, they say that Jonah myth and many similar to it myths are united with these resemble scenes of a man and a fish as allegoric description of rebirth and salvation, including Christ, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., etc.
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RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Koen G - 13-10-2019
(13-10-2019, 01:02 AM)arca_libraria Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Dropping a link to BL Harley 334 here: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
Nice. I googled it and only found the page with a few images. Probably I didn't look hard enough, but the link to the full MS isn't entirely obvious.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - bi3mw - 14-10-2019
Here is a mermaid with a correct connection between upper body and fish body.
![[Image: mermaid.png]](https://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/mwille2/VMS/mermaid.png)
Det Kgl. Bibliotek, GKS 1633 4º: Bestiarius, England, 15th century, You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Koen G - 14-10-2019
An image like this might, maybe, cause confusion for someone not accustomed to mermaid imagery. The tail has got something on it which could be seen as an eye. And the tail slightly extends beyond the middle, like a fish mouth would.
(Also, weirdest way of drawing breasts..)
![[Image: 0548a0c2aa212ab09fa7b0e731c522d6.jpg]](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/05/48/a0/0548a0c2aa212ab09fa7b0e731c522d6.jpg)
Oxford Bodleian Library - MS Ashmole 1511 fol-65v
The fact that the VM nymph clearly has legs remains problematic though.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - -JKP- - 14-10-2019
(13-10-2019, 09:26 PM)davidjackson Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(13-10-2019, 12:57 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.It's difficult to say because in my opinion, if we really take the image as it is, it's not a mermaid but rather a person standing in a fish mouth. The most common parallel in European art would be Jonah emerging from the whale.
There is a beautiful 1th century carving of Satan emerging from a snake's mouth to tempt Eve in the garden that is a close parallel for this exampler.
It was on the doors of Notre Dame in Paris.
This was bought to my attention by Prof Nancy Mandeville Caciola in Serpent and Lies, Speculum 93/1. She outlines several other examples from the period and time that were sculptures in common view. All are much the same : a woman emerges from a serpent in order to tempt.
This does't look like a mouth to me. It looks like the crook of the branch of the tree, with the serpent body behind the tree (no mouth) and the female body part coming out over the branch. It looks like the serpent and female connect behind the crook of the tree branch. I think the "serpent's mouth" is an illusion.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Searcher - 14-10-2019
The snake of Eden with a woman head or half-body is not rare. Sometimes this character was associated with Lilith, sometimes - just with a woman, as women are evil.
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