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+--- Thread: Medieval sirens and mermaids (/thread-2970.html)
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Searcher - 17-10-2019
Hi David! I thought about the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. image and your explanation along the day. I must say that I support the idea of evolution to be depicted there, no matter it is evolution from wild beasts to homo sapiens Christian or from You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view., while I like the latter more. But this is in general, the intermediate points (nymphs) still perplexes me.
As for the evolution from beasts to wise people. Some ancient stories narrate that the first children of Adam and Eve were beasts as Adam and Eve coupled with some low essences. And only when the God shew mercy to them and let them be together and have children, they at first had an offspring which were humans. So, through sins and penitence, they came to Christianity.
Depiction of the evolution from the material world to spiritual one is also very plausible here. As I wrote, the image of the nymph emerged from the mouth of the fish can mean rebirth, no matter whose image is close to it, Jonah or a snake dropped her skin (figuratively) . When I write "rebirth", I mean, of course, not only reincarnation or resurrection, it can imply just renovation in any sense. As you know, in Christianity the way from material to spiritual always lays through renovation and purification from sins.
Anyway, the first point and the last one of the scheme look more understandable, the rest makes confusions. The nymph in supine position holding a ring always led me to a thought about Divine marriage. The problem is that I doubt that it can be depicted in this way in the religious context of Christians, as it generously hints on the sin. Thus, if it is a depiction of the Divine marriage, it must be not religious, rather gnostic, philosophical.
As well, is unclear whether the nymph on the second stage is pregnant or it is just an accidental lines.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Aga Tentakulus - 06-05-2020
I have come across a few pictures about mermaids.
I think you have to draw the line between, swallowed by the fish and tail as legs.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Koen G - 06-05-2020
At face value you have to say that the VM "mermaid" is closer to the Jonah and the whale archetype. On one leg, we can even see the knee and part of the lower leg. So taken as-is, this is a figure standing in a fish mouth.
So why are so many researchers talking about mermaids? I think this is a testament to the VM's talent for ambiguity. The fish is drawn in such a weird and impossible way that it can also be read as a tail. And the human figure has breasts but a male head. The drawing is really simple, but still allows for both readings without embracing either.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - ReneZ - 06-05-2020
(06-05-2020, 08:06 AM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I think this is a testament to the VM's talent for ambiguity.
Or can we say that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder?
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Koen G - 06-05-2020
(06-05-2020, 11:31 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Or can we say that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder?Could be.. how can we tell the difference?
Fact is that many people have looked into mermaid imagery in relation to this figure, while there isn't a single mermaid in the VM. So there is ambiguity, wherever it may reside.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - R. Sale - 06-05-2020
Here's how I see it regarding VMs illustrations. Its problematic on all sides. Certainly ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder, if the beholder even has an accurate recognition of what the illustration represents. Too often investigators have been clueless to start with. Things get skipped over or incorrectly interpreted. Although perhaps this is improving with accumulated research.
So not only do readers bring their own ambiguities to the VMs, the VMs is stocked full of ready made ambiguities even for the investigator already well familiarized with medieval traditions. (Better than those of us who have to learn as they go.) The VMs "mermaid" is ambiguous. It is better compared as a whole "pond scene" with Harley 334. The VMs "critter" is ambiguous. [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]The VMs "cosmos" is ambiguous. [font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]The VMs "zodiac" is ambiguous. And VMs White Aries is a whole other world.[/font][/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]If the geocentric Earth in the VMs cosmos is a copy of an illustration that has a pictorial representation, why isn't the VMs image also a pictorial representation, rather than changing to a linguistic version, which, per force, presents a totally different visual appearance? Because that is the artist's intent. If an investigation is only based on the comparison of visual similarity, then it will not succeed because alterations to appearance have been intentionally made. Appearance is superficial. To 'understand' something. it must be 'known' more deeply - by its structure, by its position, its function, its relationships, as these were defined by relevant traditions.[/font][/font]
[font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif][font=Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans-serif]Comparatively, a musician must learn a tune in order to play it, and must 'know' that melody in order to improvise upon it. The VMs presents the artist's improvisations on medieval tradition, but when certain elements, significant connections, in that tradition have slipped away from the present perspective, (if we don't know the melody that serves as the basis for improvisation) then problems arise - as with the mermaid, the cosmos, the nebuly line. Yet,*somehow* in the VMs, all of this must come together.[/font][/font]
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Aga Tentakulus - 06-05-2020
I don't seem to care if it is from the story of Jonah and the whale, or a mermaid.
It seems more important to me to find a link from the painting to a medical manuscript.
Why a person with fins?
Jonah, whale = cod liver oil
Stupid idea, but the only one I can think of
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - R. Sale - 06-05-2020
Not a mermaid. Not a person with fins. Not a female Joana and the whale. But a fourth ambiguous alternative, a person who can transform from one form to another, like Melusine. This is an attempt to depict the transformation from one form to another.
Without the recovery of this 'mythical' / literary tradition, there would only be three potential interpretations.
The popularity of this tradition is coincident with the period of the VMs parchment, Carbon-14 dates.
It doesn't prove much on its own, but when taken in combination with other elements, many of which now seem to point in the same direction, the significance of a potential concatenation of provenance should be considered.
For the illustration in the previous post: I do not understand the nature of the "object in the water". What is it?
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Linda - 07-05-2020
(06-05-2020, 12:47 PM)Koen G Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.(06-05-2020, 11:31 AM)ReneZ Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Or can we say that ambiguity is in the eye of the beholder?Could be.. how can we tell the difference?
Fact is that many people have looked into mermaid imagery in relation to this figure, while there isn't a single mermaid in the VM. So there is ambiguity, wherever it may reside.
No mermaid, but you can see how someone glancing over the shoulder of someone reading the vms might think there was one. I think the ambiguity might be in the art of the obfuscator, hiding things in plain sight by making them look like other things, while illustrating concepts that are unrelated to the quick identification, like Anaximander's tgeories of evolution.
RE: Medieval sirens and mermaids - Linda - 07-05-2020
(06-05-2020, 08:24 PM)R. Sale Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Not a mermaid. Not a person with fins. Not a female Joana and the whale. But a fourth ambiguous alternative, a person who can transform from one form to another, like Melusine. This is an attempt to depict the transformation from one form to another.
Without the recovery of this 'mythical' / literary tradition, there would only be three potential interpretations.
The popularity of this tradition is coincident with the period of the VMs parchment, Carbon-14 dates.
It doesn't prove much on its own, but when taken in combination with other elements, many of which now seem to point in the same direction, the significance of a potential concatenation of provenance should be considered.
For the illustration in the previous post: I do not understand the nature of the "object in the water". What is it?
You mean log man? The problem is that the quire needs to be taken as a whole. It is not a log, but a tube. They probably did want you to think it was a log as an obfuscation, just like the erroneous mermaid impression is likely also intended. But i think tubes in quire 13 are all rivers. This one to me tells the story of the Persian gulf having previously been a river. It almost fits with where the river ran in reality. Re the so-called mermaid, if you look closely, the fish mouth is in the shape of various other buckets or wells that are found elsewhere in the quire, and these to me denote protected ports. The protected port in this case is in an area of the Red Sea that is thought to be one of the first settlements of modern humans, however it is now devoid of the many rivers that created the sheltered port and rift in the sea floor that the fish body resembles, plus the Anaximander fish mouth evolution of man story fits perfectly as well. I think it is discussing geography and history, prehistory to be exact.
It is interesting that this also ties back to the Rosettes correlation that Koen made, that i compare to an evolving ecumene. Anaximander's philosophies, (he is known as the first philosopher, and the first geographer), including a boundless universe, belongs to the newer ecumene, even though he lived in the time of the older one.
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