01-10-2017, 04:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-10-2017, 04:04 PM by Diane.
Edit Reason: add
)
Marco,
Fyi - I've done a full analysis of this diagram, in which I explained that the previously-believed formless shape was to be identified as a 'branch', which makes me curious as to why you use that term. Anyway, the reason for it is... as is the case with almost all pre-modern imagery regardless of origin... linguistic. Pictures should not be treated as if they were 'failed portraits' they are to be read, being formed of enunciated thoughts appropriate to their original maker's time, environment and above all else... LANGUAGE.
In this case, what we see is a representation of the original matter from which - here - the FIVE elements emerge. In every particular the diagram expressed ideas originating in Greek philosophy, but the presence of FIVE elements tells us this particular enunciation is not from the Latin medieval west. All the wriggling I've seen others do to fit the diagram to the Latin foot (like Cindarella's slipper on an ugly stepsister) can't quite manage it. The reason it looks like wood is that the Greeks used 'hyle' of the original matter, and it is that word which also means a wood or branch. Not an idea natural to the Latin world, though (as I also explained) conveyed at least in Isidore's text.
The reason the diagram cannot be informed only by a Latin who knew that 'hyle' meant a shapeless branch sort of 'wood' is that the Latins saw the physical world as formed from only four elements. Aether was NOT one of the elements informing the world below. It belonged to the higher, non-terrestrial part of creation.
So then, finding that the maker of the image actually thought in Greek, and that the '5 elements' system which informs the perceptions of the east is here, but did not affect the Mediterranean world except during the (first) period of Manichean influence, so the obvious inference is that the image was first enunciated in a Greek-speaking environment, either in an environment strongly affected by Asian mores (including the Indian), or that it was first enunciated before eradication of Manichaean beliefs from the Mediterranean. More detailed study - to find an elements series exactly parallel to the order of these five, and some explanation for the two supporters and their supports - led me to conclude finally that this particular diagram was first enunciated in north Africa or, more likely, in Egypt during the early centuries AD.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the 'steaming' bit, but assume you are referring to the second detail, with the lady on the seat.
It's an entirely different diagram, relating to rather different matters: not the nature of the five elements but (as I have read it) a description of the different sources for gold: but I won't repeat it all here, or now. The information has been available, published online, for some time now. I do hate to see time wasted going over and over matter already known, or already explained, or in sudden 'discovery' of things said long ago, by someone else.
Fyi - I've done a full analysis of this diagram, in which I explained that the previously-believed formless shape was to be identified as a 'branch', which makes me curious as to why you use that term. Anyway, the reason for it is... as is the case with almost all pre-modern imagery regardless of origin... linguistic. Pictures should not be treated as if they were 'failed portraits' they are to be read, being formed of enunciated thoughts appropriate to their original maker's time, environment and above all else... LANGUAGE.
In this case, what we see is a representation of the original matter from which - here - the FIVE elements emerge. In every particular the diagram expressed ideas originating in Greek philosophy, but the presence of FIVE elements tells us this particular enunciation is not from the Latin medieval west. All the wriggling I've seen others do to fit the diagram to the Latin foot (like Cindarella's slipper on an ugly stepsister) can't quite manage it. The reason it looks like wood is that the Greeks used 'hyle' of the original matter, and it is that word which also means a wood or branch. Not an idea natural to the Latin world, though (as I also explained) conveyed at least in Isidore's text.
The reason the diagram cannot be informed only by a Latin who knew that 'hyle' meant a shapeless branch sort of 'wood' is that the Latins saw the physical world as formed from only four elements. Aether was NOT one of the elements informing the world below. It belonged to the higher, non-terrestrial part of creation.
So then, finding that the maker of the image actually thought in Greek, and that the '5 elements' system which informs the perceptions of the east is here, but did not affect the Mediterranean world except during the (first) period of Manichean influence, so the obvious inference is that the image was first enunciated in a Greek-speaking environment, either in an environment strongly affected by Asian mores (including the Indian), or that it was first enunciated before eradication of Manichaean beliefs from the Mediterranean. More detailed study - to find an elements series exactly parallel to the order of these five, and some explanation for the two supporters and their supports - led me to conclude finally that this particular diagram was first enunciated in north Africa or, more likely, in Egypt during the early centuries AD.
I'm not exactly sure what you mean by the 'steaming' bit, but assume you are referring to the second detail, with the lady on the seat.
It's an entirely different diagram, relating to rather different matters: not the nature of the five elements but (as I have read it) a description of the different sources for gold: but I won't repeat it all here, or now. The information has been available, published online, for some time now. I do hate to see time wasted going over and over matter already known, or already explained, or in sudden 'discovery' of things said long ago, by someone else.