27-10-2016, 07:39 PM
R.Sale:
I have in fact entertained the idea that the "bulls" and the goats were indeed sacrificial animals, likely in a Greco-Roman Egyptian context. The idea behind the calendar roundels would then be that the centre originally depicted concepts associated with certain feasts. I have become much less convinced of this than since I first wrote about it, but nonetheless I still keep the possibility open.
The color of animals was surely important in sacrifice. Still in the Greco-Roman period for example, red animals were sacrificed to Set, whose worship continued in places like Dendera. Interestingly, also fish and lobsters were ritually killed for the god. For the same reason I think/thought Scorpio was originally a black pig, because those were also strongly associated with Set. That's almost half the VM zodiac sacrificed
I still don't see why a connection with heraldry must be made though. As I have demonstrated, both simple and complex patterns on the barrels can be found on Ptolemaic or Roman period works of art. This is compatible with my view on the manuscript as a whole (trade, navigation, astronomy...) so I see no reason to assume that heraldry played an important role in its creation. Especially because I can't see how heraldry connects to hundreds of strangely shaped naked women, and well over a hundred plant images that were already called "exotic" by Baresch...
I have in fact entertained the idea that the "bulls" and the goats were indeed sacrificial animals, likely in a Greco-Roman Egyptian context. The idea behind the calendar roundels would then be that the centre originally depicted concepts associated with certain feasts. I have become much less convinced of this than since I first wrote about it, but nonetheless I still keep the possibility open.
The color of animals was surely important in sacrifice. Still in the Greco-Roman period for example, red animals were sacrificed to Set, whose worship continued in places like Dendera. Interestingly, also fish and lobsters were ritually killed for the god. For the same reason I think/thought Scorpio was originally a black pig, because those were also strongly associated with Set. That's almost half the VM zodiac sacrificed
I still don't see why a connection with heraldry must be made though. As I have demonstrated, both simple and complex patterns on the barrels can be found on Ptolemaic or Roman period works of art. This is compatible with my view on the manuscript as a whole (trade, navigation, astronomy...) so I see no reason to assume that heraldry played an important role in its creation. Especially because I can't see how heraldry connects to hundreds of strangely shaped naked women, and well over a hundred plant images that were already called "exotic" by Baresch...