MarcoP > 29-07-2017, 03:47 PM
(29-07-2017, 08:08 AM)Koen Gh. Wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Marco: As suggested before, the cannon might indicate the four cardinal directions or winds - those are basically the same in certain contexts. If it is tilted to the side in either direction, this places the travelling soul/star on the north-south axis.
Searcher > 29-07-2017, 04:14 PM
Quote:I'm strongly inclined to consider the possibility of a connection to Egypt. I wasn't even going to propose it since it's too exotic for many, but most significant details have been mentioned already by others:
* Dead figure looks like a mummy (JKP).
* Belief in star-related / cosmic resurrection (Anton). It must be noted as well that the color green was significant in this respect. As the color of new vegetation, it symbolized resurrection. That is why Osiris often has a green skin (especially i the Greco-Roman period as well). It also explains images like this:
Quote:ZEPHYRUS GOD OF SPRINGThe west wind is often related to equinox. "Between 40° and 60°S, semiannual and annual variations in zonal and meridional wind are of similar magnitude, resulting in a west-wind maximum near the vernal equinox and a secondary maximum near the autumnal equinox."
Callimachus, Hymn 2 to Apollo 81 ff (trans. Mair) (Greek poet C3rd B.C.) :
"Thine [Apollon's] altars wear flowers in spring, even all the pied flowers which the Horai (Horae, Seasons) lead forth when Zephyros (Zephyrus) breathes dew."
Virgil, Georgics 2. 323 ff (trans. Fairclough) (Roman bucolic C1st B.C.) :
"Spring it is that clothes the glades and forests with leaves . . . and the meadows ungirdle to Zephyrus's (the West Wind's) balmy breeze; the tender moisture avails for all."
Virgil, Georgics 3. 322 ff :
"At the Zephyrus' call, joyous summer sends both sheep and goats to the glades and pastures."
Seneca, Phaedra 11 (trans. Miller) (Roman tragedy C1st A.D.) :
"Where meadows lie which Zephyrus soothes with his dew-laden breath and calls forth the herbage of the spring."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 2. 133 ff (trans. Rouse) (Greek epic C5th A.D.) :
"The swallow dear to Zephyros in spring-time, harbinger of roses and flowery dew, prattling bird that sings a sweet song under the tiles."
Nonnus, Dionysiaca 41. 45 ff :
"The bight of Libya [the city of Beroe in Lebanon, now Beirut] is fanned by the dewy whistle of Zephryos (the West Wind) as he rides with shrill-sounding heel over the western channels, where is a flowery land, where nurseries bloom hard by the sea, and the fragrant forest pervaded by humming winds sings from its leafy trees."
MarcoP > 29-07-2017, 04:19 PM
Koen G > 29-07-2017, 04:59 PM
Quote:Given such a long history of human map-making, it is perhaps surprising that it is only within the last few hundred years that north has been consistently considered to be at the top. In fact, for much of human history, north almost never appeared at the top, according to Jerry Brotton, a map historian from Queen Mary University, London and author of A History of the World in Twelve Maps. “North was rarely put at the top for the simple fact that north is where darkness comes from,” he says. “West is also very unlikely to be put at the top because west is where the sun disappears.”
Searcher > 29-07-2017, 07:09 PM
Quote:About the orientation of the compass, keep in mind that the imperative of north=up has not always existed everywhere. This BBC article provides a good overview: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. “North was rarely put at the top for the simple fact that north is where darkness comes from,” he says. “West is also very unlikely to be put at the top because west is where the sun disappears.”Yes, almost never, before 16th century.
-JKP- > 30-07-2017, 10:05 PM
MarcoP > 31-07-2017, 05:08 AM
-JKP- > 31-07-2017, 06:40 AM
MarcoP > 31-07-2017, 08:03 AM
Quote:As the Styx [the Milky Way?] draws near the souls cry out in terror, for many slip off and are carried away by Hades; others, whose cessation of birth falls out at the proper moment, swim up from below and are rescued by the Moon, the foul and unclean excepted. These the Moon, with lightning and a terrible roar, forbids to approach, and bewailing their lot they fall away and are borne downward again to another birth, as you see.
...
in the stars that are apparently extinguished, you must understand that you see the souls that sink entirely into the body; in the stars that are lighted again, as it were, and reappear from below, you must understand that you see the souls that float back from the body after death, shaking off a sort of dimness and darkness as one might shake off mud; while the stars that move about on high are the daemons of men said to "possess understanding."
...
the daemons whose motion was straight and ordered had souls which good nurture and training had made submissive to the rein, and whose irrational part was not unduly hard-mouthed and restive; whereas those which were constantly deviating in all directions from a straight course in an uneven and confused motion, as though jerked about on a tether, were contending with a character refractory and unruly from lack of training
MarcoP > 31-07-2017, 10:23 AM
Quote:The stars which are described as fixed in the heavens, are not, as the vulgar suppose, attached each of them to different individuals, the brighter to the rich, those that are less so to the poor, and the dim to the aged, shining according to the lot of the individual, and separately assigned to mortals; for they have neither come into existence, nor do they perish in connexion with particular persons, nor does a falling star indicate that any one is dead. We are not so closely connected with the heavens as that the shining of the stars is affected by our death. When they are supposed to shoot or fall, they throw out, by the force of their fire, as if from an excess of nutriment, the superabundance of the humour which they have absorbed, as we observe to take place from the oil in our lamps, when they are burning.