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Login to view. is the title of a 2012 short but insightful blog post by Ellie Velinska. I believe it is one of the best contributions I have read about the Rosettes page.
Ellie's interpretation requires to turn the South-East Rosette according to the orientation of the text. The result is a couple of tents. That interpretation explains several details in the illustration:
- The two larger rectangular areas, decorated by different patterns: the one on the left is split into four triangles joining at the centre; the one on the right is more simply decorated by parallel patterns;
- The six parallel cylinders that appear below the rectangles (three for each structure): this interpretation explains why they are cylindrical, why they are parallel and why they are below the rectangles; the cylindrical shape of the objects is particularly clear in the first and third from the left.
- A bronze object known as You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view. was used to support the poles of the tents. This one is monumental, but I guess others were considerable smaller. Zhighris could correspond to the thicker part of some of the poles near the ground;
- In both structures, the lower part of the rectangle features a parallel wavy area that extends towards the ground. This area appears to be in front of the upper part of the poles in the left structure and behind the upper part of the poles in the right structure. Following Ellie's idea, these areas represent fringes or tissue hanging at the site of the baldaquin.
Here I have added colour and shades, trying to make the three-dimensional interpretation of the drawing easier to see. The image on the right is from You are not allowed to view links.
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Original illustration:
It seems clear to me that the two baldachins have a symbolic function: the rest of the circle is filled with patterns (stars, mountains/clouds, unidentifiable "flows") that seem suggestive of a cosmological meaning.
I like that Ellie's interpretations accounts for both structures. Some (e.g. You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view.) have seen the top of the left structure as an illustration of the rivers of paradise, but this interpretation ignores the other details (the poles and the fringes) and the fact that two complex and similar structures appear side by side.
Mark's recent You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. as a cloister and a herb-garden has similar problems: the poles, the fringes and the similarity between the two structures remains unexplained.
Also, the two baldaquins relate well with the much more bizarre structure in the central rosette: even here we see a flat horizontal surface supported by vertical "pillars" that in this case are shaped like "pharma" containers. Ellie's interpretation catches the overall 3D nature of the diagram.
Besides discussing the rectangular structures, Ellie also notes that other rosettes look like pavilions seen from above. This is particularly clear in the South rosette, where one can see what could be ropes and knots holding in place a circular tent (or canopy).
This tent/canopy motif recurring in the Rosettes diagram could also be related with the "umbrellas" in Q13 (see discussion You are not allowed to view links.
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Login to view. by Karl Lehmann, on Jstor). The motif is traditionally related with heaven, and the presence of stars on several of the Rosettes canopies reinforces the possibility of a connection.