Any ideas about this detail? (Middle right rosette).

[Koen G]

   

I don't recall having seen any explanations for this. Has anyone ever seen anything like this elsewhere? It looks like two "tails" coming out of a central point, but I have no idea what the intention may have been. I'm also not sure if the "tails" angle is a good one, since the outer lines seem to make two half circles towards the cloud bands. 

Conceptually, we can probably assume this scene takes place either in the sky or in the heavenly realm (or both). It is probably something you cannot touch when you are on earth, at least that would be the meaning of the cloud band in standard iconography. They also used a special method of painting, applying curved dabs of blue paint, maybe suggestive of clouds?

There is also a strange detail of a couple of lines bottom left on the inner circle.

[Mark Knowles]

I have had my own theory of this detail, but it is not at all consistent with your interpretation, so I doubt it will be of much interest to you.

[radapox]

I don't think it's very likely, but it looks a bit like an ice crystal halo with You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.

[Mark Knowles]

A question of interest is whether the author intended the top to be the mirror image of the bottom or different. They certainly look similar although there are differences.

[Koen G]

I have had my own theory of this detail, but it is not at all consistent with your interpretation, so I doubt it will be of much interest to you.

Mark, I am very much interested in any ideas. I think we should try to assess proposals by the arguments in favor and against them. The VM makes this hard by pushing our confirmation bias buttons, but I try my best.

radapox: so cool! But yeah, this looks like a very specific and rare phenomenon.

[radapox]

radapox: so cool! But yeah, this looks like a very specific and rare phenomenon.

Not as rare as you might think! Some types of halo occur more frequently than rainbows, but people easily miss them as it requires looking towards the sun. Old depictions of the phenomenon exist, such as the You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.. But yeah, I don't think this is what we're looking at in the VM

[Aga Tentakulus]

Imagine the image of radapox over a lake. It would be mirrored by itself.

Just an idea.

[Anton]

I've always thought of this as of some focal point or sinkhole maybe.

[Koen G]

I've always thought of this as of some focal point or sinkhole maybe.

Yeah, I also always thought of it as waves or something. But the fact that this rosette is surrounded by a cloud band really suggests that whatever it is takes place in the sky or in the divine realm. This should limit our options - if we had options to begin with

[davidjackson]

Two whales meeting under a blow-out