The stone in the wall

[homoveritas]

I live in a big old Spanish house. There is a stone on the wall which no-one seems to know anything about.

At various times in history, this town on a clifftop has been occupied by Romans, Visigoths, Moors...

http://www.homoveritas.net/images/IMG_3728.JPG

http://www.homoveritas.net/images/IMG_3727.JPG

What do you see?

[MythMath]

Cool motif... :yes:

Just finished a lozenge-based graphic series moments ago...

And I've been dabbling with a very similar radial image...

I'll try to post the swirlie tomorrow
though mine doesn't have 15 rays...
_______________

Check 'em out:

Clandon Lozenge Graphics (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=3221)

And here's a whopper of a thread:

Origins of the Swastika... (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=1618)


MM

PS - Welcome to Synchroni City... :laugh:

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Looks Moorish to me.

[homoveritas]

Thank you both. Ci Celli Ddu - why Moorish would you say?

[m1thr0s]

this symbol does not appear to have any specific religious or iconographic significance I can identify. It is a lot more like an *ornamental* glyph we might find anywhere really. I'm not sure why it would seem to be especially Moorish, since Moor designs would typically follow the more conventional lattice-work patterns we find throughout the Muslim world. I have not yet seen even one of these that followed this simple fan-like pattern...

anyway, for the moment, I have no idea...

looks like a chariot wheel to me...maybe this is where people were supposed to park their chariots...:laugh:

m1

[Ci Celli Ddu]

Thank you both. Ci Celli Ddu - why Moorish would you say?

Because the Moors were into geometry.

[homoveritas]

A Celtic fertility symbol perhaps?

[Ci Celli Ddu]

It isn't Celtic.

I used to live in Spain and recently visited La Aljaferia to view the Moorish art there. Yes the Moors like latticed and Arabesque sculptures, but geometry is the predominent factor and you'll find similar though not identical designs to this in La Aljaferia set on identical quadrilateral backgrounds. The only thing missing here is an exact opposite double of the stone.

Perhaps the stone was salvaged from another edifice and incorporated into the house. At any rate there are plenty of authorative experts in Spain who would be able to identify the stone's cultural origin.

[m1thr0s]

It could be...I just can't find anything very much like it with my limited resources. It would be helpful to have a date or something...we've got very little to work with here since it definitely is not any major piece of iconographic expressionism...I'm not even sure what it is supposed to be indicating. We sometimes see these energy patterns representing the power of god etc but there is usually also something to give us a context included whereas here there really isn't...

If you dug through enough books and photos you'd probably turn up something similar that might tell us what it is trying to convey...wheel of life, power of god, something...

m1

[Ci Celli Ddu]

If it's Moorish it would be a minor decoration and would have had a mirror opposite twin accompanying it on the other side of whatever piece of architecture it was originally flanking. If I had to place a wager though I'd go for a more modern piece. I have lived in old stone houses in Spain, and it's easy to assume that these rural medieval-looking houses are older than they in fact are, due to there being little change in the manner of their construction and the materials used, right up until the 1960s. Generally the age of a house is surmised from its location and the number of its floors. The first floor (ie the ground floor) in a rural location may be very old but a third floor would not have been constructed earlier than the late 1800s (and most likely dates from the early 1900s).

[homoveritas]

Great, thanks for your insights. I can tell you a bit more about the stone - and the house.

The house is at least 500 years old. In the patio downstairs there is a Roman memorial stone, set into the wall. This part of the wall hides a large archway belonging to the patio next door (15th century); this is all one building, separated into two dwellings.

The stone pictured, also set into the wall, appears to hide a doorway, the outline of which is visible.

Apparently this section of the building was bought by someone in 1900. He would have had to turn it into his house and cover up the old doorways connecting it with the other section.

I wonder if both stones, brought in from elsewhere, were 'house warming' presents. I also wonder if they have anything to do with warding off bad spirits.

The stone pictured pretty much faces sunset on the longest day, if that's any help.

[m1thr0s]

It's really kind of amazing to me to think that you live in a house that is roughly 275 years older than the country I live in! Probably not all that uncommon for some of you but hard to wrap my brain around even so...

well...we'll just keep poking away at it and something may turn up. Have you seen this particular symbolism anywhere else in your area? I'm wondering if it might have been a more popular motif or perhaps more personalized...

we can always start in dissecting the numerology and generic geometrical properties but this won't tell us anything about origins so much as underscoring theme...

the diamond is interesting...I have definitely seen that in Moorish reliefs and such...

m1

[MythMath]

Old-Timey, Dipole Torsion Field Generator
http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q48/MythMath/TorsionGenerator3copy.jpg

[Catalytic Subterfuge]

I can feel it working from here.

[Anibis]

!!!

MM, you continue to awe me. That image is stunning!


!!!

-A-

[MythMath]

Thanks, yeah I like that one, too...

And kudos to CatSub for the torsion field angle...

[homoveritas]

What's a torsion field generator, MythMath?

[MythMath]

In this case it is merely an inspired title for an image that I'd been
working on which I mentioned at the beginning of this thread... :p

[homoveritas]

Looks like it's Celtic.

This morning I met a guy who happened to have visited the oldest church in Cantabria (Northern Spain). He recognised the pattern in the stone immediately as the same one he had seen on the altar of that church:

http://www.cantabriajoven.com/cillorigo/fotos/p_lebena3.jpg