Atreus Mykene
Pyramid Djoser Doric Temple Pantheon Rom Gothic Cathedral
with fluted columns 2700 with fluted columns 500 b. 120 1200
Dolmen, Greek Temple and Gothic Cathedrals
Symbol of the Cosmos ?
The famous temple tower of Babylon was named Etemenanki "
"House, being the foundation of Heaven upon Earth "
http://www.livius.org/es-ez/etemenanki/etemenanki.html
Working-Hypothesis: In its origin supposed to be based on an old cosmos idea handed down in the Pyramid Texts and Edda
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Pyramid Djoser Doric Temple Pantheon Rom Gothic Cathedral
with fluted columns 2700 with fluted columns 500 b. 120 1200
In Near East there was a religious conception, which interconnects
Temples and Creation. In Egypt the pyramid symbolized the prime-
val hill, (Urhuegel) which emerged at the beginning out of an Urmeer,
the >Winding Waterway<. The oldest god Shu separates sky and
earth and life could begin..Comparably Mesopotamia, where temples already point by the
naming to a certain cosmic background.
The famous temple tower to Babylon is called Etemenanki "
house, being the foundation of sky and earth "
The floor of the temple represents the earth, the cover embodies
the sky. Therefore conceivable that there had been a common European-Near East conception of the cosmos.H ypothesis If so then a link could have been exist between
1) Deng Hoog as a stone house under a primeval hill / Urhuegel,
2) The Egyptian graves in or under the pyramids as Urhuegel
3) The Greek temples with columns supporting the firmament
4) The Roman Pantheon with floral capitals.
5) The columns with floral capitals in Gothic cathedrals supporting
the sky.
Problem: the philosophical background in its origin a northern
natural religion ? Even in Babylon ?
(admit, may sound rather strange, but who built the dolmen in Palestine and
the pyramids in Egypt? Rather strange too:-)
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The architecture of a
Doric Temple
Gabled roof and
Pediment
West front of the Jupiter Temple in Olympia.The crowning of thetemple is the pediment, *the gable*, a recessed area with in the
angle formed by the cornices at the roof; usually ´ filled´ with more
or less divine sculptures. In the pediment Apollon unnoticed by
fighting Kentauren
If the gabled roof symbolizes the sky then the pediment is the area
Gods lived in close to the sky, down on earth the humans.sIf so then
in a Greek tempeI
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2.) Critias(108e-12ç) described the temples of the Atlanter: "On the
A controversy between Cicero and Caesar. The reason, Caesar
5) In the North the Franconian Lex Salica ( AD 520 ) may give a
further reference "If any one destroys a house by force and if it had
a supporting post ( Stuetzbalken), who this dare and it is proven
ows 45 shilling ."(Killing a maid : 15 shilling) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Krepis Stylobate
Greek temples are situated on a hill or on a three stepped platform
(krepis) No problem on a hill, but why to built a temple on a carefully
made three-step platform ? (Found no religious meanings.)
So far seems to be more a matter of art-history .
An assumption:
The three-step krepis being a symbol of a primeval hill ?
to day Djoser ~2600 b. Zikkurat of Urnammu 2200 b.
Pyramids are symbols of the primeval hiil
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a b c d
Evangeliar.A homage to Emperor Otto III ( 983-1002 ) Conceivable a
take over of prechristian symbols. Could be a presentation of the
cosmos.Hypothesis
a) The divine Jerusalem
b) Three step stylobat with three columns.The central column a little
bit higher
c) Double spirals, on a primeval hill with world tree in the middle.
d) On the garment circles with a point, the Egyptean hyroglyph for
> sun<In construction of a cosmos a" primeval hill" would be technically the
logical´ place for columns supporting the sky.
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Sun -Spiral
Around 1000 Christian churches developed in a still pagan northern
Europe. The time of the Saxonia wars and the Vikings.The Irminsul
(World Tree) of the Saxonia was destroyed 722 by Karl the Great.Step by step the northern pagans became more or less voluntarily
Christians. Finally probably convinced by the " persuasive" power
of sword and cross ; but isolated old pagan symbols survived,
among others the SPIRAL symbol of the annual sun course
The crypt of St.Servati in Quedlinburg. (Mid Germany). Columns with
floral capitals in front, in the rear fluted columns with double spirals.
In 936 King Heinrich I was burried in St. Servati. He is the only
German king crowned not being anointed.
Problem: Highest pagan symbols in a crypt of a German King but so
far no mythical relation between Christianity and
fluted columns
with floral capitals
and double spirals
Zeitz 1000 Irsih Cross
Castlelermot 1000Capital in the crypta of the Zeitzer Cathedral 1000.
At the same time ´double spirals´on an Iriish Cross
.
Lothar Cross.Gold sheet on wood core.50 cm.Cathedral, Aachen, The
cross is covered with jewels and spirals. The spirals ' grow out from
the jewels. That may give sense, because in the early Gothic of the
abbott Suger jewels are symbols of concentrated sunlight .
columns supporting the heaven ? In the centre of the cosmos the earth.
In the centre of earth Lothar wearing a knotted head band decorated
with leaves. (Spolie of roman Emperor Augustus )
Christ on the cover of the Evangeliar of the Gauzelin of Toul. Late
10th century surrounded by ´running´spirals (Labyrinth)
Cup covered with yewels and double spirals. A main pice of the
treasure of the abbott and royal chancellor Suger .The choir new
building of the monastic church of Saint Denis is considered as buil-
ding initial of the gothic .(1140)Christian Cross and Spirals symbolysing a short time
of European religious tolerance
Symbols of the cosmos within the frame of an old
´Megalithic´ sun religion?Three elements common in Greek Temples and Gothic
Cathedrals:
1) The portal pediment supported by a row of columns
2) Greece and Gothic columns with a ´floral´ capital
3 ) In Greece and Gothic double spirals / labyrinths----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The cemetery chapel of the Benediktiner Abbey Fulda (Midgermany)
Abbott Eigil let build >> the Ecclesia rotunda<< around 800. The
crypt consists of a circular central area, ( earth disk? )
An ´ionic´ column supports the ´ripped´ vault.
Claudius, the biograph of Eigil interpreted the ionic column as
Christ, who supports the universe.The architectonic forerunner of Gothic Cathedrals in the Ile de France
300 years later ? (s. P.S. german)
Besides simple columns, figures (Apostoles) became incorporated
into the columns thus supporting like the columns the vault of the
church. An attempt to replace or to share in the old heathen mea-
ning of columns supporting the sky ?Rudolf of Fulda around 850 reports on the admiration of the world
column by the Saxonia. " By not small size, put up, they admire a
wooden trunk in the open air, in the people language it was called
*Irminsul*, meaning' universe column ', which supports as it were
everything ".---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pediment
Elisabeth Church, Marburg Mid-Germany. West portal Over the
door a divine triangle (Tympanon/ Pediment ) supported by a row
of columns with floral´ capitals. Within the pediment Maria with the
child, ´comparable´ to Apollon in the divine gable of the Jupiterr
temple
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Floral capital
1) Monastery Lorsch, Midgermany, c.800
2) Hagia Sophia, Konstantinopel 6.century with
signum of emperor Justinianus I.
3) Sainte-Denis,Paris, 1140 .
4) Crypta Servati 1000 (s. above)Trees supporting the divine heaven ?
(Yggdrasil ?)
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Sun
If a temple really symbolizes the cosmos, then necessarily light
within a tempel should be a prevailing factor.
Problem: The interior of a Christian basilica is a relatively dark
room. Strong walls with normal windows. If a symbol of the cosmos,
then a more shady cosmos.
Pantheon Rom A temple for all roman gods 27.bc
For a naive viewer the cosmos is not a black box
little sense to built a sun temple with more or less
closed walls.
The Doric temple may follow in architecture this consideration. Sky and earth are separated by open rows of columns thus sunlight has free entrance.
In line: the columns of Ionic temples carry double
sun- spirals.
Comparable in construction the Gothic cathedrals. The walls are
arranged open by ´windows´ Thus SUN could illuminate the inside
of the cathedral . Cosmos and the cathedral appeared through-
flooded by the sun
1
2
3
1-2) Paris, Sainte-Chapelle, 1240. The vault covered with stars and supported by columns with floral capitals. A framework of columns
and ribs, supporting the webs of the vaults.The ribs carring no thrust (Bombing 1945, ribs fall down not the vault
I.e. ribs could be symbols of branches of the World Tree supporting
the sky.
3) In Egypt ´vaulted´ ceiling covered with stars. (1600 BC)
Saint-Denis, 1231-1282 Rosette, Westminster Abbey,1250 Muenster
divine´ light illuminates
the Gothic ´cosmos´.
Thus in Gothic times the sun becomes increasingly part of Christian theology. Nature returns Franz of Assisi considered all nature as
the mirror of God and as so many steps to God.
Back to´megalithic´ roots ?
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.Cathedrals with labyrinths
Problem: Unclear up to day the origin of Labyrinths in Gothic cathe-
drals.( Ravenna, Lucca, Chatres, St.Quentin, Amien)
The symbols are placed in the entrance area and take with a dia-
meter from 10 to 13 meters the entire width of the central nave.
Hardly can´t be overlooked(
( Why is the central part named NAVE ? In German Kirchen -SCHIFF)
To day´s meaning of Labyrinths in Gothic cathedrals
"At Easter Sunday the Christians celebrated the revival of Christ and his victory over the world of sin with a * labyrinth dance*. How it ordered the rule, a priest hand over a ball to the dean, who began to sing" the praise of the paschal lamb" while walking solemnly along the ways in the labyrinth. In his hands the ball as a tribute to the sun.The congregation formed a circle around the holy lines for a round dance. "------------"People that the pilgrimage to Jerusalem could not afford ( almost all ), could - by praying while pacing up and down - achieve an indulgemnce. httpAn old pagan sun symbol - clerically difficult to damp - being controlled
by taken over in liturgy ?
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San Benedetto Italy Ancient Cornwall Maze at Rocky Vally
Capital of a column in the medieval cloister of the monastery of San
Benedetto in Conversano, Italy. The double spiral of the sun and a
labyrinth in the capital of a column . The same symbolic information ?
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Sun- Spiral -Meander-Labyrinth
By fan-like pulling a meander around a meant centre a labyrinth
develops. If it is true that a meander is a rectangular spiral, then
a labyrinth could symbolize the course of the sun
Sun-symbols Sumer, Ur ~2600, Double Spirals (gold)
Thera 1600 bc Nordic Vollgriffschwerter 1500 BC Greek ceramic 750 BC Jesus clik
drawing Full handle swords
Egypt (Negade ~3200 b. ) Newgrange (Door stone) , ~3200b. (?)
Likely in the beginning sun was worshipped directly. Dropping the
knees and praying the rising sun.
Then, people actively supported the daily path of the sun .Especially
the dangerous boat trip through the underworld. (Egypt).
Lateron the annual run time became numerically analysed .The run of
sun and moon became predictable,
(Stonehenge ( 56 Aubrey holes), Lunar solar year. Nebra sky disk.
To keep double spirals in line - symbolizing immortality - Labyrinths
developed.
A highly complicated sacred symbol that a normal thinking layman can´t understand. "Priesterly Help" is needed and probably offered.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Renaissance 1400-1600
The time of the Gothic cathedrals was relatively shortbetween1130 - 1280, but years later the ancient "labyrinth idea" arose again in the North- far away from Rom - during the Renaissance from 1400-1600
onwardA cultural revival of ancient ideals in literature, philosophy, science
and architecture. In its origin, the Renaissance developed in Italy,
in growing urban communities of self-assured merchants .
City Hall Gent (Belgium) "peace room" Labyrinth ,1533.
The name goes back to1546 when the peace treaty between .
Protestants and the Catholics of Flanders was signed.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In England and in Protestant Scandinavia labyrinths rose in formal
gardens consisting of intricate paths separated by high hedges and
grass labyrinths.
Named Troja-Burgen (castle) .Origin of name: On an Etruscan pottery (~800 bc)
next to the image of the Labyrinth the name Troy
Alignments , Hedges and Grass-Labyrinths
England 1660 Labyrinth-Dance around a Maypole (1976 Denmark) England ~ 1650
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Time changed Natur returned
About 1000 in the Centre of France, the area of the fertile Ile de
France local hierarchically structured power centers developed and
a strong economic boom followed. The economic basis for a change. nCompetition between the landlords started and thus Gothic Cathedrals
emerged almost >simultaneously< " (1130-1280) five of them with
cretian´ labyrinths ) Two ´oversized´ steeple in front. (mythologic unclear)
The Cathedral was not only a place to say one´s prayers, it was also
For salesmen it was also favourable to demonstrate to be a >>man of
- at this times - the only place of the entire community of citizens and
guilds to hold their meetings.
the church << because of the customs privileges within and to reduce
or even avoid duty . All reasons for a salesman feeling and showing
being part the building.
In the Chatres Cathedral each guild of the town wanted its own window. A competition between the guilds.
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The education monopoly of the ´closed´ convent schools got com-
petition by relatively open schools connected with Cathedrals in the
cities.
The convent schools limited their educational responsibilities- inward
looking - to the circle of convention and saw no reason to talk about
outside, to impart knowledge to others. The monks had the task to
pray looking for god.
Though teaching should be in the first place a task of the bishop,but
the landlord is too much >>grandseigneur<<. He sits in the courtyards
of the king. People see him weaponed as leader in fights.
A Prince- Bishop Later on in Germany the Fürst-Bischof." Sword in hand shouting
God with us".All in all necessarily religion had to be more or less a matter of policyMost of time the "absentee landlord " leaves his intellectual functions
to the clerics. One of them got the order to ´manage´ the school. A
movement in which education becames transfered from the * closed*
monastery to the *open* Cathedrals. Drop by drop slipping out of
clerical controlIn the schools of the Cathedrals Aristoteles, Euklid, Ovid were read.
The instrument of rational thinking was trained and spreading out fast.
Even the Bible became less disputed but more discussed. What
is plausible, what not ?
Abaelard, a famous teacher: "by doubts we arrive at the thing, and by
the thing we recognize the truth";or "my students require human and
philosophical reasons; they need rather reasonable explanations than
statements, they say it is uselessly to speak if one has no insight into
the saying, and no one could believe, what he had understood not
before".(Duby)Bernard of Clairvaux in a polemic against Abaelard
" In power of God our faith is rooted not in our pipe-dreams of reasons "
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Investiture Contest
Century´ of Gothic Cathedrals ( 1130 - 1280 )
It is the time of the Investiture Contest ( 1075 - 1122 )
Problem: Who appoints the bishops ?
The Pope or an upper Franconian nobility ?
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A revival of ancient natural science. Nature returned.
With the way of thinking also the vital consciousness changed. A little
bit " Goodbye metaphysics".Franz of Assisi spoke with birds and flowers. In the scholasticism may
be laughed again, despite the old theological problem that Christ
never laughed in the Bible.
The French King Ludwig (1224 -1270, canonized 1297),
allowed himself to laugh every day, except on Friday.(Goff)
Troubadours Lyric poets of southern France, northern Spain, and
northern Italy, writing in the langue d'oc of Provence; they flourished
from the late 11th to the late 13th century. (gothic times)Their social influence was unprecedented in the history of medieval
poetry They had great freedom of speech, occasionally intervening
even in the political arena, but their great achievement was to create
around the court an aura of cultivation amenity that nothing had hitherto
approached.
Troubadour poetry formed one of the most brilliant schools that ever
flourished, and it was to influence all later European lyrical poetry.
(Enc.Brit.)-
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Germnany Sweden
In Gothic times young people erected the Maypole, probably origina-
ting in pre Christian agricultural rituals. A tall pole garlanded with greenery or flowers. In its origin supposed to be survivals of ancient midsummer-dances around a living tree as part of spring rites to en-
sure fertility.
Maypole in Bavaria /Germany ( What about the wreath ?)
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The threat of the Christian original sin and the purgatorial sufferings
faded. The authority of the Roman church came into distress. In its
self conception Rom had to demand obedience of all christians.
In consequence :Christianity in its origin a redemptive religion had to
fight. The horns of the milk goddess Hathor got the devil.The Pantheon
in Rom was dedicated in AD 609 as the Church of the Santa Maria
Rotunda, or as Martyres, which it remains today.
At winter solstice Christ was borne and the pagan sunfires became
named * Johannesfeuer*. In the Sixtus chapel the ancient ferryman
helped the devil to transport the souls not to a divine horizont but down
into hell.
Message to the deeply impressed visitors
The ancient ferryman and the devil working in the same corporation.
Obviously Christian missionaries had problems with post-pagan
Francs and Normans.Thus sunlight had to be theologically incorporated .
The problem got a 'name'
GOD / Jesus is the light
already around 800 in the Fulda
Christ supporting the cosmos
Sunlight (Jesus) being a specific part of a Gothic Christianity
The spiral lost the power play with the Roman clerics..
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´ nothing news´ :-)
Augustine (Bishop ~340) What is currently called the Christian religion, already existed in the Old and not missing at the beginning of mankind until Christ appeared
as a human, where the true religion, which already existed, receives the name of the Christian . (transl.:-)Augustine. Retractationes I, 12, § 3
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Is the Gothic - from the perspective of symbolism - a Franconian-
Norman ´anti-clerical ´ variant of Roman Catholic Christianity?
a forerunner of later Protestantism ? (Luther ~1515)
The Gothic Cathedral a - ´short dated 1130-1280- symbol of power
and believe of a more or less christianized Norman-Franconian upper class ?-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Problem An unsolved Biblical-Gothic Problem
God, the master builder calculated the earth
Bible moralisee wohl aus Reims.13.Jh.(Wien Oestr.Nat.Bibl.Cod 2554)
Jeremias 31 / 37 Thus saith the LORD; If heaven above can be and the
foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the
seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the LORD.
A divine warning noticing the world primarily from a scientific point of vew
(Pythagoras," the whole sky is a harmony and a number" )
A warning to reduce or even to replace power of faith by mathematics ?
(After experience teaches that faith may move even 'mountains')
Bernard of Clairvaux in a polemic against Abaelard
" In power of God our faith is rooted not in our pipe-dreams of reasons " Pernoud (my trans.)
Abaelard - Gothic Christianity - Clairvaux ?
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Facit
from DolmenThe World Axle, Tree of Life, Iminsul, Yggdrasil
The gable roof/ceilings covered with stars
The fluted proto - Doric column in Egypt (2600)
The ´later´ Doric column in Greece and North Germany
The double spirals, wide spread in Europe and Near East
The horizon, torques, diadem and crown
The devine´ pediment and columns with floral capitals
The ´windows´, Rosetts in
to GOTHIC CATHEDRALS
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P.S.
"The Hall of the Double Axes," from the frequent occurrence of this symbol therein. Not only does the sacred axe occur as a more or less crude engraving on the stone blocks composing certain pillars in the palace, but little models of it were found associated with an altar, and, in the Dictaean cave, some miles distant, several bronze specimens of the axe were discovered in circumstances which show that they were votive offerings. Sometimes the sacred symbol was set up on a socketed pedestal "
Fig. 9. Double Axe and Stepped Steatite Socket from Dictaean Cave From Archæologia, by kind permission of the Society of Antiquaries,and Sir Arthur Evans)
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my Problem : nave (naval) in GGGerman: Kirchen-Schiff (Schiff =ship)
Oseberg Norway 800 (with spiral)
Nave.–noun the principal longitudinal area of a church, extending from the main
entrance or narthex to the chancel, usually flanked by aisles of less height and
breadth:generally used only by the congregation.
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1-index
- Binding, G. Was ist Gotik ? 2000
Duby,G. Die Zeit der Kathedralen. Kunst und Geselschaft 980-1420, 1980
Goff, Jacques . Das Lachen im Mittelalter, 2004
Katalog zur Ausstellung, Euorpas Mitte um 1000 *. 2000
Kaehler, H., Der griechische Tempel 1964
Kidson,P.. Romanik und Gotik 1967
Pernoud, R. Heloise und Abaelard 2002- 1-greek-gothic 15.09.04.update
Next Ring
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P.S.
clik
Beijing Forbidden Town Peking Poseidon Temple Greek 5. century b.
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1.) Tempel on a three-step plattform. (Krepis ?)
2.) a gabled roof
3.) supported by columns
Delphi, three stepped Krepis ( primeval hill )
The round basis is associated with > circular< Stonehenge in conjunction
A circle as a symbol of the Holy horizon?
Pyr. 1705 The reed-floats of the sky are set down for Re, that he may
cross theron to the horizon, to the place where the gods were born.
x
etr
Hieroglyph, primeval hill ( Throne-chair of Osiris, Isis)
