Hi all,
“… obliges me to emerge
reluctantly from my winter lethargy (yawn, it gets cold in Cyprus too) to
engage in my favorite sport: confuting other people’s certitudes on the
interpretation of design elements in Oriental rugs (yawn)..”
This
is how our dear host Filiberto self-portraits himself in a parallel
thread. It explains, why he got so muddled about the crosses in the girl’s
make-up, his eyelids probably kept dropping and it was to early still for
the complicated Wikipedia definition. Filiberto: "A cross is a geometrical
figure consisting of two lines or bars perpendicular to each other,
dividing one or two of the lines in half (Wikipedia).” Most other people
would have thought that this is exactly what is showing on her
forehead.
“And it isn't a Christian cross neither: never saw a
Christian cross with legs.” Filiberto, so far we have managed without
ridiculing religious symbols, and I don’t think we ought to start it now.
The carefully drawn curved line of course is no part of the cross but
represents a hill, i.e. Golgatha
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golgatha .
Together
with the two crosses on her cheeks the well known ensemble in European
painting is complete.
The scene is a Latin tradition though, unlike
the parallel forms in the mosaic and in the rug. But as Jenkins said
(Jenkins P, 2008. Harper Collins, NY): ‘Latin Christian traditions
developed in Carthage rather than Rome, … By the late fifth century, North
Africa had five or six hundred bishoprics, while monasteries were a
familiar sight in the local landscape. Even after long struggles between
rival Christian sects, North Africa in the century after 560 was a potent
centre of spiritual, literary, and cultural activity.”
How and when
it was introduced in the Magreb I can’ t say, nor whether the girl was
aware of its Christian symbolism or why she has chosen this macabre scene
for her makeup. Another possibility offers itself here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barbary_slave_trade
.
It is difficult to think of anything else that has tied the band
of similarity that connects flowery chalices with bud or blossom and
leaves in the Maghreb with nearly identical expressions in Anatolia and
West Iran, but of religion. The sheer number of crosses in such motifs
emphasises, that Christianity is somewhat more likely to have asserted its
influence, than did Islam. Perhaps we should also keep in mind that until
the end of the twelfth century Christians made up nearly half the
population around the eastern Mediterranean and in the Near East, only in
the 13th century a sharp decline set in. However in (Western) North-Africa
Christianity had ceased earlier. Within fifty years of the Muslim capture
of Carthage and the completion of the conquest in 698, ‘local Muslim
rulers were apologizing to the caliphs that they could no longer supply
Christian slaves, since Christians were now so scarce.’ (Jenkins
a.a.o.).
Filiberto, you claimed that those
late-Roman-or-Byzantine-mosaics- with-crosses-inside-like motifs in the
rug had nothing to do with Christianity, but are technique-generated like
an apparently flat-woven rug of which you posted a detail. This argument
has several flaws:
The rug is a pile rug without the restriction
imposed on edge-smoothness by mosaic-technique. If it turned out like in a
mosaic, the weaver had decided that it was to be so, not because it was
induced by technique.
You confront us with a number of images
depicting (details) of flat-weaves. They present a problem. If their
attribution is correct, they should be objects of a cultural heritage and
have a context and a proper record. If they have not, it would be
violating the ‘good practice principle’ of not acquiring, displaying or
discussing such items that might have been brought to market
illegitimately. Besides this, if attributed correctly, they are isolated
developments not influenced by events around the Mediterranean before
Columbus; and they had no influence on them. You can sensibly only discuss
symbols or motifs if they share a context or are otherwise meaningfully
related. ‘Technique-generated’ is an empty phrase and does not exist in
art and material culture of mankind. Technique is a means to
self-expression and shaping ones habitat. It neither generates nor has it
a will of its own. It is a tool.
If you think, a cross is such a
simple symbol, it could be made by anybody anytime and does not need to be
Christian, you are right. Evolution has done that for us and on a level of
individual creativity it happens all the time in ontogenesis - crosses and
circles seem to fit the evolving nervous system perfectly. In anthropology
however, with Christianity, every possible previous cross would have
become Christian. There may exist traces of older crosses in a hitherto
sealed cave, made by Lucy or some of her ilk, doodling with a toe in the
sand on the cave-floor. You would have to go very far back. Homo
Neandertalensis of fifty thousand years ago might take offence for you
judging his ability for symbolic behaviour not higher than having to busy
himself with scratching crosses into cave-walls.
Regards,
Horst