The Secrets Hidden in the Book of Kells

a reply to: beansidhe

Hi,

The illustrations are really beautiful and with a good resolution. They are also very difficult to interpret without knowing a complete cultural and mental pattern of its author(s).
The practice to draw "matrioska" symbols where several layers intertwin to form a bigger body or the whole pictures was quite common in ancient ages and it still is today.
If you look at graffiti on the wall or certain surrealistic paintings we can see fractal-like images very often.

Why this practice? To me, it is the way our brain works, the way we perceive reality especially when we possess a great deal of knowledge about something. Symbols are universal, but the meaning given to each symbol may vary according to time and culture.

What we see and READ today it may not be in the least close to what it was meant at the time, or viceversa, centuries ago someone carved or hewed or drew something meant for future times.

I hardly believe we will ever be able to uncover the keys to read ancient manuscripts unless that key was meant to be understood in our epoch. I do believe that we can read ancient manuscript with the level of knowledge we possess now, and here is the beautiful aspect of universal symbols: they can fit any time or space in relation to the moment in which they are read.
Sorry for not getting specific to this book but I am no expert scholar. The beautiful symbols just confirmed my idea of symbols once again
Best

a reply to: Wifibrains

Hey Wifi! Merry Christmas to you! And you come bearing self-forming machine elves, what could be better?

I was looking at the page where John is with the other evangelists and you'll see he's shown as an eagle:



So you're right, something about ascension or expanding awareness maybe?

a reply to: WilliamWAS

Hi WilliamWAS, you raise some good points. It's so difficult to get into the mindset of a 9th culdee, working out on Iona -well for me it is.

It's easy to interpret their symbols in our context and hope we find meaning, and there's a high chance we'll get it wrong. There's virtually no literature left from that era to compare it too, which makes it even harder.
That's interesting what you say about over-layering and we can see some of that on the celtic coins.

Thanks for dropping by,

B x

a reply to: beansidhe

I see the hands and feet of the second figure, but I'm not quite sure why you're interpreting it as being a Druid and what historical evidence points to Druids wearing that sort of headdress. Could you explain?

Excellent Thread and Manuscript!

BUT:
"The earliest written records of lenses date to Ancient Greece, with Aristophanes' play The Clouds (424 BC) mentioning a burning-glass (a biconvex lens used to focus the sun's rays to produce fire). Some scholars argue that the archeological evidence indicates that there was widespread use of lenses in antiquity, spanning several millennia.[7] Such lenses were used by artisans for fine work, and for authenticating seal impressions. The writings of Pliny the Elder (23–79) show that burning-glasses were known to the Roman Empire,[8] and mentions what is arguably the earliest written reference to a corrective lens: Nero was said to watch the gladiatorial games using an emerald (presumably concave to correct for nearsightedness, though the reference is vague).[9] Both Pliny and Seneca the Younger (3 BC–65) described the magnifying effect of a glass globe filled with water.
Excavations at the Viking harbour town of Fröjel, Gotland, Sweden discovered in 1999 the rock crystal Visby lenses, produced by turning on pole lathes at Fröjel in the 11th to 12th century, with an imaging quality comparable to that of 1950s aspheric lenses. The Viking lenses were capable of concentrating enough sunlight to ignite fires.[10]
Between the 11th and 13th century "reading stones" were invented. Often used by monks to assist in illuminating manuscripts, these were primitive plano-convex lenses initially made by cutting a glass sphere in half. As the stones were experimented with, it was slowly understood that shallower lenses magnified more effectively."

SOURCE LINK

They definitely had access to both ground optics, and those made by simply cutting a hot spherical blob of glass in half to make two magnifiers. The mysterious part isn't how they did what they did.
I'm sure this text is loaded with clues about how the latest Druids/ earliest Christians in the area transitioned the iconography from one religious paradigm to the other.

Star and Flag!

a reply to: EzekielsWheel

"The earliest written records of lenses date to Ancient Greece, with Aristophanes' play The Clouds (424 BC) mentioning a burning-glass (a biconvex lens used to focus the sun's rays to produce fire). Some scholars argue that the archeological evidence indicates that there was widespread use of lenses in antiquity, spanning several millennia.[7]

Oh wow, thanks for that link EzekielsWheel!
Given that they had dyes from the continent for the vellum, it wouldn't be too hard a stretch to think they could have had a burning/magnifying glass too on Iona. It would be great to find one.

a reply to: Tangerine

From memory, Caesar and Pliny both had them in white hooded robes, although in the Siege of Drum Damhghaire, Mug Ruith (of oared-wheel fame) speaks not of robes but of his cloak and almost shamanic headdress:

Mogh Ruaith is said to ask for his “dark gray hornless bull hide” and to wear a “white speckled bird skin head dress of fluttering wings” (Ross 1991, 83).

Digital Mediavelist

Nobody knows, is the answer. This might be a druid 'crown':

Iron Age, 200-150 BC From a burial found in the Mill Hill Cemetery, Deal, Kent, England

A crown for a warrior priest? This headdress or crown was found on the head of a warrior buried with his sword and shield. It is made from two sheets of bronze held together with rivets. The bronze band which went around the head is decorated with La Tène-style patterns.

The British Museum

Personally, I think that the clues are on the engraved stones. Why did the Christian ministers 'allow' the pre-existing pagan symbols on their stones showing otherwise Christian motifs? Why were they carved together? Why not forget them, destroy them and forbid their presence?

Unless they weren't so different after all?