A Closer Look At St. George

Hola Darlings!

This house thing is driving me nuts.  I have no idea what I'm going to do, but I will be doing something...

Meanwhile, back at the Goddesschess Ranch.  After posting that fascinating article last night on Orthodox Christian Palestinians and their reverence for St. George, I turned to Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" and checked to see if there was an entry for St. George.  There was.  But I was too weary to type it all in last night.

So, here it is, but first, I would like you to read yesterday's post on the Christian Palestinians and St. George, because you will find many points of similar references in Walker's take on the subject of St. George. I have liberally sprinkled in my own "Notes"  and commentary and also added highlights,

George, Saint

Fictitious patron saint of England.  St. George's Day was known to the Romans as the Feast of Pales, a fertility festival [Note: Pales, a blatant phallic symbol.  Interestingly, the word "pale" is still used in English today.  It is a rounded stake or pole made of wood.]  Medieval custom honored St. George on Easter Monday, the Moon-day following the Sun-day of the Christian hero.  Folklore named the pagan savior Green George, a spirit of spring.(1)  His image was common in old church carvings, a human head surrounded by leaves or looking out of a tree trunk.  Some called him the witches' god, a confused idea of something between a tree and a man," or "the devil in the shape of a trunk of a tree ...with some form of a human face."(2) [Note: Also known as the "Green Man."  The Arabic word for green translated into English:  green / a-kh-dh-ar /.  Cf. Village of Khadar that features prominently in the article on St. George and the Palestinian Christians.]

St. George the Dragon-slayer apparently evolved from a mythic meld of Green George with an Arian bishop of Alexandria who opposed St. Athanasius, and put to death an orthodox Master of the Mint named Dracontius, "Dragon." (3) [Note: Ripe for further research.  I've no idea who St. Athanasius or the Master of the Mint Dracontius were!]

St. George's emblem was a vesica piscis, a prime fertility symbol because it represented the Goddess's yoni; but Christian authorities preferred to interpret it as a "shield." [Note: The vesica piscis is a well-known geometric form (basically, an oval formed by the intersection of two circles).  Roman Catholics are familiar with the form as the "fish" of Jesus -- a vesica piscis. Astrologists and magi are familiar, of course, with "Pisces, the Fish" as an astrological symbol.]  Still, George was so shamelessly involved in fertility rites that the church discredited him and began calling him the "imaginary saint."  An old English ballad said "Some say there was no George; some, that there no Dragon was; pray God, there was at least a maid." (4)

(Footnotes:)

(1)  Frazer, G.B., 145-146.
(2)  Knight, D.W.P., 221, 229.
(3)  Baring-Gould, C.M.M.A., 269.
(4)  Brewster, 209-10.

And, for your added viewing pleasure:



Christian symbol for Christ, in Greek ,"Ichthys."
Source.

A vesica piscis:

If you don't know what a yoni looks like, you need to find out for yourself, darlings... Well, okay, her[e] is a clue.  I'm really giving away the entire game here, because this ancient stone yoni resembles some ancient board games (or an ancient Egyptian offering table and, in later dynastic tombs, the sacred doors, ahem) with which you all should be familiar by now:

Do you get it yet?

Palestinian Orthodox Christians and St. George

This is absolutely fascinating!  I've written about St. George here before.  (See, for instance, The Maiden, the Dragon, and St. George, a 2008 post).  But I don't recall reading about a Palestinian connection before. Indeed, I don't recall reading any actual biographical information about St. George prior to reading this article! Most westerners know the fellow as the knight on the white horse who slew the dragon to save the maiden.  Er, yeah, right. 

There are lots of images, photographs and even a recording in the full article, so please visit it at the BBC News Magazine website. 

April 2014 Last updated at 19:14 ET

Why St George is a Palestinian hero

By Yolande Knell BBC News

As England celebrates the day of its patron saint, many Palestinians are gearing up for their own forthcoming celebrations of the figure they also regard as a hero.

A familiar flag flaps in the wind above a Palestinian church in the West Bank village of al-Khadr.  The red cross on a white background has been associated with Saint George since the time of the Crusades.

It is the national flag of England and is also used as an emblem by other countries and cities that have adopted him as their own patron saint.

However, Palestinians have particular reason to display the symbol and revere the early Christian martyr. For them he is a local hero who opposed the persecution of his fellow Christians in the Holy Land.

"We believe he was a great martyr for his faith who defended the Christian faith and values," says Greek Orthodox Archbishop Atallah Hanna.

"By making sacrifices for his faith he was able to defeat evil. We take St George as a patron for people living here - and as he was born in historic Palestine, we pray to him to remember us and this holy land."

St George was a Roman soldier during the Third Century AD, when the Emperor Diocletian was in power. It is said that he once lived in al-Khadr near Bethlehem, on land owned by his mother's family.  While the saint's father is usually traced back to Cappadocia, an area in modern Turkey, it is believed his mother was Palestinian from Lydda - now Lod, in Israel.

The saint is remembered for giving away his possessions and remaining true to his religion when he was imprisoned and tortured before he was finally executed.

There are many churches in the West Bank and Israel that bear the name of St George - at al-Khadr, Lod and in the Galilee, for example.

While the Western world marks St George's Day on 23 April, in the Palestinian areas it falls on 6 May, according to the older calendar used by the Eastern Churches.

A service is held for the saint at al-Khadr, bringing worshippers from the Bethlehem area and much further afield to light candles and say prayers. During the feast, special bread is baked that shows him in his typical pose as a dragon slayer.

St. George bread is upper right.  Note the presence of the five-pointed star (a goddess emblem)
 above St. George in the top image, left.

St. George???

Hmmm...  I see the horned animal, but that's all I see.  If that's a person riding this animal, it's the strangest looking person I've ever seen!  While this is interesting, unfortunately the oldest rock art (c. 3000 BCE?) gets short shrift!  I'd rather see them than this "St. George."

Do Ancient Rock Carvings Found Near Nile Depict St. George?
By Owen Jarus
Published May 16, 2011 | LiveScience

Tim Karberg/Westfalische Wilhelms-Universitat Munster

This piece of rock art found in Wadi Abu Dom depicts a knight riding a horned animal. There's a chance the armed rider may be the legendary soldier St. George, who was said to have slain a dragon.

An archaeological team in the Bayuda Desert in northern Sudan has discovered dozens of new rock art drawings, some of which were etched more than 5,000 years ago and reveal scenes that scientists can't explain.

The team discovered 15 new rock art sites in an arid valley known as Wadi Abu Dom, some 18 miles (29 kilometers) from the Nile River. It’s an arid valley that flows with water only during rainy periods. Many of the drawings were carved into rock faces — no paint was used — of small stream beds known as "khors" that flow into the valley.

Some of the sites revealed just a single drawing while others have up to 30, said lead researcher Tim Karberg, of the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster in Germany

“We asked the local people about the rock art and they said that it would be very old, before their grandfathers,” Karberg told LiveScience.

Knight Rider
A number of the images appear to date back around 1,500 years ago, to a period when Christianity was spreading in Sudan. They include depictions of crosses, a church, which may show a nearby, ancient monastery called al-Ghazali, and one remarkable picture of a knight riding an animal with horns.

"One is a depiction of an armed rider, with a lance and a shield, a kind of knight depiction," Karberg said, suggesting this may be an image of St. George, the legendary soldier said to have slain a dragon.

Drawings of St. George are known from Sudan and texts discussing him have been found within the country. “Our texts attest to the popularity of the Saint in Christian Nubia,” wrote historian Gerald Brown, in a study he did on the subject.

The team also found detailed representations of cattle at Wadi Abu Dom that, based on rock drawings found at other sites, are probably from the late Bronze Age. During this time, more than 3,000 years ago, the northern parts of the country were occupied by the Egyptian empire.

Mystery carvings
Another, even more mysterious, set of rock art appears to be at least 5,000 years old and shows a mix of geometric designs.

The "oldest rock art we found are the spiral motifs," said Karberg, which, as their name suggests, twist up in a way that is hard to interpret. Similar drawings have been found in the Sahara Desert.

They were created at a time when Africa was a wetter place, with grasslands and savannah dominating Sudan; people were moving to a lifestyle based on animal husbandry and, in some instances, farming.

Understanding what these drawings mean is difficult. Some researchers connect the "spiral motifs to some astronomical or astrological forms," Karberg said, but he thinks it might have more to do with math. "The regularity of the spiral might be one of the earliest mathematical ideas the people developed."

A second set of geometric drawings, probably a bit younger than the spirals, is "hard to describe," Karberg said. They consist of "amorphous patterns which are not circular. ... It looks like an irregular-shaped net," Karberg said.

There is no evidence that people were fishing in this area 5,000 years ago, ruling out fishing nets. One possibility is that these irregular "nets" may actually be animal hides. Similar drawings found in Uganda were identified as showing the hide of a crocodile or some other animal, Karberg said.

Music in the desert?
Finally, what artist wouldn't like to relax with a bit of music? The team also uncovered several "rock gongs," large rocks that someone would have smacked a small rock against to make a sound. When the archaeologists experimented with them they found that some of the gongs could produce multiple tones.

Karberg said that it’s difficult to pin down when they were used; it could have been centuries ago or millennia. They may have been used for signalling rather than for actual music. But one thing is for sure, they would have made a pretty decent sound. "As we tried out the sound of many of those rock gongs you could hear (them) quite a long distance," Karberg said.

The research at Wadi Abu Dom is ongoing and the rock art discovery was first presented last year at the 12th International Nubian Studies Conference.

The Maiden, the Dragon & St. George

Hola! This is going to be short, I may revisit this topic later on. It's too beautiful a day here to be sitting inside. I just wanted to post this interesting image of the Dragon and St. George - it's allegedly a chess piece!

I found it by accident while searching for something else entirely.

Saint Georges tuant le dragon
Elément 165 sur 211
Objets d'ArtObjet (Pièce d'échec)Moyen-Age
Matériaux : Ivoire
Date : approx. entre 1240 et 1260
Artiste : Anonyme
Modèles : Dragon, Saint Georges
Evénement : Saint Georges combattant le dragon
Lieu : Metropolitan Museum of ArtMoyen-Age 1
Rez-de-ChausséeVitrine : V20
Région en relation : Angleterre
Acquisition : Don de J. Pierpont Morgan (1917)

I've always been fascinated by the tale of the Maiden, the Dragon and bad old St. George who decides to steal the Maiden from the Dragon - I don't believe for a minute he was trying to "save" her! Aside from the obvious and not-so-obvious symbolism and metaphorical significance of the tale, this piece is fascinating! I've never seen another like it. How do they know it's a chess piece? How big is it (what is its size)? I assume "Angleterre" means England. What kind of ivory is it carved out of? Was it something carried back home by a Crusader?

I could not find this piece at the Met's website despite several different kinds of searches of its database. Any information???