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Author Topic: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe  (Read 33381 times)

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Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #50 on: January 11, 2006, 12:29:00 pm »
There are (at least) three sub-types of Sol in spread quadriga that I have on the coins of Probus, Sol facing forward, hand forward as seen above, Sol facing forward and hand out to side and Sol Facing to the side with hand to the side.
In some Sol holds a globe and in others a whip.. Any insight into the different meanings?

Regards,
Martin

Offline moonmoth

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #51 on: January 11, 2006, 02:11:05 pm »
Matrin - One obvious driver is that profiles stay recognisable under the pressures of circulation and wear for much longer than full faces.  Also, as Bob suggests, they must have been much easier to carve.  And the hand in profile is also easy to carve and easy to recognise.  But if you CAN do the full face, it's a much more impressive symbol of the sun.

As to the globe and whip, I suspect that the whip means Sol is driving his sun chariot across the sky and dazzling us all.  In this case the chariot is right there on the coin, but often it's not.  And I suspect that the globe means he has dominion over the earth.  (This is presumably the same globe that sometimes gets passed to emperors).  But this is certalnly subject to correction from the historians among us.

(Bob, thanks for the compliment on the coin.  It is nice, but it wasn't cheap!)

Bill
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline maridvnvm

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #52 on: January 11, 2006, 02:30:50 pm »
Bill,
I must admit that I am not convinced that the decision for face-on pr portrait was quite as arbitrary as that. For RIC 911 from Cyzicus, the coins of emission 2 are always face-on for all officina and for emissions 3 and 4 they are always in portrait.
I would also like to compliment you on the excellent Probus. Thanks for sharing it.

Regards,
Martin

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #53 on: January 11, 2006, 02:31:43 pm »
Definitely a nice coin there, Bill!

I've also been inspired by this thread to add a couple more gesturing Sol's to my collection:

1) What seems to be the first appearance of Sol Invictus on Septimius Severus's coins, with Sol featuring a skull-like head, supporting silentruin's "grim-reaper" hypothesis!  ;D

2) An upgrade to my Daia Sol type (which I previously had in worse grade for Constantine), which nicely shows the gaudy robes that Pat's article describes.

I wonder if Follibus's comments on nude deities outranking clothed ones holds here? Daia seems to associate himself more closely with the nude Iove depicted on his coins, so is the robed Sol here deliberately depicted as 2nd fiddle, or is there some inference to be drawn? Are there any surviving statues of Sol Invictus, clothed or otherwise?

Ben

Offline moonmoth

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #54 on: January 11, 2006, 05:41:48 pm »
Bill,
I must admit that I am not convinced that the decision for face-on pr portrait was quite as arbitrary as that. For RIC 911 from Cyzicus, the coins of emission 2 are always face-on for all officina and for emissions 3 and 4 they are always in portrait.
Martin -

I didn't mean to imply that ease of production and usefulness in circulation were the only criteria for deciding whether to produce full face-on portraits. But I do suggest that they play a part.  There are very few full-face Roman obverses or reverses in silver or bronze (coins which could be expected to circulate and be heavily used).  Even where personifications stand facing, their heads are usually turned to one side.  One might also suggest that this is a cultural or artistic tradition which happens to be practical.

It would follow that  there are probably special reasons when face-on depictions are produced.  A face that represents the disc of the sun might be such a reason.  (A gorgoneion is another, as in the well-known denarius of L. Plautius Plancus.  And look how soon the nose gets worn off on that!  And of course there is a suggestion that the traditional gorgoneion might have subsumed some of the characteristics of Apollo, another sun-face.)

Bill
"... A form of twisted symbolical bedsock ... the true purpose of which, as they realised at first glance, would never (alas) be revealed to mankind."

Offline Steve Minnoch

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #55 on: January 23, 2006, 05:51:40 am »
Hi all,

While flipping through the plates of Michael Grant's "Roman History from Coins" (Cambridge, 1958).  I came across this medallion of Numerian. I think it illustrates very well one of the points Pat raised about the hand as depicted on portraits of the emperor not being a natural hand.  Not to mention all the other wonderful attributes it has.

Steve

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #56 on: January 23, 2006, 10:36:27 am »
   I had never noticed before that this medallion shows TWO emperors simultaneously addressing the army.  That is a motif that occurs in no other Adlocutio type on Roman coins, unless I've overlooked it elsewhere too!
   However, I've never liked the look of this BM medallion of Numerian, and wonder about its authenticity.  Its centering on the flan is suspiciously similar to another illustrated specimen, J. Hirsch XXIV, Consul Weber 2423.  Gnecchi 1 lists further specimens in Paris and three in Vienna, one from a collection of medallions purchased in Rome c. 1720.  I probably examined these three when I was living in Vienna, but can't recall whether I thought them authentic!   
    I don't agree that there is anything artificial about the raised hands of the emperor or Sol or Serapis in the coin types under discussion.  I think the engravers just had to make them larger, in order to show fingers and make them recognizable!
Curtis Clay

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #57 on: January 23, 2006, 01:10:43 pm »
Apart from the question of the authenticity of the medallion: it is the scepter terminating in a hand instead of, typically, an eagle, held in the hand of the emperor himself, on the obverse of the coin, that exemplifies what made me wonder whether, when a hand on a scepter is stylized in the same way as the hand of Sol, whether the hand of Sol had not become Sol's symbol of authority, as the eagle is Jupiter's.  There is no Sol on the reverse of the Numerian coin, nor is the hand so violently stylized as on the Maximinus II one that I posted early on in this thread, but this medallion does show a hand-scepter rather than an eagle scepter.  I hold no brief for Sol, I assure you, but the regalia of the late-3rd-century emperors certainly show changes of several kinds.  I do remember seeing a coin image wtih the emperor's hand visible holding a hand or trident-like scepter, but, since I have looked at many such things when teaching late Roman art, I might have seen a photo of the Numerian itself.  My visual memory is only too retentive, but I was not always so interested in coins as I am today.  Pat L.

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #58 on: January 23, 2006, 01:42:32 pm »
Pat,
     Where do we find a scepter topped by a hand?  Legionary standards topped by hands, yes, but where a scepter?
     Numerian on the medallion is of course holding the canonical eagle-tipped scepter, to go with his consular robes.
Yours,
Curtis
Curtis Clay

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #59 on: January 23, 2006, 08:20:36 pm »
I'll take your word on that being an eagle (though I can't make it out as one), but for a scepter topped by an abstracted hand, here again is the scepter held by Maximinus II Daia, which I take for an abstraction of the most claw-like or trident-like of the Sol hands, because for sure this is no eagle (it is half of the Kraay-Hirmer 632 image that I first posted in Reply #17) and it is the finial of a scepter.  It is the thing that intrigues me.
I didn't start this thread, but if I had I'd regret it, because we've had every sort of raised hand brought in, and only the most extremely lobster-claw-like, least hand-like are relevant to this particular question, of when a hand might cease being just an expressive hand and become an abstracted symbol for a while associated with a religion embraced by certain emperors.
I did write the short piece about colored and embellished garments, of course, which had the syncretism of Sol and Serapis in it.  Since then I've been looking at everything I could, which is not enough, and I still am not sure whether the agressively stretched arm belonged first to Serapis or first to Sol.
Anyway, I wanted to explore, to find out whether serious research existed on such a question.
Pat L.

Offline curtislclay

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #60 on: January 23, 2006, 10:31:26 pm »
Pat,
     Surely the eagle atop the scepter on the Numerian medallion is clear, standing frontally with wings raised, body inclined r., head l.?  Apparently the eagle is standing on a globe; I'd have to check whether this detail occurs in other depictions of eagle-tipped scepters too.
     I wouldn't consider that a scepter on the Daia coin, just a crudely drawn hand!  His left hand seems to be a claw too.
Yours,
Curtis
Curtis Clay

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #61 on: March 04, 2007, 01:42:46 am »
P.S. Bibliographical note.  When a link brought me back to this thread today, I noticed that several times I absentmindedly referred to the Hirmer picture book on Roman Coins with the wrong author's name: it is, of course, Kent & Hirmer (the book on Greek Coins, by Franke in the German edition, was re-written by Kraay in the English edition--and you can see which one I have looked at longest!).  Pat L.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #62 on: March 04, 2007, 08:48:06 am »
I didn't start this thread, but if I had I'd regret it, because we've had every sort of raised hand brought in, and only the most extremely lobster-claw-like, least hand-like are relevant to this particular question, of when a hand might cease being just an expressive hand and become an abstracted symbol for a while associated with a religion embraced by certain emperors.

I have to disagree with this, since it seems that you're assuming that the gesture, while no doubt iconographic, did in fact become an abstracted symbol as opposed to a real hand, and I see no evidence to support that conclusion. The depiction is surely crude and exaggerated simply because of the degenerate nature of 4th century roman art where realism has given way to symbolism. We can see this in great contrast on the Arch of Constantine where the realism of the earlier reused Hadrianic/etc portions contrasts so greatly with the Constantinian sections. As applied to the depiction of Sol, if we were to interpret the larger than life crude emphasized had as something more than an emphatic symbolic representation (of what was in essence an attribute of Sol), then surely we'd have to interpret the rest of the depiction in the same vein... yet we don't question (see example I posted at the beginning of this thread) why Sol is often missing his entire left arm, since we understand that it's not necessary - the symbolism of holding a globe requires only the crudest bowl-like depiction of a left hand to show the globe is being held, and the arm itself is redundant!

The gesture itself is a raised hand with palm out facing away from the body and the various degrees of "claw like" depiction is just the profile view of this palm-out hand. That this is a real hand can be seen in the rare examples where we see a frontal vs profile depiction of the gesture, or on finer quality aureus dies where even in profile a more accurately rendered hand is shown. I included one facing depiction from a coin at the beginning of this thread, and now attach another - from a Danubian (aka Thracian) rider plaque. Here also is Caracalla with a realistic hand. I think the principle here should be to let the more accurate renderings inform as to the intent of the cruder renderings, rather than to assume that the cruder renderings are in fact depicting something else - an abstracted form with an existence to itself.

Ben

http://sights.seindal.dk/sight/299_Arch_of_Constantine.html

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #63 on: March 04, 2007, 03:29:10 pm »
Precisely.  Your examples make my point.  One cannot use the concept of degeneracy (as distinct from change), because it begs the point.  Even I, who prefer classical art, cannot see the art from Aurelian onwards as 'degenerate'.  As I said in part at Reply #10 at https://www.forumancientcoins.com/board/index.php?topic=35743.from1172991281#new
"I'm sure that some of what I'd need to know about Sol Invictus is languishing in very small museums and, if published, only in ephemeral journals that, unless in Greek, may be in languages that I can't hack.  It seemed to me last year (if last year it was) that the lack of high quality descriptive ancient literature on Sol Invictus is a problem; I kept wishing we had an Apuleius or a Lucian to vividly evoke the meaning of what we were seeing." 
That is a wonderful relief that you posted: Thank you!  As for the Arch of Constantine, it is the prime example, especially in the narrative friezes, of a monument erected in a great hurry, not only reusing older material but also, more to the point of your observations, hiring whatever carvers of sarcophagi and the like happened to be resident in Rome to carve the narrow friezes (these of course are based on drawings provided to them; the carvers did not, I should  think, actually design the compositions).
The beautiful aureus...well, since when were the prime dynastic aureus issues typical of coinage?  Also, so early in the Severan dynasty, the best intaglio men of the Antonines were still available.  Besides, for such an issue, engravers from any place in the Empire might be brought in if not in Rome at the time.  Surely, of course, it was someone accustomed to the expectations of the Rome mint.
When trying to isolate what is representative, neither the finest nor the roughest and hastiest work ought to be the selected first.
Pat L.
P.S. When Curtis made me realize that Numerian's scepter in Reply#57, posted by Steve Minnoch, was the ordinary eagle, I saw (from much experience of such psychological phenomena) that it was time to stand back from the question (see attached sketch, however crude), though I disagree soberly with both of you concerning the specificity of the hand.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #64 on: March 04, 2007, 05:43:31 pm »
Pat, your theory that this gesture evolved into an abstract symbolic form begs the question what that abstract form is. The line dividing crude depiction verging on symbolism and abstract symbol may be a little thin, but surely the chief characteristic of an abstract symbol is the replacement of varying realism with a fixed form...

However, if we look at the depiction of Sol across all mints then rather than seeing a fixed symbolic form we instead see a staggering variety of crudely realistic hands, ranging from a fingerless profile, thru palm and thumb profile to versions where the palm displays two or three splayed fingers, and finally all fingers depicted in the facing versions. We also see the bizarre disproportionate forms of the Rome mint c.314-315, the toaster fork hand from Trier, small featureless hands, well detailed hands, etc.

The most obvious explanation for the variety is surely that it was NOT a fixed abstract form! These are just crude hands!

The Arch of Constantine was certainly executed in a hurry, but I don't see that the difference between 2nd and 4th century art that it exhibits is misleading - it's the exact same change that we see on the coinage... Realism giving way to more symbolic representation.. something that's often been noted on these boards.

Ben


Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #65 on: March 04, 2007, 08:24:42 pm »
"Abstract symbolic form" is your phrase.  We do not understand, and therefore cannot reasonably criticize, each other.   That is why I regret trying to inquire or contribute on this topic.  For me learning is not a matter of winning or losing.  I do not see that 'right' or 'wrong' is a reasonable judgment of any of the ideas that contributors have offered.  I must admit that you may be trying to convey something different from what I think you mean.  P.L.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #66 on: March 04, 2007, 11:12:11 pm »
"Abstract symbolic form" is your phrase.  We do not understand, and therefore cannot reasonably criticize, each other.

The term you used was "Abstracted symbol" - sorry if it wasn't obvious. You also referred to the Maximinus coin above as depicting him holding a sceptre topped with an "abstracted hand", and I do believe that a suggestion that specific is either going to be right or wrong! I believe it's just a hand, not a sceptre at all; this is perhaps more obvious if you look at my specimen I posted early in the thread, but the more general point I was attempting to make above is that the totallty of the evidence is against this being an abstract symbol at all. The reason I brought this topic back to life was your post in the other thread reiterating your position that this isn't just an "inept" (i.e. merely crudely depicted) hand... While we're obviously missing the precise origin and meaning in context of this gesture, and I would love to know what it is, I don't see there's any reason to believe that it's an abstracted symbol - the usage evidence doesn't show the consistency that would require.

Ben

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #67 on: March 04, 2007, 11:53:38 pm »
Of course, something either is or isn't anything other than a hand, but I never meant to say that I'd proven anything, and equally I wouldn't want to say that it had to be just an inept hand, either.  I read all the way through that Belgian monograph for a clue to why Sol and the emperors who embraced the cult are as they are and found nothing telling.  Similarly in LIMC.  Then I got sick and tired of Sol Invictus and his believers.  When I was young, I think, I'd have persisted; once I was extremely interested in the language of specific gesture in Late Antique art.  Now, at 72, it is as if I feel that I have no time for anything but formal beauty, in art or music or poetry, that only the finest efforts of human minds are worth bothering with.  Note that I said 'feel'.  That is not a judgement.  And argument is no longer much fun.  I need to convince myself that I'm helping someone to a kind of understanding that is worth possessing, and to do so is not always easy: there must be a limit to vanity.
P.L.

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #68 on: March 13, 2007, 02:46:23 pm »
Ran across these by accident.  Most such symbols were inherited.
The sword of justice and the hand of justice were the regalia of the highest penal authority of French kings.  The Louvre has an ivory one of the Romanesque period.  Relevance?  Continuity from late antiquity?  Justice of Sol Invictus???
[BROKEN LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]
http://concise.britannica.com/ebc/art-30924
Pat L.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #69 on: March 13, 2007, 03:14:38 pm »
That "hand of justice", with it's two folded fingers, looks to me very much like the "IC XC" (abbreviation for Jesus Christ, in Greek) Christian symbol. I'd not be surpised if it is related to Sol's gesture, but given the time separating the two I'm not sure how close the meaning may be. I think we need to look to Sol's eastern Severan origins to find the original meaning.

Ben

Offline slokind

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #70 on: March 13, 2007, 06:58:00 pm »
Whether blessing or as Pantokrator, Christ has his thumb folded, whereas what the Wikipedia article calls the 3 finger hand of justice, whether the ivory one, or the one from the Treasure of St. Denis or the Ms. showing Louis IX, all have the thumb out and straight.  I state that merely as a fact, in a context where there are few accidents.  I post the sharpest picture I could find, the one at Cefalù (12th century).  I leave anything more to experts.  Pat L.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #71 on: March 13, 2007, 11:27:37 pm »
Well, I don't think any of this is directly related to the question at hand (pun not intended!) about Sol's all-fingers-extended gesture, but for what it's worth it does appear that the "hand of justice" is intended to show a hand raised in benediction:

http://www.napoleon.org/en/essential_napoleon/symbols/index.asp
[BROKEN LINK REMOVED BY ADMIN]

On some depictions of Jesus (mosaic below is 6th C from San Apollinaire Nuovo, Ravenna) his hand is shown in this same position, while on others it is with the touching thumb (but also commonly described as "raised in benediction"), which apparently isn't the IC-XC gesture, but rather an orators gesture, according to WikiPedia. It'd be interesting, although off-topic for this board, to know how old this orators gesture is, since as such it need not have any relation to Sol.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christ_Pantocrator

Ben

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #72 on: March 14, 2007, 01:33:24 am »
Good.  Well, this probably is all child's play to a specialist, I suppose.  The other mosaics were 12-13c, and this one is 6c, since it seems to be the enthroned Christ flanked by angels at the head of the martyrs in the nave mosaic. 
Let us know if you find an earlier 'hand of justice' wand, preferably an actual object or, as with Louis IX, a king holding one.  I can't think of a Carolingian one.
http://www.allposters.com/gallery.asp?aid=856633845&item=1343908
This is all I could find, better than a line drawing, for the Treasure of St.-Denis one, "Romanesque"**
So far as French regalia are concerned, it is not(?) a blessing gesture.  What I ran across was a description of one of the latest truly regal portraits, Callet's of Louis XVI (1789), 'with all the props in place: the great velvet mantle with fleurs-de-lys, the collars of royal orders, the crown, the "hand of justice", the short sceptre, the "sword of Charlemagne", and a massive throne.'  It was in a review of an exhibit, Citizens and Kings, now London Royal Academy (lately Portraits public, Portraits privés at the Grand Palais in Paris), by John Rogister, TLS Feb 9 2007.  As I said, I wasn't looking for 'hands'; I always read the art reviews first when the TLS comes
But that coin of Max. Daia, above Reply #61, really nags at me.  Pat L.
** P.S. I found the Ingres portrait at the very bottom of the Popery web page, with the very St-Denis Hand.  Trust Ingres!  That really does look like his Jupiter, the one from the ceiling of the Charles X wing of the Louvre.  But that's not evidence for us, except for Napoleon.

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #73 on: March 14, 2007, 07:52:49 am »
Pat, I think you're being a bit misled by that specific Daia obv die; for every one where the hand is poorly rendered I can show you another, such as my own, below, where it is better rendered. This is only a single mint issue (and from a very brief period of issue), but still we have a variety that does not sugggest a fixed form, nor was it fixed in the 100 years of Sol since introduction by Severus.

The hand of justice is interesting in it's own right, but it is 13 th C French rather than 3rd-4th C Roman, and anyway as indicated seems to have it's own lineage ultimately based on a different hand gesture (the orators gesture).

Ben

Offline Heliodromus

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Re: Sol's gesture and Serapis' robe
« Reply #74 on: March 14, 2007, 12:50:55 pm »
To follow-up, I googled for orators gesture, and arrived at the book "Gestures and Acclamations in Ancient Rome" which I've just ordered a copy of ($25 w/ free shipping from Amazon). Apparantly there was a broad repertoire of gestures used by roman orators which would be used as part of the body language to emphasize differing types of point. Here's a Bryn Mawr review of the book:

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/bmcr/2000/2000-03-08.html

The Amazon "search inside" feature does show that it contains a number of illustrations, for example the one below (slightly different from above - but still evocative of same).

This roman gestural repertoire would seem to be another possible source for Sol's gesture (and apparently also for Jesus's oratorally derived gesture of benediction, if WikiPedia is to be believed - no source given), although I would still tend to think that the former may have come from the east when Severus "imported" Sol and he seemingly displaced Helios with his characteristic torch. Even if the benediction gesture (& subsequently derived Hand of Justice) are not directly derived from the Sol gesture, there is of course the possibility that the iconography is derived, just as Jesus' rayed Solar halo is derived from Sol's radiance (sometimes shown in an almost identical rayed halo form), yet the "rays" are assigned a symbolic Christian meaning rather than their prior literal pictoral one.

Ben

 

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