The Significance, Meaning and Symbolism of the Number 40 in the Bible, Mythology and Traditions

In this post I would like to go over some occurrences of the number 40 in religions, literature, traditions and superstitions. My focus will be on the traditions of the Middle East and the Western world (European). I will also try to make a few speculations about the origins of the number 40, or the… Continue reading The Significance, Meaning and Symbolism of the Number 40 in the Bible, Mythology and Traditions

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Using Orion to find Stars and Constellations (part 2)

Orion’s beams,Orion’s beams: His star gemmed belt and shining blade His isles of light, his silver streams, And glowing gulfs of mystic shade.” Astronomica by Manilius If you want to read part 1, you can go here. Using the same method employed in part 1, I will show how to find a few additional important… Continue reading Using Orion to find Stars and Constellations (part 2)

Using Orion to find Stars and Constellations (part 1)

“The stars that Sirius and Orion boast In deepest night to human ken are lost” Phenomena by Aratus In this article I want to show a few tricks that can be used to locate various stars or constellations using the stars from the constellation Orion. Orion is useful as a reference constellation because it has… Continue reading Using Orion to find Stars and Constellations (part 1)

Symbolism: Allegory of Arithmetic by Laurent de La Hyre

In this post I want to discuss the symbolism found in the painting “Allegory of Arithmetic” by the baroque painter Laurent de La Hyre. This painting belongs to La Hyre’s series of paintings on the liberal arts. Since Martianus Capella ( 5th century AD), the seven liberal arts were divided in trivium (grammar, logic/dialectics and… Continue reading Symbolism: Allegory of Arithmetic by Laurent de La Hyre

Romanian FamilyTreeDNA myOrigins Results

In this post I want to share my FamilyTreeDNA (FTDNA) myOrigins results. If you want to learn more about the FTDNA ethnicity estimates, you should read this page (the page talks about the update to version 3 of myOrigins) and this page (myOrigins Version 3.0 population clusters). Before I show my ethnic breakdown, I should… Continue reading Romanian FamilyTreeDNA myOrigins Results

Review: Iconologia by Cesare Ripa

Every student of western symbolism should familiarize himself with Iconologia by Cesare Ripa. In the simplest terms, Iconologia can be described as a dictionary of allegorical images. The fist edition was published in 1593 in Perugia. You can find some general info on the Wikipedia page dedicated to Cesare Ripa. The use of allegorical images… Continue reading Review: Iconologia by Cesare Ripa