Jethro's Cave
Notes: Game on...on the radio...Yankees and Angels...top of second...no score...La Stella had two home runs yesterday...shares Angels' club lead at six with Trout...to bottom of second...Yankees depleted by injuries...have about same record so far as Angels...around 500...well, the little book came, and it has too many nice photos in it to economically post them...author took them herself, which must have been in 1970's or so...and she Easter egg hunts up motifs: step frets, and stepped pyramids, and something she calls a T, which is just a short stepped pyramid...the stepped pyramid I call crow step, or step motif...watching Game of Thrones last night, I was curious to see what was on the parapet of the fortress...Ts!!!...I learn today...go figure...one out single for Smith...myself, I think the short T step is just a step motif...needless to say, everyone is using different names...which messes up searches...home run!!!...Lucroy hits one out!!!...Angels 2-1...reading the book, I realize how limited the web is...first, a search only goes a few pages deep...early on in web history they would go very deep...what happens after a few pages is the search word has morphed into other un-related words...what was the search I was doing that changed before my eyes?....oh!...twisted gourd...it's the name of a beer...all a sudden the beer showed up while doing twisted gourd searches, and pushed any archaeological references way back...down...wherever...this to say google searches are unreliable for browsing...one could be missing a lot...from the book:
quote
The Nahuatl term used by the Aztecs for this motif was xicalcoliuhqui, and the Spanish name was voluta de jicara, (volute of the gourd; Beyer 1965 :56). In the Codex Magliabechiano (1970: 6r, lower left) representations of blankets bearing step-fret designs are glossed as manta de xicarca tuerta or "blanket with the crooked gourd (pattern)." Moreover, one early observer, Marshall H. Saville (1920: 160-162), thought that step frets, when they appeared on shields, were conventionalized representations of the crooked or double gourd traditionally used by native people to carry water. He noted, however, that the design could just as well have been derived from the spiral conch shell or from the coil of a snake. Others (Beyer 1965: 56; Caso and Bernard 1952: 161; Westheim 1965: 99; Garcia Payon 1973: 22), in contrast, maintain that the name implies only that this motif was a favorite ornament of potters.
Other scholars have suggested additional, and sometimes multiple, meanings for the motif. For example: Robert Greg (1882: 157-160) thought it represented water, and W. H. Holmes (1895-1897: 53) thought waves were one possible source of inspiration. Carl Lumholtz (1909: 201) saw a mass of clouds as a possible archetype. Francis Parry (1894: 38) related the step-fret to the wind. Jose Garca Payon (1951: 175; 1973: 18) associated the motif at El Tajin with light, sun, and life, and considered it to have been a magical protection against death. Lumholtz (1909:201) and Saville (1920: 161-162) suggested also that one possible derivation for the step-fret was the serpent, a creature associated with water. Holmes (1895-1897: 250) thought that the mosaic designs, including the step-fret, at Mitla, Oaxaca, were derived from markings on the body of a "serpent diety." Paul Westheim (1965: 102-104) believed that it symbolized lightning or the "Fire Serpent." I think that at one level of meaning, at least during the Epiclassic Period, it represented the "Feathered Serpent" (see fn. 14).
Chacs and Chiefs
The Iconography of Mosaic Stone Sculpture in Pre-Conquest Yucatan, Mexico
Rosemary Sharp
1981
pp9-10
Other scholars have suggested additional, and sometimes multiple, meanings for the motif. For example: Robert Greg (1882: 157-160) thought it represented water, and W. H. Holmes (1895-1897: 53) thought waves were one possible source of inspiration. Carl Lumholtz (1909: 201) saw a mass of clouds as a possible archetype. Francis Parry (1894: 38) related the step-fret to the wind. Jose Garca Payon (1951: 175; 1973: 18) associated the motif at El Tajin with light, sun, and life, and considered it to have been a magical protection against death. Lumholtz (1909:201) and Saville (1920: 161-162) suggested also that one possible derivation for the step-fret was the serpent, a creature associated with water. Holmes (1895-1897: 250) thought that the mosaic designs, including the step-fret, at Mitla, Oaxaca, were derived from markings on the body of a "serpent diety." Paul Westheim (1965: 102-104) believed that it symbolized lightning or the "Fire Serpent." I think that at one level of meaning, at least during the Epiclassic Period, it represented the "Feathered Serpent" (see fn. 14).
Chacs and Chiefs
The Iconography of Mosaic Stone Sculpture in Pre-Conquest Yucatan, Mexico
Rosemary Sharp
1981
pp9-10
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11 The step fret motif, however, occurs earlier in Peru than in Middle America. For example, it is present on a fragment of pottery taken from the Temple of Chavin de Huantar (Tello 1960: 350, Fig. 174, bottom, far right) dating to the Chavin Period. ... ... ...
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