Sundial of Ahaz, leaf from the Postilla Litteralis (Literal Commentary) of Nicholas of Lyra.

Paris, France, ca. 1360-1380.

With its fan-like shapes that seem to flutter across the page, this leaf exemplifies the medieval diagrammatic tradition at its best. What feels like elements lifted from a 20th century-century watercolor are in fact abstract sundials used to illustrate a fine point of 14th-century biblical exegesis.

The leaf comes from the landmark study of Nicholas of Lyra (1270-1349), Master of Theology of the University of Paris, which provided commentary on every book of the Bible. The story here, found in both Isaiah (38:1-8) and 2 Kings (20:1-11), recounts God’s willingness to turn the shadow of the sun back 10 degrees—approximately one hour--as a sign to the Judean King Hezekiah. The illustrations on this leaf present two different ways of charting the miraculous reversal of time.

✽ 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙼𝚎𝚝 𝙼𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚞𝚖

@explorationoftruth 🕊️

The 6000-7000 year old burial of a young woman and her newborn baby found in Vedbæk, Denmark.

The young woman, estimated to be around 20 years of age at the time of her death, and baby are believed to have died during childbirth.

Two hundred red deer teeth were found by the woman’s head, and her head resting on a pillow of antlers. The baby was found buried on the wingtip of a whooper swan with a flint knife at its hip.

The child was placed on a specific part of the swan, an appendage that had a strong and important role in social interaction between swans, made up of the long primary and secondary feathers used to fletch arrows. The wing was placed in the grave not as a symbolic afterthought, but as a material acknowledgement of the intimate relationship between humans and whooper swans, the enmeshing of their worlds and the development of understanding both of themselves and of the surrounding world, through their continual and repeated engagements.

✽ 𝚂𝚘𝚞𝚛𝚌𝚎 - 𝙰𝚛𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚎𝚘𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚒𝚌𝚊𝚕 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚕𝚘𝚐𝚞𝚎𝚜

@explorationoftruth 🕊️

Tsingy de Bemaraha Madagaskar