So, I went to the Royal Ontario Museum for a bit back in April. I’m finally getting around to putting up some of the pictures, I guess. These ones are parts of the mosaic on the domed ceiling of the museum’s awesome old entrance (as opposed to it’s lame new one). The first one here is of the design in the very centre. There’s four bands of designs coming off from it in the directions of the corners of the entrance hall, but I didn’t get very good shots of them because I couldn’t hold my camera very steady while looking straight up. They seems to contain designs and iconography relating to the ancient cultures of four very broad geographic and sort of cultural areas.
I’m assuming the text is related to the fact that the museum’s purpose is to display, among other things, stuff from these areas. I’m pretty sure the creature at the bottom left is a Lamassu, which if I recall correctly is a sort of Mesopotamian guardian spirit I may look the up later to confirm. Yo maybe I’ll just start blogging interesting stuff from my university classes, as I sit here filled with regret at not being able to take any more and not having put more effort into the ones I did. Aaanyways, hmm, bluh, I actually should have posted the the bands, as they’d help to explain why these designs are here. Whatever. No, damnit, I definitely should have. Ok, I’l post them later, so I can better explain this stuff. Bluh.
The triangular bits that I’m showing here fill the areas between the bands, and seem to contain depictions of types of structures associated with ancient cultures/cultural areas corresponding to the stuff in the bands. I’m not sure what the first one (the spiraly tower) is supposed to be, but it may be a representation of the Tower of Babel from Christian mythology. Again, when I post the bands I’ll be able to explain this stuff’s context within the mosaic better. Moving on, the next one looks like a Mesoamerican temple pyramid. I really should dig up the notes from my Mesoamerican archaeology course so I can explain these. The next one looks like an ancient Greek or Roman temple. The last one I’m not so sure about. I have a feeling it may be some sort of Chinese structure? I took a course on Chinese history, but it was utter shit and the “professor” should have been hung. I guess I’ll post more on all this later, as well as more museum pictures.
Oh heck yes, this mosaic again.
As far as the iconography goes with the creatures, it looks like the top left one looks like it might be Horus. With the other ones, I agree that the first building isprobably the tower of babel. The last one looks like it’s either Ishtar Gate or Luxor Temple.
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