Actually Covering Mythologies

March 5, 2006 4:43 PM

What is the meaning of the symbol(s) on the cover of Roland Barthes' Mythologies?
posted by Dante5Inferno to writing & language (9 comments total)

They kind of look like alchemy symbols, but not exactly.
posted by easternblot at 5:50 PM on March 5, 2006

Ooh, I know this one, sorta. It's from Rudolf Koch's "Book of Signs"... I think it's some kind of calendar; each of the eight spokes is a symbol for a half-season. I'm still looking for my copy of that book, though, so I could be wrong.
posted by wanderingmind at 6:01 PM on March 5, 2006

I think you may be on the right track, easternblot. Good question. This sounds like an interesting book. And I already have semiotics stuff laying around in my "to be read" pile.

I was trying to find similar things at symbols.com. I see a square with a line it here. And a number of these look similar to the cover too (the coptic cross?) And I thought there might be some runes in the cover too, but that doesn't seem to be the case.

Maybe it's just a hodgepodge of symbols from different alphabets?
posted by bim at 6:09 PM on March 5, 2006

And the thing from the cover that looks like a TV antennna seems to be at the top of the second column here.
posted by bim at 6:16 PM on March 5, 2006

Here we go. The images are broken (this being a Google cache of a now-gone page), but I remember the text they give being the same as Koch's description of that exact symbol.

The bit about the "sabbat names", though, I dunno. Also, the symbols don't seem to match up with what they say they look like. Are there any pagans out there who can elucidate any of that?

(A rhumb-card is apparently some kind of compass. Fitting.)
posted by wanderingmind at 6:19 PM on March 5, 2006

Another site with the same symbol on it.
posted by wanderingmind at 6:21 PM on March 5, 2006

I think the graphic that went with the text description here, must have been rotated 90 degrees sunwise (or clockwise) from the graphics shown here and here.

The text says that Litha, or the Summer Solstice, is on top, while the graphics both show the "memorial cross" for Mabon, or the Autumn Equinox, on top.
posted by ottereroticist at 7:38 PM on March 5, 2006

Here's some information on the sabbats.
posted by ottereroticist at 7:41 PM on March 5, 2006

In both variants, the orientation seems odd to me. I would expect Samhain to be at the top of the circle, since it marks the New Year.

The cross-quarter days (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltane, and Lammas) are the big holidays that mark the seasons, while the solstices and equinoxes are of lesser importance.
posted by ottereroticist at 7:50 PM on March 5, 2006