Monthly Archives: April 2013

Etruscan Hair Comb

Before the Roman Empire, there was Ancient Italy, a compilation of cultures who absorbed each other’s ideas through trade. This map would date from 700 to 400 BC.

Greeks started colonizing Southern Italy in 800 BC, creating the province of Magna Graecia. They traded and had great cultural influence on late Villanovan culture, from which Etruscan civilization emerged. Mycenaean Greece’s Lion Gate (1300 BC) could have been a perfectly natural subject for an Etruscan artist to choose.

I believe this Etruscan ivory comb (600 to 500 BC) is a tribute to the Lions Gate at Mycenae. Using sgraffito, two decorative Greek-vector borders were scratched in: a larger pattern below the lions, and a smaller one above the tines, which might represent the gate itself. On the triangle just above the tines, circles signify a sacred emblem, the solar disc.

The comb is an example of the Hellenized world in Ancient Italy before the Roman Empire. It resides in The Walters Art Museum in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Greek And Etruscan Jewelry, A Picture Book: The Metropolitan Museum Of Art

The Böört: Headdress of the Turkic Shaman

After being educated by Siberian shamans for three years, I became the first wolf shaman in Turkey. The Ajalat Shamanic Center is the only place in Turkey where traditional Turkic Shamanism is practiced. My colleague Asu Mansur and I have dedicated ourselves to strengthen and develop the ancient way of shamanism by guiding people to a natural way of being.

In this video, you can see what we do.
You may click the picture to view the video, as well.

The headdress of the traditional Turkic kam is often called a böört, which is pronounced like bird, but with a “t” at the end. The Böört is a very important part of the kam’s equipment. It not only protects the shaman from negative entities called Aza, it also gives the owner a light feeling in the head when it is put on.

The first kams in Turks are women. The cams of the past are the bards of today. Bards and cams go back and forth between the lower world (Erlik-Darkness) and the Upper world-Lightness and expel the evil spirits. It ensures that the light wins goodness. The yin and yang in nature are black and white, it provides the balance between good and evil. In the Efe game of the Turks, it is a cam dance in the form of an eagle. and bravery wins.

The lightness in the head is created by the many feathers, which most often surround the böört. The feathers should be from strong and high-flying birds, like the eagle, crane, or goose.

One eagle feather is necessary because the eagle is a predator who can protect the head of its owner from evil spirits. The feathers also help the shaman fly to other dimensions and the upper world, where the ancestors and gods are. Mostly, it does not matter what is put on the böört, except for the feathers. They must have some protective or strengthening value.

The long ribbons in front of a böört are mainly designed for their protective purposes from evil spirits or evil eyes. Evil eyes can burn you or let you dry out. For example, if you walk through a shopping mall, sit in a crowded area, or a better example: you are with people you do not like so much, your eyes will start to burn or itch. This is a sign that one or more people have burned you with their evil eyes. A good way to protect oneself from this, if you are not a shaman, is to put on mirrored sunglasses. They will reflect the energy back to the owner, because your eyes will not be in contact. The shaman needs these ribbons for the same purpose.

Some shamans put horns to each side of the böört. This has two reasons. One is for threatening reasons and the other one has ancestral significance. The threatening part is again against evil spirits, to push them away like the bull pushes away its attackers.

The ancestral value is dedicated to Oguz Khan, the first Turk in history. The name Oguz means the ones from the space (aliens). From Oguz Khan, all the Turkic tribes came out. Oguz Khan was blueish, had red eyes and a red mouth. His helmet had two long horns at their sides.

That was the time long before Abraham. In respect and knowledge of our forefathers, the shaman wears the böört to carry this legacy from generation to generation. Shamans are also keepers of the truth and true history. Therefore, everything they put on the böört is a truth.

Keter Torah: Silver Torah Finials and Crowns

Early rabbinical texts disclaim the Hellenistic notion that a crown, or keter endowed its wearer with divine and immortal life. Instead, the keter became a symbol for 3 covenants with God: keter malkhut, crown of kingship, given to David for conquering the Ammonite capital of Rabbah; keter kenunah, the priesthood, given to the descendants of Moses’ brother Aaron; and keter torah, the revelation to Moses at Mount Sinai, the crown of God.


Keter Torah, Assayag Synagogue by David R. Crowles (Tangier, Morocco 2002)

The keter torah and the Ten Commandments tablets may also be accompanied by two lions, symbolizing Moses and Aaron, as in this closeup of a crown from Odessa.

In Eastern Europe’s Galicia, this keter’s inscription refers to Deuteronomy 32:11, “As an eagle stirs up her nest, broods over her young…” The animals on the crown’s base represent those that would be sacrificed at the Temple. This silver folk-art crown was made during the 18th- to 19th Centuries and is part of the Michael Steinhardt Judaica Collection. I find it especially interesting because the double-headed eagle with a crown in the middle is also the Russian coat of arms.

These flat finials come from Afghanistan, 1978, and are one of three sets to go on top the Afghani Torah case. The custom of calling finials keter torah is also practiced in Eastern Persia, where most Afghan Jews came from. The ornaments reside in the Center for Jewish Art in Jerusalem.

In the Musée d’art et d’histoire du Judaïsme, a wooden box with two sets of finials on top, called a tik is preserved from a Sephardic synagogue during the Ottoman Empire, c. 1860.

On April 29, 2013, Sotheby’s auctioned this Venitian torah crown with two finials, c. 1730. From the Michael Steinhardt collection, it sold for $437,000. I am sure you can imagine how such a heavy crown with bells ringing on top of the torah case added drama to the service.

In 17th Century Poland and Ukraine, mysticism expressed in kabbalah founded different forms of Hasidic Judaism. The tree of life, or sephirot, comes from kabbalah. So does devekut, a mystical trance-state where one clings to God. Rebbe Nachman of Breslov (1772–1810) combined kabbalah and torah scholarship, making the mind the central route to the heart. At the top of the sephirot is the keter. It symbolizes the most hidden of all hidden things, incomprehensible to man.

This torah crown comes from Poland, c. 1840. It was sold by Skinner’s for $65,174.

And in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, Hasidic Judaism is vibrantly alive.

מסרק

For more scholarly research, please examine


Crowning Glory: Silver Torah Ornaments of the Jewish Museum, New York

Hasidism and the Jewish Enlightenment: Their Confrontation in Galicia and Poland in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century

Crown of Aleppo: The Mystery of the Oldest Hebrew Bible Codex