RE: VMs: Pleiades

[Nick Pelling <incoming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jon,

At 13:31 12/05/2004 +0100, Jon Grove wrote:
> I take the point that maybe the artist might not have cared about the true 
> configuration of the stars, or even the true number - perhaps preferring 
> the mythological/mystical number 7 - but in that case it could represent 
> any constellation with roughly seven stars. I guess I'm just trying to 
> question the generally accepted supposition that the picture must be the 
> Pleiades because it looks like them. To me it just looks like a picture 
> with seven stars in it.

To me, the lack of concordance with the night sky plus the [literally] 
seven stars point to mythological ("seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione") 
knowledge being encoded here, rather than observational ("this is what the 
Pleaides look like") knowledge. So: I think the received wisdom is that 
this graphic probably *denotes* the Pleiades, rather than *represents* them.

Cheers, .....Nick Pelling..... 


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