End of ADS-L Digest - 26 Jul 1997 to 27 Jul 1997 ************************************************ Subject: ADS-L Digest - 27 Jul 1997 to 28 Jul 1997 There are 4 messages totalling 159 lines in this issue. Topics of the day: 1. "The Hands" 2. "Less is more... 3. dumb nitpick, I'm really sorry ;-)\ (2) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 28 Jul 1997 07:36:50 -0400 From: "Barry A. Popik" Subject: "The Hands" "Well, Dandy Don, it looks like the fans are telling us that the Washington Redskins are Number One!" --Howard Cosell generously interpreting a hand gesture to Don Meredith on Monday Night Football (1978), after a Washington Redskins touchdown; to most viewers--including this one--the fans who were raising their middle fingers appeared to be saying "FUCK YOU, HOWARD!! FUCK YOU!!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -------------------------------------------- "The Hands"--or, one hand gesture in particular--is probably the easiest thing I ever solved. I was walking through Bruge, Belgium the other day, and a sign in the window of the Snuffel Sleep Inn declared "Dit cafe is Oke." There was a graphic for that country's hand gesture for O. K.--not the familiar thumb and index finger together in a circle, but the thumbs up. (I provided citations for the O. K. hand gesture on this list earlier this year.) Perhaps the most important hand gesture in Western art doesn't really have a name, but is called simply "the hands." As explained in the DICTIONARY OF SYMBOLISM by Hans Biedermann, pg. 163, "The right hand with three fingers extended (thumb, index, and middle finger) symbolizes an oath: 'As God is my witness....'" An illustration is given on the same page. The gesture dates from around the time of Christ. In John Ferguson's THE RELIGIONS OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE, figure 56 shows "a bronze hand with magic symbols in honour of Sabazios." Pg. 102 states "His cult is most clearly seen in the votive offering of bronze right hands decorated with magic symbols, representing the god's benevolent power. These are found throughout the imperial period; inscriptions suggest that the second and third centuries AD were the period of the god's greatest popularity." "Decorated with magic symbols?" No explanation of them?? "The Hands" can be found in the British Museum. It's not explained there, either. A book on "The Hands" was published by E. J. Brill (Leiden), one of many green-clothed books on the religions of the Roman Empire. Photos of "the hands" from many collections are provided, but still no explanation of the gesture. This past week, I saw Van Eyck's "The Adoration of the Lamb" in a church in Ghent. The painting's Jesus used the same hand gesture. Again, there was no written explanation. I listened to two tourists guides, and neither explained the gesture at the very center of the painting. I then went to the Royal Museum of Art in Brussels. In a room of 16th century paintings, I saw the gesture used again. And again! And again! And again! Six times!! Always the right hand. Almost always used by Jesus. First three fingers up, last two fingers down. Used all the time! Never explained! Richard Nixon does a hand gesture, or Winston Churchill--it's explained! But here you have something called "the hands," and that's all it is, and no one provides a clue! The explanation to this is so pitifully easy, it's embarrassing. People counted on their hands. I got out Karl Menninger's NUMBER WORDS AND NUMBER SYMBOLS: A CULTURAL HISTORY OF NUMBERS. Page 203 (from a 1494 edition) and also pg. 207 (from a 1727 edition)--both from the work of the Venerable Bede, who died AD 735. The right hand gesture represents the number 800. The numbers in Greek were represented by letters. What letter would this be? Page 265 tells us--it's the Omega, the last letter of the Greek alphabet! Jesus, of course, would teach of the Alpha and the Omega--the beginning and the end. "The Hands" represent the Omega--the end. Makes a lot of sense. I solved this in about a minute, many years ago, way before I solved the Parthenon....