Flower of Life

The Flower of Life is an ornament on a hexagonal section of a triangular lattice. Be circles or arcs intersect at each grid point to the six neighboring grid points, so that adjacent grid points are connected by lenses, ninety in number.

At each interior grid point six lenses like petals, what modern esotericism ( New Age ) suggesting the name of Flower of Life touch. Sure that the ornament had been earlier so called, there is no evidence.

Use in architecture and art

Ornaments that the " Flower of Life" same or similar, can be found in churches, temples, civic buildings, grave equipment, art objects and manuscripts.

One of the oldest currently known representations of the basic structure as a repeating pattern is found on a 2.07 × 1.26 m wide door sill from the palace of King Ashur - bani - apli in major Šarrukin from the year 645 BC, which today is shown in the Assyrian Department of the Louvre. Additional copies are shown at the British Museum. The ornamentation of the thresholds was probably designed in the adjoining rooms carpets for example; for going beyond cultic or religious significance there is no sign.

Occasionally, as evidence for the use of ornamentation since ancient Egyptian times mentioned representations are found in about 4 m height on pillars of Osiris Shrine in Abydos (Egypt). There, since ancient times, a whole series of graffiti in different languages ​​(among ancient Greek, Coptic ) attached, which is why the found in this environment flowers of life are not assess older than those ( especially those ornamentation in ancient Egyptian culture was unusual ). They are therefore mostly analog dated to nearby standing ancient Greek graffiti in the early centuries CE, as a partial spillage of the temple complex is likely to have permitted installation without a ladder or scaffolding. For Graffiti speaks the inconspicuous thin lines. Stylistically, also Islamic origin around 1200 AD is possible. Also an addition in the 20th century can not be excluded, especially as Margaret Murray's detailed listing of the graffiti from 1904 does not mention them.

Europe

In Europe, such ornaments are popular motifs from the folk art of the 17th and 18th centuries. Thus we find, for example, in the Parish Church Old Church of Pomerania in the choir painted above the altar the ornament as a star in the sky. Similarly, the bar many half timbered houses in the old town of Strasbourg are decorated with the ornament. Also in silver treasure of Kaiseraugst on plate 85, it can be found. In the monastery Preveli in Crete it is found on both sides of the two-aisled chapel in London's Westminster Abbey in Cosmati mosaic from the 13th century. In the Hazara Rama Temple in Hampi India can be seen on various columns and architraves. Other sites there in the ruins of Kabile as well as in Veliki Preslav in Bulgaria, at Masada in Israel as well as in the Peruvian Cusco.

Leonardo da Vinci was concerned with the form and the mathematical proportions of the ornament, but without specifying the ornament specially.

China

A covered with this ornament ball found under the paw of the male guardian lions at the gate of Supreme Harmony of the Forbidden City in Beijing. Other guardian lions in this investment hold balls that are covered with similar but differing from the design principle of the ornament described here hexagonal patterns, with no specific assignment of meaning for these different ornamentation is known.

Esoteric

In modern esotericism, there is the use of the Flower of Life as beschützendes symbol or with the aim of positively influencing the user and to create harmony: so on drinking vessels for the " revival " of the water, a great jewel protection of the wearer, the " suppression "from living and sleeping rooms, in offices and workplaces to protect against electromagnetic pollution, as stickers for windows or car windows. A write- religious significance took place primarily by the author Drunvalo Melchizedek, who published a two-volume work on the subject.