The 'tarot trumps' inspired by the Mamluk cards

[Rosanne]

Thanks both Crowned One and Kwaw for book reccomendations.
Here is a small site that tells me why Polo sticks ceased to be in the Heraldry later.
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~heraldry/page_islam.html
There is a sentence on the cup and horn emblem you noted earlier Kwaw.
It does not know the meaning.
Polo sticks were the emblem of a court functionary- possibly weapons master?
Or Horsemanship?
~Rosanne

 

[Ross G Caldwell]

Tsk tsk, I meant to link this page....
http://www.manteia-online.dk/deckreviews/dr002.htm
because of this statement.


I have no idea how accurate this is but playing cards or teaching cards this early?
~Rosanne

I guess for the "standard model", 12th century is too early.

It is before the Mongol invasions, which I think most people who speculate on the transmission of playing cards to Persia, India and the middle East think was the agent. The Turfan card is a perfect example of the Chinese style of "Red Flower" IIRC in the Wan suit, and although the dating is difficult, from my reading it was found among writings which are more easily datable, and that is late 13th century. This is consistent with Mongol actions.

Secondly, a priori it is difficult to explain the suit of "cups" this early, 100 years or more before the Mongol expansion.

If, as the consensus goes, the four suited and eight-suited packs both evolved out of four-suited Chinese "money" packs, then the only decent explanation so far offered for the evolution of the suit of Cups is that it was a visual interpretation of the Wan suit (which vaguely suggests an upside-down cup). This was Wilkinson in the late 19th century. Ad hoc as it may be, it does have some support in an analogous action in Japan, where the Portuguese Cup suit was turned over and made into what look like hanging balloons - or something.

So to suggest that the Cup suit was already invented well before the hypothetical Mongol transmission of the four-suited money pack just throws a wrench into the chronology.

Needless to say, this area of playing-card history is extremely obscure.

Ross

 

[kwaw]

Here is a small site that tells me why Polo sticks ceased to be in the Heraldry later.
http://freepages.family.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~heraldry/page_islam.html
There is a sentence on the cup and horn emblem you noted earlier Kwaw.
It does not know the meaning.
Polo sticks were the emblem of a court functionary- possibly weapons master?
Or Horsemanship?
~Rosanne

As the site says it is the emblem of the polo master.

In Sufi poetry the polo stick represent the tresses of the beloved's hair (being likened to the curls at the end of a straight strand of hair) which 'strikes' the lover (the polo ball); the plurality of the beloved's tresses veils its unity from its lovers. The tavern is the place where rogues meet, that is, the meeting place of the sufi dervishes who become intoxicated by the divine (the 'tavern of ruin' where one communes with G-d) - divine intoxication being represented by wine and the cup, the cup-bearer is the mystical teacher, the spiritual guide who leads the student towards divine intoxication. Scimitar swords are symbols of the moon, the bull and the letter alef, the horns of the gazelle which symbolises the beauty of the beloved, and those that fall on love's sword, the beginning of love is 'to lose one's head.' It is a symbol of both Mohammed and of Allah, and of complete submission to the beloved, even unto death. One of the mystical terms for the beloved is 'executioner' and the gallows a symbol for speakers of the truth (as representing what they may expect in reward for such). Coins represent mutabilty, the transient, the coming and going of things, of nature, reflected in the comings and goings of the soul, that is, its coming from and return to the beloved, to G-d.

Paul Huson in he Mystical Origins of the Tarot discusses the Sufis in relation to the emblems:

http://books.google.com/books?id=dVne-RK9UVYC&pg=PA21&dq=3#PPA21,M1

 

[kwaw]

In Sufi poetry the polo stick represent the tresses of the beloved's hair

http://books.google.com/books?id=NvvUJtEC-lgC&pg=PA172&dq=&as_brr=3

 

[kwaw]

Scimitar swords are symbols of the moon, the bull and the letter alef, the horns of the gazelle which symbolises the beauty of the beloved, and those that fall on love's sword, the beginning of love is 'to lose one's head.' It is a symbol of both Mohammed and of Allah, and of complete submission to the beloved, even unto death. One of the mystical terms for the beloved is 'executioner' and the gallows a symbol for speakers of the truth (as representing what they may expect in reward for such).

Some Sufi sword quotes:

"A sword his eyelids draw against my heart, and I see the
very langour thereof doth whet its blade;
All the more sheds he suddenly our blood, picturing them
that Musawir slew among the Beni Yazdadh.
No wonder is it, that he should have taken the hairs upon
his cheeks to be the suspender thongs of his sword, seeing
that he is ever smiting and slaying therewith...
The sun's self, yea, and the gracefull gazelle submit humbly
before his face as he gazes about him, and take refuge
and shelter in his beauty... The harshness of his
heart rivals the tempered steel.

"When does the joy of the lover reach its height? When the beloved has spread out the blood-leather for the execution and has prepared the lover to be slain. The latter is lost in admiration of the beloved's beauty and says: He is preparing to kill me, but I only admire how well his brandishing of the sword becomes him.

"Let not your heart tremble before the blow of my sword; lay down your neck, if you wish to journey from knowledge to vision.

 

[kwaw]

Coins represent mutabilty, the transient, the coming and going of things, of nature, reflected in the comings and goings of the soul, that is, its coming from and return to the beloved, to G-d.

"Look at the nightingale, how to the rose-bed it is going!
The flowers produce petals scattering them like coins
for the king,
In springtime it is with predilection that
the king on a walk is going.
That tulip, like a monk, his heart burning with grief,
drowned in the blood of his eyes, to the hillside
is going.

 

[The crowned one]

I guess for the "standard model", 12th century is too early.

It is before the Mongol invasions, which I think most people who speculate on the transmission of playing cards to Persia, India and the middle East think was the agent.
Needless to say, this area of playing-card history is extremely obscure.

Ross

Yes this is exactly what I am, at this time, considering and tracing in a very slow and relaxed fashion.

 

[Debra]

I could swear there is a reproduction of the Mamluk cards now available and listed in the cards section of AT, but I can't find it for the life of me.

 

[Rosanne]

It was in that urgent sale because someone was broke Debra. Long thread.

Thanks Ross for your explanation.

The Crowned One: Does this allude to your comments about carpets or prayer mats? I have been trying to find my notes on this, but I think they were lost last year in my house's personal drowning. Whatever, the carpets were a reason I put a Prayer mat on my Pope card. The Mamluk cards do look like Prayer mats with their Dome for placing them Eastward toward Mecca or Jerusalem. See my scan. I can recall some photos of a Pope's summer house or holiday home that had Muslim Prayer mat in front of the fireplace. I did giggle.

Kwaw I will come back to you with questions about the Sufi Poetry, when I have unscrambled my thoughts. (Lol Maybe that will be never)
I hope Bernice is enjoying the thread!
~Rosanne

 

[The crowned one]

Yes it does. I do have a few pages of notes but nothing solid. To be honest I feel it may have, like language, been a child's "made up game" that was played on the carpet, expanded on by adults and put onto portable cards.