The Enigmatic Fresco

A picture tells a story just as well as a large amount of descriptive text.

This particular fresco is very difficult to interpret or understand what the artist was actually trying to convey. Its true meaning remains mysterious. There for it is enigmatic.

Fresco painting, method of painting water-based pigments on freshly applied plaster, usually on wall surfaces. The colours, which are made by grinding dry-powder pigments in pure water, dry and set with the plaster to become a permanent part of the wall. Fresco painting is ideal for making murals because it lends itself to a monumental style, is durable, and has a matte surface.

                                           Credit source/ Encyclopedia Britannica

This fresco was done by an unknown artist and depicts the crucifixion of the lord with the idealism that ascension is near and was painted and plastered over walls that are over 600 years old. Those walls were constructed in the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia. (Decan, Kosovo) in a medieval church known as Visoki Decani Monastery. 

The medieval church was built between the years 1327 and 1335 by the Serbian medieval king St. Stephen of Decani and was dedicated to the Ascension of the Lord. 

For 632 years the Fresco sat unnoticed until the day a article was published and edited in France, for a Digest called Spoukik. The article was called "Des Visiteurs du Cosmos" or "Visitors to the Cosmos" and was written by a philosophy graduate and researcher at the Academy of Science in Moscow, Viatcheslaw Zaitsev. The year, 1967, And it's the first time the Ancient Astronaut theory had been imposed on the fresco and most recently re-explored by the t.v. show Ancient Aliens, as well as a numerous amount of others on the internet writing blogs. And now, I will attempt to show you that there is an enigma in this fresco that is in plain sight, And that discovery leads us into a past where ascension was all about stepping through the gateway of the Gods, Gods that were portrayed to be responsible for the mystifying elements of our world. Gods, to some civilizations that may have been influenced by outside sources. Those outside sources than take us to the Gateway of the Gods. And if you step through that gate, You will be stepping into the past of Ancient Alien History and opening a door to an obvious path that bring us to;

The Enigmatic Fresco

  The Ancient Astronaut theory suggest that the two figure's in the Fresco are spaceships with a crew flying through space and time. Others suggest that this is a representation of other medieval art and depicts the Sun and the Moon as human witnesses to the crucifixion of Christ and they are looking down on Christ.

 My first impression was that I could see a Sun and a Moon being representative of symbolism but within that same symbolism I saw a Sun God and a Moon God and the following is what my own research found.

 The reference of the Sun and Moon being depicted in other similar paintings and frescoes show the Sun and Moon opposing one another but in this fresco we see that they are traveling in the same direction. And in others we also see the representation of human witnesses because they are indeed watching but again we see another anomaly in the fresco, We see the human witnesses are not looking at Christ, no they don't appear as if they are witnessing anything at all, Instead, they are looking at one another or the other is looking back, As if it was leading. The artist wanted this to be noticed, but why? Perhaps its in the symbolism.

"The Sun and the Moon, one on each side of the cross are a common feature of medieval crucifixions. Persisted in the early years of the Renaissance but are rarely seen after the 15th century. Their origin is very old. The custom of representing the sun and moon in images of the gods of the pagan sun Persia and Greece was a practice that was transferred into Roman times coins representing emperors (...) The Sun is sometimes depicted simply as the bust of a man with a radiant halo, the moon as a woman with the crescent of Diana. They are then reduced to two simple disks, the Moon has a crescent within the circle, it can be carried by angels. The Sun appears to the right of Christ, the moon on the left. "

                         "Dictionary of Subjects & Symbols In Art"                                                                                                                                       James Hall , author.

So it has been established what one would consider to be a normal depiction of the crucifixion of Christ for that era. When looking more closely at the moon, we notice that there are Semitic triad symbols being displayed.

The Semitic triad symbol(s)

"An examination of the frequency in which the number three occurs in Babylonian literature suggests that here also the number had some symbolical or sacred significance. Let us consider the triads. At the head of the Babylonian Pantheon we have ANU BEL and EA, symbolizing the entire universe and personifying its three divisions-Heaven, Earth and Water."

...."It thus became a model in which others were formed of a similar type. By the side of the first triad we have another which symbolized the influence of the astrological system of Babylonia. Sin, the moon god, symbolized the host of the heaven;  SHAMASH the sun god, the beneficent power of the sun;  and ISHTAR representing mother-earth, symbolized the source of life and fertility. The remarkable fact about this triad is that whilst to the Semite the Sun-god was the Lord and father of the gods and the moon was either a female consort or an inferior pale reflection of the sun. In this triad SIN was the chief god and was regarded as father of the other two. These three gods were also rulers of the Zodiac, and as the first triad represented space, so they represented time".

'Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism

 By Maurice H. Farbridge ,pg,101,102

Furthermore;

 So we have a fresco of the crucifixion of Christ with the sun and moon being displayed as Gods and not human witnesses because as you can see there are no eyes in the sky looking down on the event and the occupants are driving a celestial objects, its meaning can be summed as; This is a display of gods because it assumes control of a mystifying force in the universe. And we also know that this particular triad represents the moon as being the chief god and the evidence is in where the artist chose to display the triad: on the moon. It's also obvious that the sun is following the moon and its occupant is looking back at the sun.

 The first known display of worshiping the Sun and Moon date back to the Sumerians, who were one of the first known civilizations.

Babylon, (BAB=LIL) which in the native Sumerian language meant 'gateway of the gods' 

 So why did the artist who obviously enjoyed free expression in the making of this fresco choose such a symbol of mythology in a religious painting? Perhaps he was simply trying to make a reference to the Sumerians beliefs which amounts to, This is the "gateway of the gods"

  So why make a reference to something most religions pass off as mythology? And how did the artist know about Sumerian religion? The Great Ziggurat of UR's remains weren't excavated until the 1920's. That's three hundred years after the fresco was done.

One may never find that answer but one things for sure, the artist must have had views that were not shared by others in the renaissance era or in ours. 

But then again, it could have been his own interpretation of the god(s) of sumer, being responsible for this accession, which could just as well have been Aliens.

Sumerian language of Moon and Sun gods are; 

Fixed Stars

Sun = SAMSUM or UTU (power in the sun) 

Sphere of the Moon = NANNA

Planetary Names

Sun = SHAMASH in  (reference to the planetary names)

Moon = SIN  NANNA = God of the Moon.

 Related Sumerian text.

ANU = the Heavenly One= Nibiru's ruler when the Anunnaki came to earth= Uranus 

ANZU = Spacecraft pilot; first commander of the way station on Mars

BAB=ILI = Gateway of the Gods; Babylon, Marduk's City 

EA = He Whose House/Home is Water 

ANZU is part of the Sumerian language and it would be safe to assume that the word stems from a belief system. So it applies here;

ANZU = Spacecraft pilot; first commander of the way station on Mars

Descriptive text for pictures

 Figures 25, 26, 27, are simply varieties of the solar wheel, intended to represent the idea of the sun and moon, the mystic triad and unit, the "arba," or four. In Figure 26, the mural ornament is introduced, that being symbolic of feminine virginity. For explanation of Figure 27, see Figures 85, 86.  

Figures 85, 86, represent a Yorkshire and an Indian stone circle. The first is copied from Descriptions of Cairns, Cromlechs, Kistvaens, and other Celtic, Druidical, or Scythian Monuments in the Dekkan, by Col. Meadows Taylor, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv. The mound exists at Twizell, Yorkshire, and the centre of the circle indicates an ancient tomb, very similar to those found by Taylor in the Dekkan; this contained only one single urn, but many of the Indian ones contained, besides the skeleton of the great man buried therein, skeletons of other individuals who had been slaughtered over his tomb, and buried above the kistvaen containing his bones; in one instance two bodies and three heads were found in the principal grave, and twenty other skeletons above and beside it. A perusal of this very interesting paper will well repay the study bestowed upon it. Figure 86 is copied from Forbes Leslie's book mentioned above, plate 59. It represents a modern stone circle in the Dekkan, of very recent construction. The dots upon the stones represent dabs of red paint, which again represent blood. The circles are similar to some which have been found in Palestine, and give evidence of the presence of the same religious ideas existing in ancient England and Hindostan, as well as in modern India. The name of the god worshipped in these recent shrines is Vetal, or Betal. It is worth mentioning, in passing, that there is a celebrated monolith in Scotland called the Newton Stone, on which are inscribed, evidently with a graving tool, an inscription in the Ogham, and another in some ancient Aryan character (see Moore's Ancient Pillar Stones of Scotland).                                                                                                Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism

 By Maurice H. Farbridge ,pg,101,102/                       

 The emblem of Shamash is a four-pointed disk with undulating lines radiating intercardinally, and this is a standard Mesopotamian symbol for the sun.  Shamash is seated inside on a throne, and a large version of his wavy-lined, four-pointed sun disk rests upon a table. In this period, however, the sun's emblem sometimes took a different shape. A winged disk replaced the Shamash emblem, and often the primary god of the Assyrians, Assur, was ensconced in the flaming disk. When the Assyrians ruled Mesopotamia, their national deity assumed most of the characteristics of Marduk (Jupiter) and occupied the same role as creator and sustainer of order. Similarly, Assur was associated with the sun, and so his appearance in the flying disk of the sun was altogether natural. 

 Because some astronomical objects move through the sky in repeated and known intervals of time, the behavior of the celestial gods associated with them can be symbolized numerically. Ishtar, as the planet Venus, perhaps was handled this way in the eight-pointed star that usually stands for her on Babylonian boundary stones. References to Venus as early as 3000 BC are known from evidence at Uruk, an important early Sumerian city in southern Iraq. One clay tablet found at the site says "star Inanna," and another contains symbols for the words "star, setting sun, Inanna."  Inanna is Venus, known later as Ishtar, and the Uruk tablets specify her celestial identity with the symbol for "star": an eight-pointed star.

Fig. 25-27; Typical Semitic Triad

Fig. 85, 86; Yorkshire and an Indian stone circle

Upper Right; The Emblem of SHAMASH

Lower Left (Last); Symbolizing the behavior of the Celestial Gods

Reference/

Sumerian Dictionary/

Studies in Biblical and Semitic Symbolism

 By Maurice H. Farbridge ,pg,101,102/

Britannica Encyclopedia;

https://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/219703/fresco-painting

 Visoki Decani Monastery;.

https://www.kosovo.net/edecani.html