Structuralist anthropology reveals archetype in culture
In artefacts and artworks, where archaeo astronomers see ancient star maps, archaeologists see cultural traditions, and anthropologists see initiation secrets, appear a standard axial grid of archetypes, always in the same sequence. This posts introduces the five layers of features revealed by structuralist analysis of artworks,
Art, myth, ritual, and crafts like astrology, all derive from archetype. This post demonstrates the Senmut pseudo-astronomical ceiling as an example. Culture is sustained and standardised by subconscious expression. I did not design archetype, or this quirky cultural expression of archetypal structure. I merely identify and demonstrate this expression. Astronomical figures are not primarily zodiac figures, since they are not conventionalised. However their ranges of attributes, their sequence, and their relative positioning are highly standardised, forming a mindprint.
The set of archetypes in this artwork is listed here, in the standard sequence, with their mythical month or zodiac names (as archetypes, not constellations), with the universal average frequencies of some common attributes in brackets.
Demonstrations of archetypal structure in many more artworks (already about 700) and building sites (already about 100), adds evidence that the subconscious structure in artworks, or any craft, or cultural media, does not ‘come from’ drugs, or trance, or constellations, or diffusion from any particular culture. Even cosmology is natural and archetypal, not primarily a cultural artefact.
Mindprint is sixteen recurrent character types, each expressing a cluster of optional archetypal features, and each feature at a specific…
Here is a shortcut method to identifying the five layers of subconscious archetypal structure in artworks or building sites: Identify a likely periphery of figures in a roughly elliptical arrangement; List the figures in their circular sequence, by any distinctive attribute, such as a posture, season, function, species, or device; Provisionally tag the list or the artwork, with likely type numbers, such as 10 Teacher for a figure with arms up or a staff, 12 or 13 Heart for a felid, 1 or 2 Builder for a bovid or tower, 5 Priest for varicoloured, skin paint or a hyperactive posture; Tag figures notably ingressed or egressed towards or away from the centre, as 6 Exile or 14 Mixer; Tag a pregnant figure as 11 Womb; and an adjacent major figure as 12 or 13 Heart (usually with an exposed chest), and the adjacent figure on the other side as 10 Teacher; Complete the axial grid; Use the set of typology labels below.
The Narmer palette front demonstrates subconscious expression of archetypal structure in a decanal set, in stock Sumerian and Egyptian pre-dynastic style. Here is the standard list of the types, with the characters in this artwork, in seasonal sequence from the former spring point, with its analogous hour decan.
Artworks express three planes of space and time. Perception and culture are spatially ‘projected’ on the ecliptic plane, leaving the celestial and galactic equators oblique. There are no degrees of difficulty in the miracles of nature and human nature. Our myth map reveals five layers of structure in artworks (demonstrated here in De Cosimo’s Discovery of honey) and in building sites.
In the Dendera zoidac, the sixteen typology axes are subconsciously curved into a vortex, to link the eyes of northern, ecliptic and southern decans, to galactic or determinant characters in the border. Zodiacs usually do not express the archetypal sequence, nor the axial ocular (eye to eye) structure. This vortex indicates inspired structuralist detail, beyond the needs of astrology or astronomy. Here is another timeless record of our collective need for subconscious structuralist calibration, enabling the collective therapy of expressing who, what, where, when and how we fit into nature, and ultimately into archetype.
Recurrent features in art, rock art, myth, divination emblems, alphabets, and some natural sets, enabled the initial ‘cracking’ of subconscious stock character types, their sequence, their spatial relationship, and their planar features on three cosmic planes. The mindprint and stoneprint model offers a lens through which to read the compulsive core content in cultural expressions, across the gulf of millennia and continents.
