Uh, I Forgot

We all forget. That’s natural. But sometimes we ALL forget and that’s, well, just weird. There are instances throughout history where we collectively forget something. It was there. We knew it. We used it. And then for some strange reason, we all, I mean ALL, forgot it.
Take concrete, for example When I was in Rome, I was astonished to learn that the technique for building with concrete was forgotten after the Pantheon was built…Really? They forgot? How could everybody forget? Nobody had to pour footings for their deck or build a birdbath? The Pantheon is a pretty impressive building. At what point did somebody look at it and say, “How the heck did they make that thing?” One day will we look at a shopping mall and think the same thing? As far as I can find out, it took almost 2000 years to make the next big concrete building – and that was in Cincinnati. What a lapse of memory.
And what about embalming. You always read,”the secret recipe for embalming has been lost. Lost? Where? Was there only one copy? What happened when the last pharaoh died and needed to be embalmed and somebody had to admit, “uh, we don’t know how to do that anymore. Lost the recipe. Sorry.”
And what about Stonehenge. You’d think somebody would’ve used those building techniques for something else and just passed along the knowledge. “Gee Dad, how’d you move that fridge?” “Aw just something I learned at Stonehenge” How is it possible that nobody knows how they raised those wretched stones? (except Wally Wallington in Flint Michigan who thinks he knows on one of my most favourite ever videos: Man Moves Stone
I’m thinking about all this because there’s actually a lot of religious imagery that people don’t understand anymore. I was surprised by this. There are numerous examples in the romanesque churches we’ve been visiting. There’s a nice carving, lots going on, but nobody knows what it means. At the time they were carved, everyday people understood the images but we don’t know anymore. We forgot. These were really well-know stories at the time but…we forgot. You’d think somebody would’ve written it down in…a book…like a bible…but they didn’t and we forgot.

Luxuria

Take this one example from Autun. Scholars can’t agree on what it means. One fellow thinks it depicts the “Massacre of the Innocents”. Another thinks it depicts a story about Vulcan and Cupid and is a warning against the evils of lust (a young man contemplates a nude woman and becomes the victim of a demon). Unfortunately, many of the details of the picture don’t really make sense with the actual story. (stay with me) Why is the woman’s hair in the shape of a flame? Why is she holding a round object in one hand and a curved knife or scroll in the other? Why does the demon hold an ax? These peculiar details are explained away with the statement, “Gislebertus made a few mistakes. Contrary to the original Vulcan story, he carved a stone instead of a shell and a knife instead of a bow, and a wreath became fire. Hmmm, I may be a groupie but I really don’t think Gislebertus made such random mistakes.
The point is, nobody actually knows what this sculpture means. At one time it was a commonly known story but, we forgot. How could we forget these things? It was carved in stone! Who was the last person who knew? Can we phone them? It also makes me wonder what else we’ve forgotten. You might call them (to modify an infamous phrase) “the forgotten forgottens”. Do you know any? Could we fly?
As a last note, I’m happy to report that I’ve Wally Wallington’d this particular example from Gislebertus. I know what it means. As anybody who’s ever been a child can see, this is an early depiction of Scissors, Paper, Stone. Which, as we all know, was originally called, Ax, Scroll, Stone (because those other things hadn’t been invented yet).
So put that in your hat and smoke it.