A belt from ca 1680, symbolizing a treaty between the north American Turtle Clan and William Penn, who said “We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will; no advantage shall be taken on either side”.
Not sure how well that worked out… Also, seems like the belt was copyrighted in 1905.
Cloth tunic from the Inca Empire, about 600 years ago.
How to read the square kufic from the mausoleum at Shah-i-Zinda, made in 1361. QR-codes can go to bed now.
More pics and info at kufic.info.
بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم
قل هو الله أحد
اللَه الصَمد
لمْ يلد ولم يولد
و لم يكن له كفوا أحد
The Sator Square is a four-way palindrome. It’s atleast 2000 years old and is probably magical to the max. Here it is on a 16/17th century skull. (via hominisaevum)
Old Tibetan calligraphy by Tshe-tan Zhabs-drung ཚེ་ཏན་ཞབས་དྲུང followed by the Tibetan Phags-pa fonts by Babelstone and the square Mongolian style of Phags-pa used for decoration.
Seems to originate from the 1200s and is sometimes called square script. Also see the arabic square kufi.
It looks like 1960s op art, but this was made 600 years earlier for the Tughluq Temur Mausoleum in Huocheng, China. The arabic word Allah has been written four times in one symbol, and then tessellated.
From kufic.info
Praça dos Restauradores (Lisbon). The square is dedicated to the restoration of the independence of Portugal in 1640. Photo by Simon Zino.
