Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Solomon's Seal Legend

Joseph Jacobs and M. Seligsohn wrote in the Jewish Encyclopedia:
The legend that Solomon possessed a seal ring on which the name of God was engraved and by means of which he controlled the demons... is especially developed by Arabic writers, who declare that the ring... was partly brass and partly iron. With the brass part of the ring Solomon signed his written commands to the good genii, and with the iron part he signed his commands to the evil genii, or devils...The legend of a magic ring by means of which the possessor could exorcise demons was current in the first century, as is shown by Josephus' statement ("Ant." viii. 2) that one Eleazar exorcised demons in the presence of Vespasian by means of a ring, using incantations composed by Solomon.
The Arabs afterward gave the name of "Solomon's seal" to the six-pointed star-like figure (see Magen, Dawid) engraved on the bottom of their drinking-cups.

Koch Fractals

Koch Fractals HexagramKoch Fractals look like six-pointed stars.
Picture is coied from Wikipedia (I slightly edited it with Photoshop).
In the Wikipedia entry for Fractal they say
a fractal is a rough or fragmented geometric shape that can be subdivided in parts, each of which is (at least approximately) a reduced-size copy of the whole.

Massiah Borochoff Building

Star of David above the window of the magnificent building of Bucharian merchant Massiah Borochoff which was built in 1908, in Jaffa Street, Jerusalem, Israel.