Where's the Brasso™?
Everything has changed since I last posted a photo. I hope the photo looks OK. No prizes for knowing where this is, but you don't often see the gates closed - unless you get there early. Do you see what the cherub at the top left-hand corner of the gate on the right is holding? It's called a caduceus, which is a symbol of commerce. This is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology. You might have thought it was the Rod of Asclepius, a symbol of medicine, but that has only one snake entwined around the rod. An easy mistake to make.
5 comments:
Perhaps this is a difference between British and American usage, or between a traditional meaning and contemporary associations - but in the US at least, the caduceus is used as a symbol of medicine, not commerce. Looking it up, I found: "an ancient Greek or Roman herald's wand, typically one with two serpents twined around it, carried by the messenger god Hermes or Mercury. [Or] a representation of this, traditionally associated with healing." And a Google image search yields many medical-related logos and such.
I know exactly where this is, prize or no prize. :~}
I have to agree with Mike, and my Webster's Collegiate says it's the symbolic staff of a herald (and that w/snakes and wings it symbolizes a physician).
Either way, it's a beautiful shot.
I've copied this from Wikipedia:
The caduceus is sometimes mistakenly used as a symbol of medicine and/or medical practice, especially in North America, because of widespread confusion with the traditional medical symbol, the rod of Asclepius, which has only a single snake and no wings.
It is relatively common, especially in the United States, to find the caduceus, with its two snakes and wings, used as a symbol of medicine instead of the correct rod of Asclepius, with only a single snake. This usage is erroneous, popularised largely as a result of the adoption of the caduceus as its insignia by the US Army medical corps in 1902 at the insistence of a single officer (though there are conflicting claims as to whether this was Capt. Frederick P. Reynolds or Col. John R. van Hoff).
There is more information in the article on the caduceus.
Beautiful!
Where is this? I don't recall ever seeing it.
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