Wooden Historical Jewelry Box - Pentagram

This box is hand crafted from linden tree. The lid has hand carved pentagram pattern. Pattern source: The earliest pentagrams were rough diagrams found scratched into stone age caves. While they are believed to have some spiritual significance, the meaning of the star-shape to early humans is a mystery. In the civilizations that followed, it held various meanings, usually astronomical and religious. Pentagrams served to mark directions in Sumerian texts, and represented the five visible planets. Later, it was the sign of the planet Venus and the goddess. According to the Greek mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras, five was the number of man, because of the fivefold division of the body, and the ancient Greek division of the soul. According to Pythagoras, the five points of the pentagram each represent one of the five elements that make up man: fire, water, air, earth, and psyche. (energy, fluid, breath, matter, and mind; also liquid, gas, solid, plasma, and aethyr, or spirit) The Pythagoreans held the pentacle sacred to Hygeia, the Goddess of healing, whose name (HGIEiA) was an anagram in Greek for the elements water, earth, spirit, fire, and air. This particular symbolism has persisted for centuries, and has greatly influenced theologies of diverse traditions. Early Christians wore the pentagram as an emblem, possibly to represent the wounds of Christ, or possibly due to connections between early Christians and the Pythagorean mysteries.* Later, the pentacle was important to many doctrines of esoteric Medieval and Renaissance belief systems- alchemy, kabbalah, and Ceremonial magic.

SIZE:
- wide 14,5 cm / 5 7/10''
- deep 9,5 cm / 3 7/10''
- high 5,5 cm / 2 1/5''