Is the Tarot Pre-Christian?

Off the bat, madam Rosanne I would site the Egyptian Cartouche cards as being the origins behind our current "card-base" system.

I primarily refer to the Major Arcana, and support this by ancient text, which have found their way in, to what is commonly known as, the Bible Psalms.

These 22 Psalms are codes, which relate to each card found within the Major Arcana.

I am currently linking these arcanas to the Hebrew alphabet and their associated yoga postures and ultimately, hopefully, to correlations found in arceo-cosmology.

My Fool/Magician?High Priestess/Empress concept, really is only the age old story behind all cultural myths, attempting to explain the mystery of the worldly cycles.

GRAFLIX1 said:

Off the bat, madam Rosanne I would site the Egyptian Cartouche cards as being the origins behind our current "card-base" system.

I primarily refer to the Major Arcana, and support this by ancient text, which have found their way in, to what is commonly known as, the Bible Psalms.

These 22 Psalms are codes, which relate to each card found within the Major Arcana.

I am currently linking these arcanas to the Hebrew alphabet and their associated yoga postures and ultimately, hopefully, to correlations found in arceo-cosmology.

My Fool/Magician?High Priestess/Empress concept, really is only the age old story behind all cultural myths, attempting to explain the mystery of the worldly cycles.

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.... ... interesting idea. The web somehow tells, that there are 150 psalms, enough to fill 6-7 decks with Major Arcana.
Would you assume, that there were 6-7 original decks, but possibly some cards lost? Or had the 7th deck only 18 major arcana?

I always suggested, that the first Tarot cards might have been the 22 political departements of upper Egyptia, but there's some competition with some hidden cave paintings at the Easter Islands, which are claimed to be the original animal tarock, which with some security is older than every other version.

Well I have no desire to squash someone's Tarot dreams- my own were dashed once I had access to the web and books on Tarot became more readily available.
Thanks Huck for the Egyptian Gods. There is one similarity that should be noted with the Visconti - silly Hats.
I think GRAFLIX1 means the 22 chapters of the book of Revelations not 22 Psalms.

I read in another thread a poster who said a friend had explained to her how Tarot was ancient- long before paper. There is a side of me that would like that comment explained.

That's not an Easter Islander Huck- that's a Bushbaby from Australia. Or a Tasmanian Devil. What on Earth were they doing in Europe?

This Madam Rosanne would like you....anybody...to give me some facts. A belief does not have always facts to support it. For example, I believe that Bianca Visconti played fortune telling with her cards. My belief comes from how girls are with their friends and issues of "does he love me?" or "will I be Happy?" etc. There is absolutely no proof this- just an understanding of young girls. As there is no proof either way- I am happy to have this Faith in understanding how young girls act and a second use of the game of Tarot.

So if it is a belief with faith- that is fine by me, I am no hardliner- but if you have proof, I would love you to share it.

~Madam Rosanne

I've no doubt that there are -elements- of Tarot which are pre-Christian - some of the mythology goes to antiquity, and people have no doubt always been doing some form of fortune telling. So just as ancient languages contain syllables, and later, words, that appear in English, so methods and images and even systems from ancient fortune telling will be present in our past.

I'm very intested in the connection between the trumps and astronomy, though I've yet to pursue this in detail. A look at ancient astronomical maps yeilds some intersting relationships.
http://www.yeatsvision.com/Astronomy.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ocean_of_stars/3189389724/

But an actual Tarot type deck with minors and majors and a similar structure, existing B.C.E? Not so far as I know.

So lets get some actual history going here. Ideas need to be backed up with actual research - please link to reliable historical sources and documents.

What are the 'Cartouche Cards' metioned? - I googled it and came up with a made-up deck based on Egyptian images. Do you have an example of an actual Egyptian cartomancy deck of some sort?

history

Was wondering wouldn't Encyclopedia of Tarot by Stuart R. Kaplan have information that you are searching? I have three volumes I would look if I knew what it is to look for.
CG

Rosanne: I read in another thread a poster who said a friend had explained to her how Tarot was ancient- long before paper. There is a side of me that would like that comment explained..

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This would open up a whole new area of research - predating China, Egypt(?), India(?).......
This myth was posted in the thread "Trying to dispel more Tarot myths" by the OP, KariRoad.

http://www.tarotforum.net/showthread.php?p=2505772#post2505772

KariRoad said:

A friend told me how the ancient Tarot was much older than paper playing cards, which is what historians compare Tarot to. That was such an eye-opener. Like how so much of high school is b.s.

Tarot blows away any "theories" and all the "historical" propaganda.

Born Free!

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I wonder if the friend might reveal his/her source. No paper - so that only leaves sculptures, carvings. Cave paintings? Did the friend say where on the planet these might be?


Bee

Bernice said:

Cave paintings? Did the friend say where on the planet these might be?


Bee

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... ... I said "cave paintings", and there are lots of cave paintings and a lot of them are very old. And between them are lots of animals. And there are only 150 psalms.



For this reason: The Bavarian animal Tarock is the origin, maybe overcome only by those "hidden at the Easter islands", from which Rosanne assumes, that they don't exist, but I would assume, that they exist and they are only hidden, cause the humans love mysteries and like to research them.

Well ... they are a little bit unusual. They have a round oval form and they're 3-dimensional, often colorful painted, sometimes packed in paper, which looks a little bit like silver and sometimes they are simply brown and sweet. The motifs vary.
The inhabitants on this islands have the custom to train their children in early youth on research for these objects, usually in spring (mostly April, it depends on the fool moon) and the children are searching for these caves and mostly they find them and they're happy ... well, some were not found.

If one of these objects is not found, it's becomes sensitive, feels a little depressed and starts to develop a sign, that it was forgotten. Then slowly, slowly, very slowly, maybe it can can take some 100's of years, a big stone head grows from the ground and at rather calm days one can hear the whispering ... "I had been overlooked".

Some of the overlooked objects:



Although it was only whispering, it became a little bit noisy with the time.

So the inhabitants made a 2-man-canoe-expedition, exploring, if anybody in the big wide world might help them. The two guys got some special caps, that they shouldn't get cold ears during the journey, so actually they looked a little bit funny, the caps had two extensions, which looked like two long ears.
Maybe 500-600 years ago they reached Italy. Some Cathars in Southern France claimed to have seen them already before, but ... it seemed, they wanted to see the pope, cause they had heard this might be a wise man, so, surely somehow ... Italy.

Nobody knows, what really happened, but when they returned, they told the stone-heads, that they had engaged some researchers elsewhere and the whispering slowed down to 0.01 dezibel. They could live with that.

Since then Europe has a well running commercial system for Easter egg productions. Other legends tell, that the moon hare brought the Tarot cards.



Others, a little more realistic, speak of men with long ears ...



Some, very fantastic, deliver this idea ...



http://picsdigger.com/image/6fdeca3f/

Regarding the earlier comment I haven't quoted - History is not propaganda! It is EVIDENCE! Show the EVIDENCE from documents, paintings, carvings, and mythology and make reasonable inferences based on that and test it against what we know.

Huck said:

but I would assume, that they exist and they are only hidden, cause the humans love mysteries and like to research them.

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"I ASSUME" has no place in history. You can make a reasonable inference based on what we see and know, but just "oh there's hidden Tarot cave paintings?" I'm sorry, I know you must think it's a lovely idea, but in History, lovely ideas aren't enough.

Ah, welcome, Euripides, nice, that you found some time to speak in the Tarot History forum.

Well, your messages are short and pregnant. You wish evidence ...?

The Easter Islands exist. Cave paintings exists. The Tarot cards exist. The Animal Tarot exists. The interest to research exists ... not always and not for all, but it exists.

Well, the 150 psalms also exist. Did they have anything to do with playing cards? Hardly not, playing card didn't exist then. Paper was missing, if you have some sense for realism, this looks not possible.

The word Tarot exists ... as far we know ... since 1505.

There were some developments before, no doubt. And this is, what we research here, occasionally rather intensive.

As you seem be interested to defend this engagement, I hope, that you'll also engage constructive in the future.

So, welcome ...

I think it's a good idea to start with the existing, known history before trying to head back into the roots - and I know that I have some gaps in my knowledge. I don't have Kaplan's book - I do have another very good Tarot book with quite a lot of history, though the author does make a major error in ascribing the wrong myth to the Sun card.

From there I think taking a good look at the Greek myths is useful. These would have been well known to the makers of the early tarot decks and our history is steeped in it. A visit to the art gallery and steeping oneself in Classical imagery and stories means that many allusions in the Tarot cards become more clear.

I think one of the challenging things is that in Europe we have a massive intermingling of stories from Classical antiquity, Christendom and Pagan europe, so it becomes a real melting pot and there's a lot of stuff to absorb.