Text: Structure

Knots are made with breaklines on the primary grid, or, as is the case with the Foundation Knot on the secondary grid. fig. 4d. On the other hand, plaitwork corresponds to the diamond pattern of the tertiary grid, uninterrupted by any breakline: fig. 4a, which illustrates the 2x2 plait perfectly, raises one small problem. According to the definition we have just made, it is clearly a plait; yet, at least since Renaissance times, it has been called ëKing Solomonís Knot.í In view of this, I will keep peace with the tradition, and stick to the old name. Intriguingly, it is said that all the wisdom of Solomon is hidden in this knot. In a similar way, the medieval name for Solomonís Knot, ěThe Emblem of the Divine Inscrutability,î suggests that knots were once contemplated as symbols with religious or arcane philosophical meanings. For example, the way in which the square, primary, and its centre secondary provide the coordinates for the division of the sides of the square tertiary, may have been seen by early monks as a symbol of tri-unity, three in one.

So the wholeness of the unity is acted upon from within itself, by the action of its own centre, one divided by one, resulting in one. To the monks of early Christianity, the geometry of the square symbolized the creation of the manifold universe, and it was important to them to contemplate how the Two- the infinite and the finite, indeed all opposites- could be engendered by the One; the passage from One to Two must have been a reference of the symbol associated with ëDivine Inscrutabilityí and the epitome of wisdom, King Solomon. (Celtic Design 15-16)

 

Folio100v

Woven

Anarchy

Circuit

Technical

Folio188r