DUP-CULT-17

Cross-Cultural Iconography of A.

A Comparative Survey of Seventeen Independent Attestations · Department of Useless Provocations · Suppl. to Vol. III

The following table summarizes the principal independent attestations of A. in iconographic and oral traditions known to the present author. Sources are listed by cultural origin, date of earliest attestation, the local name (transliterated), and the principal iconographic feature.

Table 1 — Seventeen documented attestations of A. by culture and date
#	Culture / Region	Date	Local Name	Iconographic Form
1	Sumer (Nineveh)	c. 2400 BCE	𒅗𒀀 𒋗𒅈 𒁉	Open ovoid; flanking dots
2	Old Kingdom Egypt	c. 2200 BCE	𓂿 (?)	Hieroglyph: open mouth; not in the Gardiner list
3	Mohenjo-daro	c. 2000 BCE	(seal 4047)	Concentric rings, broken at six o'clock
4	Minoan Crete	c. 1700 BCE	Ποικιλον	Open form on Linear A tablets HT 31–32
5	Olmec (La Venta)	c. 1200 BCE	(uncatalogued)	Centrally-pierced stelae
6	Late Bronze Levant	c. 1100 BCE	פ'י תהום	“Mouth of the deep” (literally)
7	Etruscan	c. 700 BCE	aritimi	Bronze mirror reverses, central rosette
8	Han dynasty China	c. 200 BCE	無底之穴	“the bottomless hole” in Huainanzi
9	Roman Egypt	c. 100 CE	os patens	Coptic amulets; bull’s-eye motif
10	Late Anglo-Saxon	c. 950 CE	gæpe	Carved roof bosses, Durham & York
11	Mali (Dogon)	c. 1100 CE	nommo köpo	Granary-door carvings, southern terraces
12	Inuit (Baffin Island)	c. 1300 CE	kanaaq	Scrimshaw on walrus tusk
13	Aztec	c. 1400 CE	tlal–camac	Codex Borgia, fol. 33v
14	Renaissance Italy	c. 1487 CE	vas patens	Marginalia, Konstanz manuscript (cf. Council of Konstanz)
15	Edo Japan	c. 1700 CE	口	Ukiyo-e (single attribution, Hokusai)
16	Appalachia (USA)	c. 1850 CE	“the look”	Quilt pattern, single farmstead, central PA
17	Linglestown, PA	1996 CE	(unnamed)	Reported communal experience; no iconography produced

Note. The Linglestown attestation (entry 17) is the only one in the table to lack an associated iconographic artifact. This is sometimes treated as evidence of a culture too close to A. to render it pictorially — an argument the present author finds plausible and, accordingly, declines to make.

Cultures excluded from this table on grounds of insufficient evidence: Tocharian, Sogdian, Etruscan (second attestation), Mississippian, Linear B (Pylos), and a single unverified Norse memorial stone (Uppland) on which the relevant face has been struck off.