Yin Yang in the Notitia Dignitatum

[Eleatic Guest]

Plain and simple: Could it be that the yin and yang symbols on the shields depicted in the late antique Notitia Dignitatum may be the first of its kind?

Compare Magister Peditum page 4 from Notitia dignitatum and Magister Peditum page 6 from Notitia dignitatum with: Yin and Yang in The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

These three trends eventually led to the creation of the first yinyang symbol by Zhao Huiqian (1351-1395 CE), entitled Tiandi Zhiran Hetu (Heaven and Earth’s Natural Diagram of the River) and pictured above at the head of this entry.

By that entry, the Roman use of yin and yang symbols preceded that of the Far East by over a thousand years. Admittedly, the tear drop yin and yang of the encyclopedia entry slightly deviates from the standard symbol, so the author may have meant only that specific form of the symbol. Still, the question begs further investigation.

A less reliant web source I found claims Korean priority: "Some Chinese people find it ironic that the Korean people use a Chinese symbol on the Korean flag. Although the Chinese lay claim to the symbol, the earliest yin-yang symbol was found inscribed in stone in Korea. " However, no date is given.

What does the secondary literature on the ND say about the use of this symbol by Roman soldiers?

[Robert Vermaat]

Roman use of yin and yang symbols preceded that of the Far East by over a thousand years. Admittedly, the tear drop yin and yang of the encyclopedia entry slightly deviates from the standard symbol, so the author may have meant only that specific form of the symbol.

What does the secondary literature on the ND say about the use of this symbol by Roman soldiers?

That it's not a yin/yang symbol. It's only a shield decoration that resembles the yin/yang symbol. That's all. No Asian troops in the Late Roman army, no religious symbols (no Christian crosses either).

But my studies have revealed more sinister things:

The first image (second row, second from the right) shows modern European flags.


The second image clearly shows (second row, second from the left) King Arthur's Round Table, as shown in Winchester Castle, including the Lancaster Rose in the centre. That this is certain is because the shields to the right are also from British units, the Praesidienses and the Secunda Britones.


Don't you dare taking me seriously. :wink: That Round Table dates back to 1270 and therefore predates the yin/yang symbols by a century.

[Eleatic Guest]

That it's not a yin/yang symbol. It's only a shield decoration that resembles the yin/yang symbol. That's all. No Asian troops in the Late Roman army, no religious symbols (no Christian crosses either).

Ok, I was not intent on construing any West-East transmission theory (well, now I am). Let me make myself clearer: Could it be that these two symbols on the Notitia Dignitatum shields, whose shape look exactly like yin and yang symbols , may be the earliest depictions of the symbol we call today "yin and yang"?

Better?

[Eleatic Guest]

The familiar diagram of Yin and Yang flowing into each other, the earliest attested example of which, strangely enough, occurs on a Roman shield illustrated in the fifth century Notitia Dignitatum, also illustrates, with interior dots, the idea that each force contains the seed of the other, so that they do not merely replace each other but actually become each other.

Source: Yin and Yang and the I Ching

The complete title of the work is Notitia dignitatum omnium, tam civilium quam militarium. It is preserved in three 15th- and 16th-century copies (Munich / Paris / Oxford), after the lost 10th-century copy, Codex Spirensis which probably was done after the original. The connection with
the Far East of some of these Late Roman shield designs is made quite obvious by the fact that two of them, Armigeri (Oc. V, 78 ) and Mauriosismiaci (Oc. V, 118 ), are unquestionably the East Asian yin-yang diagram.

Source: Helmut Nickel, "The Dragon and the Pearl", Metropolitan Museum Journal, Vol. 26, (1991), pp. 146, Footnote 5

The funny thing is, if the Notitia symbols actually precede the earliest appearance of the yin & yang symbol in the Far East by over a thousand years, then why should the transmission should not have been from west to east? Because, while the yin and yang philosophy has a long tradition in the east, the symbol itself seems to be of far more recent origin there.

[P. Clodius Secundus]

Quite an interesting conundrum you've pointed out. Let's see if I'm following this correctly...

The three surviving copies of the ND are from the 15Th/161th C. They are stated to be direct copies of a 10th C. M.S., which was itself a copy of the 5th C. original.

Orientalists claim a 13th C. Asian origin for the Yin/Yang w/ dots.

Muddling up the issue is the fact that one of the British blazons is nearly identical to a 12th C. Arthurian themed table.
The chicken/egg here is was the table inpired by the 10th C. M.S. , or did the later copyists use a hodgepodge of contemporary designs to reconstruct the document? In the latter case the odds favor either simultaneous creation or East-West transmission.

I guess the best question to ask here is how many of the blazons depicted in the ND are evidenced eleswhere? Recent finds, not available to 15th C. copyists would help support the veracity of the MS.

[Tarbicus]

There are only a few original jokes (and I mean actual jokes, not anecdotal situations), and all other jokes are a different take on them. Same goes for graphical geomteric symbols and designs IMHO. You'll find the same joke told worldwide....

[Eleatic Guest]

Orientalists claim a 13th C. Asian origin for the Yin/Yang w/ dots.

A late 14th century by the single source above I posted.

Muddling up the issue is the fact that one of the British blazons is nearly identical to a 12th C. Arthurian themed table.
The chicken/egg here is was the table inpired by the 10th C. M.S. , or did the later copyists use a hodgepodge of contemporary designs to reconstruct the document? In the latter case the odds favor either simultaneous creation or East-West transmission.

Please forget that. I believe, Robert, just as Jim, merely wanted to point out that the human imagination allows only a definite set of lines and dots, so that similarities between the Roman and the Chinese symbols are by accident (just as between the Roman and the Arthurian symbol).

However, even if we are to rule out a West-East transmission on such a priori grounds, there still remains the question whether the Notitia shields represent the first instance of what we now call Yin and Yang symbol.

I guess the best question to ask here is how many of the blazons depicted in the ND are evidenced eleswhere? Recent finds, not available to 15th C. copyists would help support the veracity of the MS.

I made a quick, superficial survey in JSTOR, and the heraldry of the Notitia seems to be generally acknowledged as authentic late Roman. A single author wants to regard them as "ad hoc imaginations" rather than faithful depictions of shields of military units of the time, but does not question its late antique origin.

So, with
a) the Notitia symbols established by pictorial evidence as practically truthful to the Yin and Yang symbol
b) later interpolation of the heraldry being no issue
c) the only question remaing seems to be whether the history of the Far Eastern symbol really began as late as the late 14th century?

[Gaius Julius Caesar]

As a child, trying to be original, you can imagine my dissappointment
looking out the window as we drove into Miri, to see the Yin/Yang symbol
I had 'invented' the day before, emblazoned on a hotel advertisement hording..... :roll: :lol:

[Eleatic Guest]

Does anybody know a reliable reference on the topic which is not yet included below?

[url:307a19n3]http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Taijitu&oldid=337376820[/url]

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Is the ND fully available online somewhere? fascimile?

M.VIB.M.

[markusaurelius]

Here are two great links on the ND.

[url:1bcstku1]http://www.ne.jp/asahi/luke/ueda-sarson/NotitiaPatterns.html[/url]

[url:1bcstku1]http://www.pvv.ntnu.no/~halsteis/notitia.htm[/url]

Some of the images should be take with a grain of salt as although the information in the document is from the early 5th Century, the actual copy
is of medieval origin as it has been copied and re-copied many times (which is likely the only reason it still exists today). Most people however consider the images on the shields to have some level of accuracy as other sources have similar or nearly similar examples.

[Epictetus]

Must there be transmission at all? It is certainly plausible that a similar design is imagined independently of each other.

Some people seem to doubt this is possible for some reason and apparently think that a similar design in two different cultures is proof of contact. For instance, some claim that the pyramids of Egypt and the pyramids of Mesoamerica is proof that there was some sort of transmission between the two cultures. Some conspiracy theorists even try to explain the similarities to the lost continent of Atlantis or space aliens or some other outlandish idea. For reasons that remain lost to me, they think this is more likely than the same idea being independently developed thousands of miles and years apart from each other.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

Thank you Markus!!

*about transmission, its not at all unlikely that the same people come up with the same idea in different parts of the world, no transmission needed...

look at the swastika for example.

M.VIB.M.

[Eleatic Guest]

Must there be transmission at all? It is certainly plausible that a similar design is imagined independently of each other.

Personally, I think that without evidence to the contrary independent invention is much more likely. Seems like the so-called yin and yang symbol/taijitu is as ubiquitous as the swastika. By the way, does the symbol have a proper English name? Using this instead, could help to avoid associations of a Chinese connection.

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

another example is the nexus symbol which was used by celts as well as Samurai families.

M.VIB.M.