Subject: RS: The symbols on the black box
From: alternat@watserv1.waterloo.edu (Ann Hodgins)
Date: 1991-04-14, 12:07
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

In article <10529@hub.ucsb.edu> 6600koga@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu (Jeffrey Koga) writes:
> >I'm pretty sure that the symbols represent the
> >various planets in the solar system (including the
> >sun?).  I think the symbols are Roman.

Some of the symbols are completely unfamiliar to me but some
are quite definitely astrological symbols refering to segments of the
sky. I noticed the symbols for Libra and Aries meaning that the moon
would be in a particular phase against a particular part of
the sky as seen from the earth.

Before astronomy and astrology separated, this shorthand was invented
by peoples such as the Romans to quickly notate planetary configurations.
The planets were their only way of marking the seasons so they took
this task very seriously.

The black box may very well describe a time using this shorthand. 
Some configurations are common and others happen only once in a thousand
years or more.  So the box could pinpoint a date that comes often
or may come only once.   
> >

> >Also, I noticed that in the computer drawing of Owl
> >Cave by Windham Earle, there was a Roman symbol that
> >looked like the number '4'.  It was toward the
> >lower lefthand corner of the screen.

At first I thought it was a four, too, but it is the astrological shorthand
for the planet jupiter.  I can think of know logical reason for this.
 


Ann Hodgins                         E Uassiuian is the will to continue
alternat@watdcs.uwaterloo.ca        To laugh, to have fun and to be amazed.