09/16/2025
It's Archetypal Friday and our symbol for this week is Horn.
An ancient instrument that has gone through a great many variations and reworkings up to the present day, the horn was initially useful because it is loud. In battle, the ability of horns to announce, command, and direct allowed direct communication in a time before radios and other electronic communications. The horn is also a heraldic instrument, signalling the importance of Kings and foreign dignitaries as, is often seen in period dramas. In our contemporary mind, we associate horns like trumpets with jazz, especially in ensembles in the 50s and 60s. In many situations these instruments have jettisoned their more imperious connotations and instead has become tied to the connotations of sophistication, 'cool,' and authenticity that can be associated with the idea of jazz. The horn also has religious connotations, such as the Shofar made from a ram's horn played on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur; other religious horns include the Gjallarhorn associated with Heimdallr, the son of Odin, and Mimir, a figure known for his wisdom in Norse mythology.
Image: "Designs for speaking-trumpets, of varying practicality. Kircher was convinced that the helical shape was most effec-tive, perhaps affected by a long-standing association of sound-propagation with spiral motion. There are symbolic, if not scientific, grounds for this in the shape of both the outer and the inner ear. (Phonurgia Nova, p. 136)"
From: Athanasius Kircher by Joscelyn Godwin, Thames and Hudson.
