The Church of the Transfiguration of the Savior on Ilyin Street is a temple in Veliky Novgorod, built in 1374 and famous for the fact that it alone has preserved frescoes by Theophanes the Greek. The painting was done in 1378.
I looked at these frescoes and on one of them depicting the appearance of the Holy Trinity to Abraham, and the round Earth and the crescent of the moon immediately caught my eye, and between them something very similar to a flying saucer.
Don't rush to laugh, take a closer look at this fresco. This composition is officially reported as follows:
The appearance of the Trinity to Abraham is depicted on the eastern altar wall of the side-altar from above on an asymmetric surface cut off by a semi-cylindrical vault. Under it there is a figure of one of the saints depicted at the time of the service with unfolded scrolls. The Trinity is presented frontally. Angels sit symmetrically at the table. The middle one is markedly distinguished by the scale and stately pose. Below were depicted Abraham and Sarah offering food to the Guests. Only the figure of Sarah has survived.
The painting of the temple is mentioned in the Third Novgorod Chronicle: “In the summer of 6886 (1378 AD), the Church of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was signed in the name of the divine Transfiguration by the command of the noble and God-loving boyar Vasily Danilovich and Ilyina Street was caught. And it was signed by the Grechenin master Theophanes under the great reign of Dimitri Ivanovich and under Archbishop Alexei of Novgorod and Pskov"
The whole composition immediately evokes a feeling of some kind of inconsistency. The table does not at all look like a table, it is rather something like a heavenly dome depicting space, under this dome in the center there is an object that does not at all look like a saucer, rather a flying, rather than an ordinary saucer in which a certain silhouette is visible. On the right side is the crescent moon, and on the left is the round Earth.
However, one circumstance confuses me, on the left of the object you can see a crescent on a circle corresponding to the last quarter of the Moon, and on the right a crescent corresponding to the first quarter of the Moon, it turns out that the Earth should be in the center. The fresco seems to show the connection between the phases of the moon and the circular motion around the Earth, but why? Why is a spaceship drawn instead of the Earth, here is the question …
If the Earth is on the left, then think about the fact that when Columbus went to discover America, only he believed that the Earth was round, everyone else was sure that it was flat and it was then 1492, and our fresco was painted in 1378.
Promotional video:
I see that there is a message hidden in this fresco, but I cannot understand exactly which one. Maybe someone can figure out her secret.