Yantras & Symbols · 2D
Triquetra
Three vesicas · Borromean circles
Three leaves woven from one unbroken line. Each leaf is a vesica piscis: the lens where two of three circles overlap, each circle passing through the others’ centres.
- Circles
- 3
- Leaves
- 3
- Line
- one, unbroken
Watch it drawn with compass and straightedge, hear the chord of its lines, and turn the Dimension dial to raise its form in space.
Facts
- The three circles each pass through the other two centres, so every leaf is a true vesica.
- Drawn with over and under crossings, the three circles become the Borromean rings: linked as a whole, yet no two are linked to each other.
- Cut any one ring and the other two fall free.
- Lift it into 3D and the rings bend above and below each other to make the linking real.
History and meaning
The triquetra (Latin, “three-cornered”) appears on Norse runestones, in the Book of Kells and on Celtic metalwork, later as a symbol of the Trinity. The Borromean rings take their name from the Borromeo family of Milan, whose coat of arms carried them.
Across the dimensions
- Shadow of Borromean RingsBend each circle over the next and under the last: the three become Borromean rings, linked only all together.
