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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Details on older homes

One of the reasons I love older homes is because of the care and love and small intricate details that aren't found in newer homes.
Sometimes I run across homes that take my breath away and I wish I could live in for just a day. Other times I find homes that have one or two details that I love.
Going through my typical haunts for fresh blood for this site I ran across a beautiful old home in PA and I was oohing and aahing till I ran across this photo.

I stopped and stared at it for a while and then went and hunted down the homes build date thinking there HAD to be an explanation that I wasn't thinking of or coming up with.
According to the realtor's website the home was built in 1900.

I know that this symbol which has been perverted to be associated with hate and bigotry and racism and all things Nazi and Hitler has much much older roots.

It didn't start out as an icon for hate. According to Wikipedia:

"The word swastika is derived from the Sanskrit word svastika (in Devanagari स्वस्तिक), meaning any lucky or auspicious object, and in particular a mark made on persons and things to denote good luck. It is composed of su- meaning "good, well" and asti "to be" svasti thus means "well-being." The suffix -ka either forms a diminutive or intensifies the verbal meaning, and svastika might thus be translated literally as "that which is associated with well-being," corresponding to "lucky charm" or "thing that is auspicious."[1] The word in this sense is first used in the Harivamsa.[2] As noted by Monier-Williams in his Sanskrit–English dictionary, according to Alexander Cunningham its shape represents a monogram formed by interlacing of the letters of the auspicious words su-astí (svasti) written in Ashokan characters.[3]

The Hindu Sanskrit term has been in use in English since 1871, replacing gammadion (from Greek γαμμάδιον). Alternative historical English spellings of the Sanskrit word include suastika, swastica and svastica."

So perhaps given the date it entered our language and it's Sanskrit meaning it was put there as a symbol of good luck and well being for the new home owners?

Do you think however given it's modern meaning and what it stands for today that it's going to help sell this house? I'm not so sure...

Read more about the symbol here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swastika

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