Page 9 - Maria Constantino "The Knot Handbook"

The Jansik
special is a very
strong hitch.
peasant, rose to become the king of Phrygia.
As ruler, he no longer need his farm cart, so
he tied the harness traces into an intricate
z knot and presented it as an offering to the god
0
1- Zeus in his temple. No one seemed able to
u
::::> untie the knot and the oracle of the temple
c
0 ~ prophesied that whoever undid the Gordian
a::
1- ~ th e cave-dwellers who learned to Knot was destined to be the ruler of all Asia.
z
hunt and fish and needed knots for When Alexander the Great saw the knotty
~... , then- bows and arrows, traps, fishing problem before him, he wasted no time: he
\
~ nets and Imes. Archaeological ev1- severed the knot with his sword. Technically,
dence some 10,000 years old shows that the knot was undone and the prophecy was
Neolithic n1an used overhand knots, half- fulfill ed, and consequ ently today 'cutting the
hitches, clove hitches, reef knots and nooses. Gordian Knot' means to act quickly and deci-

T hroughout history, and across the world, sively in a difficult situation.
kn ots and knotted cords have been important: Although each knot serves a different pur-
they have been used as calendars and records pose, it really isn't necessary to know hun-

of important events, as tallies to record trading dreds of knots. After all, Neolithic man sur-
transactions and as mnemonic devices to cue vived with j ust a handful! However, it is
the memory. It is likely that the abacus, the important to understand how different knots
forerunner of today's calculators, and the are best suited to the conditions in w hich they
rosary that is used to count off prayers, were are to be used.
both devised from simple knotted cords.
Knots also fea ture in myth ology. T he most
fam.ous mythological knot is the Gordian
Knot. T he legend goes that Gordius, a simple

Qi 'h ~ The sheet bend is unusual
in that it can be tied
using two different
diameters of rope .