this post was submitted on 04 Apr 2024
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I've heard the phrase "suicide kings" in relation to a deck of cards, because some of them (I honestly cannot remember which) are drawn with swords through their heads.
They ar supposed to be behind their heads (to appear as if they are ready for battle) but it looks for all the world like they are stabbing themselves through the head.
So if someone says "deuces and suicide kings are wild" you will know what they mean.
Oh : I just looked it up. Turns out it is just The King of Hearts that is drawn like that.
(secular) cartomancy hobbyist here.
Between 1400 and 1850 pretty much all art - from painting to writing was a wild west.
People produced decks of cards for sale with their own designs, suits, numbers and naming conventions, eventually becoming standardized.
The reason we have the designs we have now is because the French designs happened to be easier to mass produce and they dropped the knave/page/princess/knight card (below Jack, above 10) making games quicker and more reliable, and kept the main design of the face cards similar with a woodcut, then added the suit and the additions (such as the swords and facial hair) over the top.
However, any attempt to claim a king was Charlgemagne or Augustus Caesar or whatever was purely a whim of the manufacturer.
The "suicide" king was originally holding an axe that went behind his head, that evolved into a sword behind his head, into a sword into his head. There's unfortunately not much more of an interesting story behind it.
Cool..
Also -- and I realise this is the least interesting part of all this -- is there a difference between a secular cartomancy hobbyist and a non-secular cartomancy hobbyist?
belief that there is actually magic / religion / psychic or paranormal phenomena powering the card selection, as opposed to it being a tool to inspire reflection
Thank you.
Pretty cool! I came across this write up last night. Have you ever com3 across a connection between these card designs and uses and Tarot. I've heard there is a connection, but never found and clear evidence. Obviously, the minor arcana is very similar.
Like how "humans didn't evolve from monkeys, but they share a common ancestor"
playing cards (modern and tarot), dominoes, mahjong etc all evolved from a common ancestor - where the tokens were both playing objects and representations of debt/money/stakes/alcohol
I dont know how strong the scholarship is but it's roughly 900AD China > 1100AD Egypt > 1300AD Europe.
Neat. I wonder if its a similar story to paper. There's a mythic story of how the Arabic army captured some Chinese soldier in the Battle of Talas in 793. Those prisoners showed their capturers paper making. Soon thereafter, there were paper mills set up in Bhagdad.
That story isn't probably the origination of the practice in the Arabic empire. More likely it originated along the silk road a few decades earlier. However, I don't think it led to paper mills in Bhagdad.