Dan Brown is a big hoaxer and an inventor. In his bestselling book “The Da Vinci Code,” he thoroughly froze the reader’s head on all issues, giving his personal interpretations of the facts. We will try to illuminate the true situation and give an explanation of what the Line of Roses is. To do this, remember geography. We also touch on the issue of medallions Arago (Arago). The line of Roses is connected with them in the novel.
Meridians
These are the conditional lines that were needed in navigation for counting longitude. They show how the imaginary north-south line is directed, and connect the Earth’s North and South poles. Two international congresses and two international conferences in the 19th century had a long and heated discussion about where the zero meridian would be held . Thirty countries and cities claimed it, including St. Petersburg (we named it because it is located on the territory of our homeland), and Paris, since the meridian Ferro passed through the Paris Observatory from the time of Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu , which was used as the primary reference point.
The conference in Washington in 1884, and not in 1888, like Brown’s, set all the dots over the “i” and determined the place where the zero meridian would be. Its conditional place is in Greenwich near London. He divided the Earth into two hemispheres: Eastern and Western. Today, since 1989, the International Reference Meridian has been used (its longitude is 0 °), and it passes about one hundred and two meters from the
Greenwich Observatory and is required for calculating coordinates relative to the
center of mass of the Earth with the least error.
It appeared not by chance, but because the tectonic plates on which the continents are standing are constantly moving, including Greenwich, and no longer provide the accuracy required in modern conditions.
Church of San Sulpice
The author sent the albino killer to the ancient 17th century church of San Sulpice. She is great and ugly. Tourists did not visit her until the bestseller. In it, this monster saw a gnomon (sundial) and a copper strip on which a line with divisions was drawn. “The Rose Line, which divides the room like a meridian, exactly from north to south,” the killer immediately recognized.
The sun, passing through the window, moves its rays along this line, showing the time of the solstice. It was required for the church to establish the exact time when Easter came, and no one ever called it the “Rose Line”. This is an invention of the author.
There is no mysticism other than the Grail, which is sought throughout the novel, in fact, in the temple. The whole church is described very convincingly. The photograph clearly shows the ancient obelisk and the strip going to it. The "Line of Roses" rises along it and disappears from our eyes. On the windows of the church there are Latin letters P and S. These are not signs of the Priory of Zion, but the initials of the patrons of the church: St. Peter and St. Sulpice.
On the maps of travelers and sailors, a compass of Rosa was depicted. He noted not only four cardinal points: north (N), south (S), east (E), west (W), as well as their thirty-two intermediate states. The same number of petals has a rose. This device was the main one in navigation. Its four main arrows stand out distinctly on the Rose of the Rhumb. The northern direction was often called fleur-de-lis.
Satellite view
A map of Paris shows in red how the Paris Meridian passes: through the observatory, through the Luxembourg Gardens and past the Louvre. The yellow line running in parallel is the meridian (gnomon) of San Sulpice. The first is scientific, and the second is spiritual.
Roslyn Chapel
In it there is a touching reunion of the heroine Sophie Neveu with her family. The Brown Chapel recreates the Temple of Solomon. In fact, it was built by Earl Rosley, Sir William Saint-Clair in the 15th century. The Templars associated with the Masonic societies that erected it are a beautiful flight of imagination of the writer. It is located near Edinburgh, and it is visited by a considerable number of tourists.
The Masons who built it adorned it with numerous symbols of their order: five-pointed stars, roses of five petals. In it you can find scenes with biblical subjects, as well as gargoyles, which, according to tradition, have always been placed in medieval religious buildings.
Here the Celtic god of nature, who patronized the green grass and spring water, also found its place. But the most amazing thing is that it has an image of a corn cob. America by this time has not yet been discovered by Europeans. Two columns covered with carvings compete with each other in the beauty of the decor applied to them. Tradition says that one of them was created by a teacher, and the second, more skillful, was a student, for which he was killed. The once beautiful carvings suffered greatly from the past tense. The restoration carried out in the last century was unsuccessful and caused even more harm to the chapel. Restorers do not yet know how to fix this situation. And a paradox was created - there is money for restoration, but no one knows how to produce it.
Langdon's path to the Louvre
The main character, returning from Roslyn, where he also discovered that he was standing under the Rose Line, went from the hotel to the Louvre to find the symbolism of the Priory of Zion. On the way, he looked for the bronze medallions of Arago. They, according to the hero, is the Rose Line in Paris. They really are.
Each of the 135 medallions was created by the Dutch artist Jan Dibets in 1989 - 1994 to capture the memory of Dominica Arago. Who was he like? Dominic Arago is a physicist and astronomer who in 1806 accurately measured the French meridian. In addition, he has considerable merits before world science.
Arago's medallions are also a reminder that Paris was once the center of the world. They stretch for five miles. They bear his name and the north-south direction (N and S). They don’t have the sacred meaning that Brown gave them. This road, as Langdon calls it, the ancient Rose Line in Paris, led him from the Palais Royal garden directly to the Louvre Pyramid.
The louvre museum
The beginning and end of the novel takes place in the Louvre. Entrance to it now passes through a pyramid built by American Bay Yumin, who is an ethnic Chinese. Dan Brown believed that it consists of a devilish amount of crystals - 666, which in fact is not true.
There are more of these glass rhomboid and triangular plates - 673. Light passes through them and provides sufficient illumination. In addition to him, designer C. Engle worked on additional lighting, who put lamps on all sides. They were replaced with more modern ones in 2014.
"Solar Meridian"
The solar meridian as such does not exist in science. Such a beautiful name is given to the newspaper of the Khabarovsk Territory, which is a budget institution and is in municipal ownership. It has been operating steadily since 1994 and is distributed by subscription and retail. She has a television program. It can also be published by submitting an application, advertisements.