Belmal Malletier damier pattern solved: king's blue and gold, Egypt, 2000 years ago

< back to the BELMAL News index BELMAL NEWS JANUARY 2016

Amazing discovery: the azure and chequered pattern more than 2000 years old

Belmal Conservatory (Belgium). Continued historical research. Theme : damier (chequy).

Release January 2016. In December 2015, while undertaking new historical research related to the existence and the use of the checquered pattern across the centuries, Jean-Pierre Bal (the master-craftsman at Belmal) made an unexpected discovery. The king's blue and gold check pattern, believed to be originating from France or perhaps Britain, and in the 11th or 12th century, now proves to be twice as old. As can be seen from the picture above, the pattern was already in use before our common era, namely in Ancient Egypt. The fortuitous reading of a documentation about the sale, by a renowned auction house, of that mask dating back to the 1st century BC, constituted a major breakthrough in the research about the origin of that given pattern and its specific colours. King's blue and gold, of pharaohs, is also found on the Belmal escutcheon. When in Venice, some seven years ago, JP Bal spotted a type of cloth with the precise same pattern and shades that went on to become the emblematic logo of the Belmal House. Our craftsman-malletier had since endeavoured to pierce the mystery of the fascinating pattern-colour combination of which he sensed the root-origin would be in or near the Middle East. Time has now proven him right. The fabulous destiny of the said Belmal damier has thus opened a new chapter of travel through time, or we should say: timeless odyssey.

Update, October 2019. In September 2019, while traveling in Egypt, M. Bal discovers by coincidence (does coincidence exist?), at the Valley of the Kings near Luxor, in a corridor of tomb KV 14 of Twosert, the last sovereign of the 18th dynasty of Pharaohs, a wall painting with the "magical" blue-end-gold checkered pattern. Our BELMAL escutcheon is therefore 3200 years old. And we are due to believe that it is much older still.

The Belmal damier research odyssey started 10 years ago, in February 2009, in Venice, Italy.

To be continued, obviously.

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