Solomon's seal was a "magical" symbol of two interlocking equilateral triangles forming a star with six rays. Its modern rendering makes a nice decoration that is interesting to make. Solomon's seal is also the name of some species of lilies. Lily flowers always have six petals. But an interlocking pattern of a star with five rays was also called Solomon's seal. This unit contains two activies: the Six-pointed Solomon's Seal and the Five-pointed Solomon's Seal
Activity I. Six-pointed Solomon's Seal [top]
Supplies: colored paper or poster board,
scissors, rulers, pencils, Scotch tape 1. Draw a circle. (A 7 cm. radius is a good size.) Lightly mark its center.
2. Make 6 equally spaced tick marks around the edge of the
circle.
3. Make a Star of David in the circle by drawing two overlapping equilateral triangles.
4. Number the star's vertices in order 1 through 6 as shown here.
5. Line up a ruler through vertices 1 and 4 (and the circle's center), and make a tick mark on the line connecting vertices 2 and 6. Similarly, line up your ruler through vertices 2 and 5, and make a tick mark on the line connecting vertices 4 and 6. Finally, line up your ruler through vertices 3 and 6, and make a tick mark on the line connecting vertices 2 and 4.
6. Connect the 3 tick marks, forming an inner triangle. (Click on the picture to see it full-sized.) Cut out the "double" triangle, shown in red on the diagram.
7. Cut out the center of the "double" triangle. This triangle is half of your Solomon's seal.
8. Using poster board of a different color, repeat steps 1 through 6. Your new circle should be the same size as your first one. You should not cut out the triangle's center yet!
9. If you used a 7 cm. radius for your circles, draw a cut line on your second triangle about 4.5 cm in from one of the vertices. (Click on the picture to see it full-sized.) Make the cut, and cut out the small center triangle.
10. Now weave the two big triangles together. The line that you have cut on triangle 2 should hide behind triangle 1. If the weaving is tight, make short (1/16 inch) cuts on the interior vertices of the two triangles; this will help them to weave easily and lie flat.
Activity II. Five-pointed Solomon's Seal [top]
Supplies: colored paper or poster board,
scissors, rulers, pencils, Scotch tape Remark: The design is the difficult part of this task.
1. Here is a pattern for an interlocking star with five rays. It consists of two congruent pieces (mirror images of each other), each looking like a fancy letter A (see diagram). To make the pattern, draw two five-pointed stars of the same size on two different colors of posterboard. Draw a fancy letter A on each star, as in the diagram.
2. Cut each one out, and cut along the line marked 'cut'. Weave the two A's together (see the finished design!). You will see that the two pieces overlap, so they can be glued together.
3. You may also design stars with different numbers of points; an 8-pointed star and a 12-pointed star.
