Flower of Life Design in "Tomb of Jesus"

I am fortunate as a designer to work on different types of creative projects. The published game I created, "Da Vinci's Challenge," is something special because, for me, it really is 'classic' in every sense. When I was designing the game as a student back in 2000, the thing that fascinated me the most was the sense of history and universality of the symbolic pattern of circles called the Flower of Life. It is a recurring visual device in that art of cultures spanning the globe; India, Egypt, Japan, Spain, and even in the studies of Leonardo da Vinci - hence the title of the game!

Despite being familiar with the widespread use of the Flower of Life patterns, I was in for a bit of a surprise tonight. I clicked on a news article about the discovery of the supposed tomb of Jesus and his family that is the basis of a documentary by James Cameron. This is obviously highly controversial & it is already getting crazy coverage.

In most articles I've seen, there's also photos of stone coffins & one in particular that they are claiming belonged to a 'Mary'. The decorative carvings form the "Seed of Life" - a simpler design that forms the center 'seed' of the Flower of Life pattern. In fact, the Seed of Life flower-in-a-circle design is in the center of the art on the Da Vinci's Challenge game box.

Of course, the claimed connection between the tomb & the Bible characters might just be a load of crap. Regardless, the decorated coffin is an interesting example of the use of the Flower of Life pattern in the sacred art of ancient cultures.

Here's a close-up of the carved ossuary from New Zealand Herald :The homepage for the documentary on Discover.com has the carved design peeking out from the bottom corner:The story, with the Mary ossuary, has already made a stir on Google News: