Description
If we stop to contemplate the austere external ornamentation of the Iglesia de Santa María del Alcázar, we can see how a face carved in stone emerges on one of its side facades as a unique and striking decorative motif, the so-called Baphomet of Arjona.Baphomet or Baphomet is a term originally used to describe an idol that the Knights Templar were accused of worshiping and which was later incorporated into different occult and mystical traditions. Its symbology is usually a head with a split beard inclined to both sides and/or with two profiles that give rise to a frontal face. The Bafomet are usually placed on the keystones of the main door, whose symbology translates as the “support of the Church.” In general, although they are not always located in the keystones of the arches, they are sometimes located in cornices, in corners, windows or other delicate spaces in buildings. The Bafomet of Arjona, of Romanesque origin due to its hieraticism and rigidity, is supported on two tables (which indicates that it is based on the law), it is placed on the keystone of the arch of a side door of the Iglesia de Santa María and not on the main one. The fact that Pope Clement V suppressed the Knights Templar in 1312, some two hundred years before the temple was built, seems to indicate that the Baphomet was later embedded in the keystone of the door and that it belonged to a shaft or other part of a different building. Juan Eslava Galán, an expert in the Order of the Temple, takes advantage of the existence of the Baphomet in Iglesia de Santa María to incorporate it into The Templar Tomb, as one of the main elements of interest in the plot. (…) The Baphomet was a male face carved in succinct and primitive relief, more Romanesque than Gothic, with a serious countenance, bulging eyes, a well-combed and parted beard, and hair gathered at the sides of the head like Hathor's ancient hairstyle (…)
