On the right, you can search by the name of the degrees (“categories”), source (“tags”) or ‘degree family’ and description. This will give you a standard WordPress search results page, inverse chronologically, with no more options. Using the “advanced search” tab, you can search by these same elements, but there you can combine and use multiple ‘taxonomies’. You will get a grid with the results which looks better than the default WordPress result view. You can also compare images, because of the way the results are displayed.
For even better comparison I made another tab. Here you have the same filters, but twice. Both results you can browse through one by one, so you can look up two similar images and put them next to each other.
Each image has a few characteristics (“taxonomies”), described above and below.
Visible on an individual image is:
These ‘taxonomies’ have been made ‘on the fly’ and are not quite perfected yet (if that is even possible). When I started, I wanted an easy way to look up the images of degrees with the same name, so besides the title of the image, the name of the degree also became a category. Along the way questions arose, such as: is “Chevalier de l’Aigle” (‘Knight of the Eagle’) the same as “Chevalier de l’Aigle Noir” (‘Knight of the Black Eagle’)? Or “Elu des 9” (‘Elect of the 9’) the same as “Elu des 9 Chevaliers” (‘Elect of the 9 Knights’). Or “Maitre Parfait” (‘Perfect Master’) the same as “Schottischer Meister” (‘Scottish Master’)? I had to review the categories used.
I also wanted to add the source, so you can look for “Chevalier du Soleil” (‘Knight of the Sun’) specifically from the Kloss collection, or rather from the Fonds Gaborria. For that I used the standard WordPress “tags”.
In the “advanced search” and “compare” tags the taxonomies are dependent on each other, but this is not immediately apparent. When you choose “Chevalier du Soleil” you will get the 13 results. When you then tick “Fonds Gaborria” as the source, two results remain, even though the “Fonds Gaborria” taxonomy said nine. Obviously, that is the total number of images tagged “Fonds Gaborria”, but there are only two images to which both elements apply.
So you can keep narrowing down your result, but note that you can also make combinations with no results, as in the narrowing down, you can’t see beforehand if the new argument for your search will result in nine, two or nothing at all.
I wanted to add another way of finding images, for when you don’t know where the image is from from and you don’t know the name of the degree. So I added a “custom taxonomy” and started filling that with elements of the images, such as “crossed pillars” or “tower of Babel”. As I added more and more images, another need grew: the need to group images by ‘degree family’. There are different “Elu” (‘elect’) degrees, “Ecossais” (‘Scottish’), “Memphis-Misraim” or whatever degrees. Rather than creating yet another “custom taxonomy” the third filter is now a (somewhat odd) combination between these two ideas. Also I have to run through the whole set to make this a bit more consistent. To keep them apart (somewhat) the ‘degree family’ categorization is shown as “original description / English translation”, so “Ecossais / English” or “Solomon / Solomon”.
For the categories (degree names) and tags (sources) I used the language of the sources, usually French (and stuck to French when later another language popped up). With the descriptions, those who do not speak French can use English search terms too.
The non “xx / xx” descriptions refer to elements shown in the image. I may expand that as yet another way of looking.
Last, but not least. I used a couple of specific archives and documents. This website makes no claim at being exhaustive. I only hope to raise some attention to a couple of great digitized archives, both for the work of the people who created the documents and the people who made them available to us today. This website is mostly used as a catalogue of sorts. You know a specific image, but don’t know or don’t remember where it was from. With a little luck it is among the images on this website or the book and you are able to check the original document (the “sources” tab can be helpful for that).
On consulting the sources
So you find the image that gives as source Kl.MS:XXVI.5. Then what?
Actually, this is a bit tricky. As you can see, the image comes from the Kloss Collection. In the sources you can see that this collection is available on the website of the Masonic Museum of the Netherlands. Unfortunately, on that website you can’t look on document number. In this case you have to look for the document title. In the example above: “explication de la pierre cubique”.
On the website of the French National Library and the Patrimoniale library you can look for their catalogue numbers, but usually, using your favourite search engine and put in the information that I gave with an image, is often the fastest way of finding the document (for example, use “Bibliotheque Nationale de France FM4 (76)” to get you to the right page).
As mentioned, of the Cayers Maçonniques you can only find the registration, not the document. On Amazon you can buy a reprint of an English translation of all the rituals with very crude images.
When you want to know more about the imaginary within the images, you may test your luck at another website of mine: Masonic Symbols Database.