Hexagrams are often associated with the Star of David in Judaism and Christianity. Pentagrams, commonly associated these days with the occult and with witchcraft, were actually originally used as spiritual protection markings, apotropaic markings in a sense, to protect people from evil, rather than it being any kind of symbol associated with evil. Hexagrams are commonly associated with Solomon's Seal, a form of hexagram in Biblical and Judaic contexts; and so it can be seen that both of these symbols, especially when discussing star shaped pentagrams and hexagrams - are often misrepresented in our modern culture, both as being the opposite or completely different to what they were originally for, as well as being seen in an overly biased way that doesn't take into account their usage outside of Christian and Judaic theology. 

There are for instance examples of hexagrams and pentagrams in Scotland, in contexts which may well be pre-Christian, one of which is certainly pre-Christian. Sculptor's Cave in Elginshire, which I have discussed elsewhere on this website as well as other places, contains at least one example of a pentagonal star. Whether this was added later during the later witchcraft phrases of this cave's use, or whether it is a Pictish symbol, like the others, I am unsure, but given what I will discuss about Orkney, I think it entirely possible that the symbol is either culturally, or both culturally and literally ancient within Sculptor's Cave. Whilst I said earlier in this article that this symbol is used for protection against evil, that is not to say that some of those who used this symbol did not have very strange beliefs about how to treat their adult ancestors, for example, like in Sculptor's Cave - strange at least by our cultural standards, I discussed this in another publication on this site, and elsewhere to different degrees. So, does the use of the pentagram among some ancient Britons far predate Christianity, and go back to a prehistoric spiritual usage which we do not entirely understand? And is this why the marking is also common in the Medieval Period?

The hexagram was similarly used as a ritual protection marking, although not identical in usage to that of the pentagram. One example on a stone from Scotland, was found at the Burrian Broch on the island of North Ronaldsay in the Orkney Islands. This stone actually contains a pentagonal star carving on one side, and a hexagonal star carving on the other side. This seems like pretty sound evidence that these pentagonal and hexagonal star symbols were used in ancient Scotland and outside of a Christian context, as there is nothing on the stone to suggest a Christian connection, there is only a carving of a pentagonal star on one side, and a hexagonal star on the other side. I wonder if this stone was left at the broch or was within it as a kind of protection tablet, it must have had some ritual function or meaning, and given that the markings are on a stone, not something that would normally be carried around - as the stone was around 6 inches in length, I think it more likely that this had been placed somewhere in the broch, as a part of some ritual. It could also for example have been a ritual connected to a magical practice connected to the broch or to a spirit or deity of that place, or, as I mentioned, it could have been placed somewhere as a form of ritual protection. 

Hexagrams and pentagrams are rather "euclidean" in their geometry, which cannot be said for example about the pre-Ogham type carvings in article 99: on this website. I wonder why, certain ancient cultures did not produce carvings that possess the same geometry that most carvings and symbols can be understood as. Again I wonder if these more non-euclidean carvings are coding for a different perception of time and space, where geometry itself is different. The same can be said for example about many of the carvings at Newgrange in Ireland. Did these people perceive time, space and dimension differently from us? Furthermore, in a more-euclidean way, hexagrams and pentagrams also relate to what I think is a more ancient understanding of time and space. 

I hope that this article was an interesting read, it is dedicated to all that I love and to the ancestors of Orkney, Ireland and Scotland. This article is number 100: on this website, there will not be many more online articles on this website to come in the future. This is also quite a short article compared to others.