Wondering if anyone here can help with this. My sister-in-law’s family is from Albania. Last month she went back to Albania to meet her relatives for the first time. While there, she visited a village to see the old stone house where her great grandparents had lived. The house was very old, possibly centuries old.
She noticed one of the stone blocks was carved with these three symbols: a dotted six-pointed star, a lamp or tea-pot, and a solid 6-pointed star.
She asked her relatives and people in the village but no one seemed to remember what the symbols meant or why they were there. They only knew remembered it had always been there as long as anyone remembered.
Has anyone here seen these symbols and know their meaning or purpose?

https://i.redd.it/u5h0mca5amcd1.jpeg

Posted by Suspicious-Plant-728

4 Comments

  1. Ok-Championship1179 on

    All I know is that a six pointed star is a symbol that can be found anywhere in Albanian culture. It’s an old pagan symbol that represents the sun and is usually tied to christianity and used by christian albanians (for example in old tribal tattoos) but is not exclusive to them. It usually can be found in both variants presented here but it doesn’t have to necessarily mean that since symbolism can be adopted to mean different things, especially pagan symbolism is often adapted according to current religions so I don’t think it’s rare for muslims to use it also but idk what it could mean to them

  2. While the six pointed star could be found throughout Albania (regardless of religious beliefs), the middle symbol seems like a “Tughra” (it resembles the Tughra of Sultan Ahmed III, c. 1700 CE).

    That would date the house around that time period, if not at least the carvings on the stone are from that time period. (Keep in mind that stones were always reused meaning it could predate the building. Though I believe it’s not the case.)

    https://preview.redd.it/si6vvrni4ncd1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e9c386f7fcf099bc884c4799689224ece785d60a