But to get back to our seriousness (although a bit of punk Oi always seems to recharge my batteries so I'm ready and roaring to go now).
I had never heard of an analemma. And I think the plot thickens here. Thanks fire cat pickles (you have a very funny screen name) for this new addition to the mystery of the Tarot of Marseilles.
Now Ptolomy wrote an astronomical treatise about it. So it's ancient knowledge.
I spent a long time once looking for a hat that would resemble this one. There were dozens and dozens of different types of hats (they really liked wearing hats - I was amazed at what I found). I found nothing that even came close to the hat in question. Of course, this doesn't mean it didn't exist, just that I didn't find it.
What bothers me about thinking that it's referring to a lemiscate is that not only does one find it on La Force, but also on other cards. Le Bateleur is one. Why not, you may well say, just as I did, especially when I once found a very tenuous link between these two characters due purely to their similar hats, which pleased me in spite of it seeming far fetched. I even had a little aha moment. There is lots of mythology I believe hidden in the TdM. I posted about it on CoT once, and I'll summarise it here :
Sekhmet was the goddess who had the head of a Lioness. So there is maybe a link between La Force XI and Sekhmet. Lion/lioness and Power/Force. Sekhmet's husband was Ptah - a creator of things and a maker of things, and a patron of craftsmen. The Bateleur has a kind of work table in front of him.
¨
But it seems to me that both the Cavalier de Batons and the Valet de Deniers are also wearing one. Maybe the Valet's of Deniers is not really in the shape of a leminscate, but maybe yes, but it seems that the Cavalier de Baton's is one. If there is some meaning behind the shape of this hat, why are they wearing one too :
But Force's hat is the strangest. It is the flattest and it has
teeth. Those
teeth are odd. Hats don't have
teeth. Unless she's the prequel to Crococile Dundee.