The ENGINNERS Bio-Suits: Based in part on symbolism of the 'Bird-Man' murial?

Yes an air filtration unit does seem the ENGINEERS modern-day twist upon that archaic pictorgram of the Bird-Mans beak/form - if indeed that was the intention on their part in the first place!

i notice also that the engineer is dressed in normallish clothes i.e. seam lines stitching boots etc

creature also appears as if partly dressed or harnessed at least though its hard to make out

plus goin by the images the trunk would appear to be added on very like a jet pilots helmet really

the bird faced entities are very interesting they are IMO to prometheus what the SJ was to alien not many so far have picked up on them distracted by more prominent creatures llike the xeno/deacon etc i really hope we will see more about them in P2 or even P3! it would appear that the engineers are wearing their skulls as helmets the way ancients like romans etc woud wear a wolf or tiger pelt but is this out of symbolic reverence to a Fiercer creature or are they wearing them the way some barbarians might tie their victims skulls/shrunken heads to their horse? Or are they wearing them in rememberance? as fallen friends? Or is it much more practical and clinical that their bones make good armour! along with the applied exoskeletal body armour stolen from various alien species or bred or 'engineered' specifically the way we make leather from cowhide...... i would say though that they seem going by the mural to be of more importance to them than that

I think I know why they look the way they do I know you guys may or may not agree on this but look at the ancient Mesopotamian reliefs about their "gods". They essentially are the 'Eagle-men' from the old stories of ancient astronauts. To me it makes perfect sense instead of calling them elephant looking why not call them Bird looking instead. The only time we call them elephantine is when their O2 hoses are connected.

Yes, I see where you would like to go with that reasoning and I, at least in part, can meet you at say: an empass with the fact that a lot of Pharoh efigies/ hiero-glyphs had the 'Eagle-Men' on them carved on many tombs and rock faces. [img]http://img600.imageshack.us/img600/296/60496474.jpg[/img] Im not sold, in reality, on Ancient Alien theory because there is a lot of talk but then a heck-of-a-lot of immature follow through with so-called 'science' that has so much subjective exaggeration put upon it with crazy reasoning, wild coinci-dence that the 'science', the real science they want to speak of gets lost and is merely tacked-on at the end as some sort of convinient after thought to give the Ancent Alien theory weight to be included within the 'respected' annals that would call themselves Science and they want a part of it. It's, in part compelling reading and viewing at times, interspersed with some interesting little annec- dotes but still very immature with no desciplin behind it. Made up of convinient convoluted pieces of stories that get intorwoven into the current consensus phenomenon of the time - in ours currently science, technology = Aliens. These make for great stories thus far but far more 'credible' evidence and reasoning will be needed to give it respectable weight. But, in its defence, that is starting to happen though.

If they are going with this theme, then they need to show the 'Fish-men' of mythology as well. Like the Greek Telkines, and Sumerian/Babylonian Uanna characters. Whats very interesting is that when Carl Sagan who was an awesome physicist and astronomer said these 'fishmen' of ancient stories could actually be evidence in some way of paleo-contact. If you listen to the stories of this so called Uanna he never really is seen as mythology at all because the way he does or did things for mankind. He was seen as not only as "god" but mainly as a bringer of knowledge, mathematics, and sciences to us. His description is almost REAL not mythological especially when mankind says this is where we get our knowledge from. If we got it by ourselves then wouldn't it be logical no matter how you see it as something WE WOULD WANT TO BRAG ABOUT THROUGHOUT THE AGES. Maybe later on high priests started to use 'rhetoric' to control people by saying we owe them something? Just a thought.

I am hoping that most of these immature theorists at least try to fit the story together instead of making snip-its of stuff hear and there. I now alot of people disagree about it but my job is to make damn sure that these theorists have somekind of direction. Out of all the researching out there I still find Z.Sitchin very grounded and at least he has an idea why and or how. Eric Von Daniken and Georgio Tsoukalous get way to wrapped up about certain aspects of mythology.

I never listen to people like David Icke, Eric Von Daniken, Georgio and his famous hair, Lloyed Pye, and crazy alien obsessed people. I dont always agree with some of Z. Sitchins work but I do agree on the CORE OF THE STORY its origins. Language has a big part to play in ancient mysteries too, trying to figure out what they were talking about.

I dont think everything is a metaphor like they try to make us think that it is but alot of it IS a metaphor for life and existence.

maybe the the bird like thing was the sj being out down by engineers when they fell from grace and started a new civilization

The orignial mural with the Engineer laying his hand on the birdman suggests to me that the Engineers created the alien birdman creature. It seems to be part of a creation myth. Also wasn't it orignially designed by HR Giger, as well as the second one of the spindly armed creature holding an egg to its face in sacrafice? Could someone post clear images of each showing the total image. Didn't someone here also say that the first image when it began to deteriorate turned into the second one? I am sorry I tried to read though these posts for the second time and missed that part. I also tried to find a copy of the Prometheus: The art of the film as I read somewhere else apparently that both of these images were presented there and like I said someone posted somewhere (else) apparently that the first mural when it deteriorates morphs into the second. Anyway some one who is knowledgeable of this please enlighten us!

It was somewhere on www.prometheusforum.net that someone showed how the first mural of the Engineer with his hand on the head of the birdman morphed into the second one of the spindly armed bird man holding the alien egg to its face. I am looking for conformation here as I had a hard enough time seeing the mural in the movie let alone what it changed into. I thought it just deteriorated.

yes i remember those comments but from watching again it does seem the images just deteriorate and that they are two separate frescos... i'll go get the art book pics which are clear and look like bronze castings compared to the grey cobwebby images in the actual headroom the initial thread post shows them mostly too

yeh no they are up at the start i dont think theres any clearer images out there

Thanks caenorhabhditis, I don't know that I agree with the interpretation of the symbolism as often when I read a strong mythical analogy it intuitively hits me in a way that brings forth a kind of moment of enlightenment regarding the subject. Joseph Campbell always struck me that way but then he was an expert in comparitive mythology and Jungian psycology. As an example read his thesis opus 'The Hero of a thousand faces", where he illuminates the connection between all truely methologically graounded motifs, and explains how the archetypes and symbols of all great myths are really variations of the same story, which he called the monomyth. His work is incredible and if you read it you will see what I mean. Its like a true reading of the symbols, archetypes and motifs leads to a golden moment of clarity and the above description of the bird man myth just doesn't connect the dots in the definitive way that Joseph Campbell did.

IMO, it looks like the bio suit helmets are facehugger look a likes. The snout can be the tail of the hugger. The bio suits themselves look alienesque body wise. The main mural holloway looks at behind the green crystal shows an alien so perhaps the biosuit as a whole is representing their gods or biggest fear. I dont see aliens smart enough to create a race and control them. They are a very basic predator with two intentions and thats to kill and reproduce and they are very effecient if not the perfect killing machine. Nothing more! Another theory I have is that the Engineers created aliens and they became so impressed at how deadly these killers became they used them for eradication measures which perhaps back fired on Paradise and the rogue engineer was lucky enough to escape and hide out on LV223. My biggest mystery is why the skin on the LV223 engineers is so bio mechanoidish compared to those in the beggining waterfall scene. His mechanoid features are built right into his skin all the way to his head. Either he engineered it or he prevented a full infection.

Its actually just a suit that integrates with the flesh and acts like a flight-suit that our pilots would wear. Trust me its not an infection like you think, its a bio-mechanoid pressure suit. No its not engineered its really just a technology derived outfit. I am not saying I know everything about the Engineers. Thats the only answer since it connects with the cryo-stasis pod.

The Engineers bio-suit is not an Alien carcass or exoskeleton. All these aka astronaut suits are is that they are technological in nature. I believe the Alien creature gets its 'LOOK' from their technology not their DNA. The newish proto-alien doesnt need to develope an exoskeleton since its mostly human/engineer hybrid. Its probably only later an new kind emerge that are much more of a deadlier bio-mechanoid creature that gets their iconic image. In other words they either changed by evolution or by being a genetically engineered product.

When I first saw the Engineers and we were presented with the head design my first thouhgt was it was more elephantine-like than Bird like. The Bird reference would be strictly decorative in reference to a past but a functional trunk is more logical and useful in how the Engineer lived their lives. If there is any Bird reference it would be because of the appearence of the worms.

actually the mural looks like an Engineer in a biosuit kneeling before another Engineer. is it a referce to the two factions of Engineers the Elders and the ones who rebelled against them. we assumed in the holograms that the engineers where running from a deacon or another infected engineer but could the Elders have killed them all ? maybe to stop the infected engineers bringing the infection back home. some of the bodies had holes in their heads like they had been shot. doesnt explain how bob survived unless he was like a spy or something. or we could be reading too much in to this and its an instruction manual showing you how to put the suit on. as it looks like it s fusing to the engineers body in the same way the bio suit is melded to Bob.

Regarding the first mural, after seeing the HR Giger image which appears to be a bronze statue, it is no doubt full of symbols and archetypes, but they are from the subconscious of Giger and so look more to dream interpretation to understand the keys to interpretation. The creature to the left is subhuman looking and seems to be almost emanating out of the hand of the Engineer or that he is giving it his blessing by touching its head. Because it looks so inhuman or alien, using Jungian archetypes, it looks like a personification of the shadow archetype while the one on the right looks like an Engineer or proto-man. So it could mean, from a Jungian standpoint the acknowledgement of the shadow - which is symbolic of all our fears and things that go bump in the night. It would be a powerful motif to accept rather then run and be controlled by our inner fears. That makes more sense based upon Jungian reading of the symbols and archetypes.

jung! blimey ok two points people need to be clear on first the creature in the mural has a short beak not a trunk its noot easy to see because of the crossed arms but its defo a beak imo secondly watch the pilot chair helmet as it closes over bob its made of a skull! see the interior these elements have been taken from another creature as we would take hide for leather but with more symbolic importance i feel.... i really hope we will get to see something more about this in P2 or P3 :)

Regarding the second mural, from what little I can see appears to represent the creature from the first mural on the left, the spindly armed and legged creature that I said, coming from a Jungian psychological perspective of Giger's subconscious, if it is an embodiment of the shadow archetype, our most basic and primitive representation of our fears, it is embracing the alien by allowing itself to be infected by a facehugger within the egg. It appears to be holding the egg up to its face. So therefore using Jungian archetypes and the Engineer-Alien creation motif, it implies a total acceptance and embracing of the Alien in the form of sacrifice - very high up in the values of the culture of the Engineers, and keep in mind that all of these images including the Engineers as made apparent by the first mural, are straight out of the subconscious mind of HR Giger.

Very interesting stuff. i think there's a lot of hybrid concepts in this movie. I'm totally seeing the suit the as a symbol for the bird headed people described in Egyptian myth now. And depicted in their art. It seems pretty obvious that he's subjugating that creature. Could that thing be what's in the suit and the Jockeys simply stole all their technology from these beings and replaced them in the hierarchy. They stole their suits and wear them to honor them, and represent them stealing their power. I think they had a relationship with the "bird-man/dog-man" like creature... it looks like that creature is being subjugated. It definitely seems like the creature's hands on the egg (the original genetics) means something important... Could that species be the actual creators...? Do they have some sort of relationship with the Engineers? are they slightly taller when they stand...? What if this thing is not only the original Jockey, but the female jockeys in the species... basically meaning that the Engineers subjugated all the females, stole their tech, reproduced it and engineered themselves away from the species. In some species sexual dimorphism can occur and even though the genetics are the same, the phenotype (the look of the creature) changes over time... What if these are actually the light angels, and the Engineers made themselves look like light angels, when in fact they're some of the true monsters of the story. Sort of between light and dark... The Elders are the truly evil group... The monsters are also us. The company. David. Our older siblings the Engineers. We're all rebelling against the hidden Goddesses. Everyone is obsessed with kings and gods. They forget about the Queen until the end... What if the Engineers are obsessed with kings and gods too? They represent only the male side of things, this is a story about how the mommy and daddy species meet.. What if this creature is actually a bird-woman.... and they actually are pilots who fly through the sky. The true creators of life.... The goddess aspect. The female side that creates all life, even if it takes a strange form. "In some species such as insects, spiders, many fish, reptiles, birds of prey and certain mammals such as the spotted hyena, and blue whale, the female is larger than the male. As an example, in some species females are sedentary and sparsely distributed, and so males must search for them. Vollrath and Parker argue that this difference in behaviour leads to radically different selection pressures on the two sexes, evidently favouring smaller males.[23] Cases where the male is larger than the female have been studied as well,[23] and require alternate explanations. One example of sexual size dimorphism is the bat Myotis nigricans. In this species, females are substantially larger than males. They differ in body weight, skull measurement, and forearm length.[24] The difference in size is believed to be caused by natural selection for a large female size due to a fecundity advantage. The interaction between the sexes and energetic needs such as time and energy required to produce viable offspring make it favorable for females to be larger in this species. Females bear the energetic cost of producing eggs which is much greater than that of the male who only bears the cost of making sperm. The fecundity advantage hypothesis states, that a big mother is able to produce more offspring and give those offspring more favorable conditions to ensure their survival. This is true for most ectotherms. Another reason why females are believed to be larger is due to the fact that they provide parental care for a substantial amount of time while the offspring matures. The time of gestation and lactation is fairly long in the M. nigricans, where females suckle their offspring until nearly adult size.[25] They would not be able to fly and catch prey if they did not compensate for the additional mass of the offspring during this time. In addition to the hypothesis that explains an advantage of large female size, it is hypothesized that smaller male size is an adaptation for males to increase maneuverability and agility. This selection for agility in flying is a helpful adaptation which allows males to better compete with females for food and other resources." So in humans the female side of the genetics, the x chromosome that the Engineers must have suppressed, is passed on to us. We're able to have females, but as Prometheus shows our programming is the same. Designed mainly for men. Even in the future Weyland is perceived as king. It's sort of about the subjugation of the female side. Vickers never got to be Queen. That's why we might see a new type of Alien called a king Alien emerge from the Deacon who carries mainly the egg morphing/male side of the Alien lifecycle. Something so big it had to have a small beginning to make the King Alien concept work... now the Deacons can become it... they are born with a reliance on the morphing cycle and have bred out the female side of the genetics to try to make it an even more aggressive bio-weapon.

U guys put way too much thought about something we havent even seen yet. So lets wait for the second movie but even then I dont think they are going to explain this. Its too much fandom that may or may not work out. Ridley could explain why they wanted to come to Earth in the first place and why man came about. You guys might be disappointed to learn about how this all happens.Knowing Ridley he'll take a sharp right or left turn on you.

Chances are their females probably look alot like ours just maybe with a bald looking head. They got to be mammals like us humans and probably the females do indeed breastfeed their young Engineers as babies. Gestational carrying could be up to a year instead of 9 months like a human.

Symbolically all it just means is that our universal drone like-engineer (Adam) is laying with the bio-mechanical beast or Devil. An ancient moment of passive communion and serenity between two distinct species. Although distinct there still seems to be a blending of the two in their humility. What is most interesting to me is that the Beast is completely biomorphic like a Xeno Alien and the humanoid engineer is in a state of change but still got his boots on!

"..U guys put way too much thought about something we havent even seen yet. So lets wait for the second movie.." I think this kind of mind exercise is a poster's way of influencing the script for the next installment of our movie.(Do you think the script is already done?) That way with the next release posters can say that it was their idea all along take pride it was included.! No writing credits, of course. I guess anything and everything is somewhat possible. I just don't want 'Prometheus:The Musical'

I forgot to add that the first image looks like that portion of the Sistine chapel fresco by Michelangelo of God reaching out and touching man, which is why it reminded me of a creation myth.

Here are the knarly hands of the hybrid-creature 'Bird-Man/Woman' and that of the alien Xeno and compare the differences. [img]http://img832.imageshack.us/img832/1275/bm2y.jpg[/img]

yes theres a visual link between birdface xeno and engineer though they would all have the giger/biomechanical look maybe this is a missing link creature or a predecessor of the engineer who knows.... yet going by arm and torso length compared to adjacent engineer it looks like standing would be taller if only by a couple of feet but still this would be a cool spectacle if used in the next movies!

These are comparisons now with the FACEHUGGERS prehensile tail juxtaposed with the tubular 'funnel'/breathing apparatus upon the ENGINEERS Bio-Suit. [img]http://img96.imageshack.us/img96/3644/bs4g.jpg[/img]