It is said: If 13 people sit down to dinner together, all will die within a year.
The Turks so disliked the number 13 that it was practically expunged from
Their vocabulary(Brewer, 1894).
Many cities do not have a 13th Street or a 13th Avenue.
Many buildings don't have a 13th floor.
If you have 13 letters in your name, You will have the devil's luck
(Jack the Ripper, Charles Manson,Jeffrey Dahmer, Theodre Bundy and
Albert De Salvo all have 13 letters in their names).
There are 13 witches in a coven.
Despite whatever terrors the numerical
Unknown held for their hunter-gatherer
Ancestors, ancient civilizations weren't
Unanimous in their dread of 13.
The Chinese regarded the number as lucky,
Some commentators note, as did the
Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.
To the ancient Egytians, these sources tell us,
Life was a quest for spirtual ascension which
Unfolded in stages- 12 in this life and a 13th
Beyond,thought to be eternal afterlife.
The number 13 therefore symblolized death-
Not in terms of dust or decay, but as a glorious
And a desirable transformation. Through Egytian
Civilization perished, the death symbolism they
Conferred on the number 13 survived, only to be
Corrupted by later cultres who came to associate
It with a fear of death instead of a reverence
For the afterlife.
That's Friday the 13'th for you.
