In 1538 AD a tapestry was created in the city of Bruges in Belgium, known as the Summer’s Triumph. It depicts the victorious ascension of a ruler to power. However, there is something far more modern interest depicted in the tapestry, which would be easy to miss unless you were looking closely – multiple objects in the sky, which have the classical UFO shape that is popularized in the media.

Exploring the Bruges Summer’s Triumph Tapestry
This tapestry was crafted in Bruges in 1538 and is now housed in the Bayerisches National Museum. The city of Bruges is the capital and the largest city of the province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium in the northwest of the country. The origins of the city go back to the pre-roman Era and it has been the target of many invasions because of its strategic location.

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The “Sky of the Summer’s Triumph Tapestry” is a poetic and vivid expression that conjures images and emotions associated with the zenith of summer. If you look at the top of the tapestry, especially towards the left-hand side, it is possible to see a number of ‘hat shaped’ flying objects in black – that are not related to any religious depictions that are frequently seen in the sky in other medieval artworks.

Life of the Virgin Mary, medieval tapestry from Tournai, Belgium. (Notre Dame Basilica Beaune / Public Domain)

In a previous Ancient Origins article we discussed the Mysterious Medieval Tapestries such as the  “Life of the Virgin Mary”, medieval tapestry from Tournai, Belgium or the “Magnificat,” created in 1330, this portraying an enigmatic black object in a manner reminiscent of common characteristics seen in numerous UFO sightings. Both housed at the Notre Dame Basilica in Beaune France, both tapestries depict a singular unidentified flying object, gracefully moving through the background sky.

A Political Strategy or Divine Intervention?
The upper portion of the tapestry prominently features several disc-shaped objects in the sky. The deliberate inclusion of “hat ships” in this artwork could be interpreted as a strategic political maneuver. By associating UFOs with the reigning authorities, the intention might have been to influence local sentiment and assert a divine connection, thereby reinforcing the idea of celestial intervention in their rise to power.

Some historians have suggested that these objects represent the significance of this ruler coming to power and that he had the support of the ‘divine’.  But since when are flying disc shaped objects considered as a symbol of divine intervention? And if they are, why?

If the people in that era associated flying saucers with divinity, it means they were seeing such objects in the sky and linking them to a ‘godly’ phenomena. Of course on the other hand there are those who have claimed that these unusual hat-shaped objects are simple strangely-shaped dark clouds…

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Various disc-shaped objects can be observed on the top left side of the tapestry. (Sirusly)

This tapestry is stored in the Bayerisches National Museum on extended loan from the HypoVereinsbank UniCredit Bank AG. The museum has no other information regarding the tapestry’s history.