a) Stages of the Life Cycle
Rob Ager decided that the triangular form represented a pyramid and that the painting showed a series of stages of the alien's life cyle moving.
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| Alien Life Cycle Hieroglyphics (1978) by HR Giger |
b) Sky goddess as a humanoid alien
What would seem to be a biomechanised version of Nut the Sky Goddess arching over the image is a humanoid alien, with its hands and feet at the lower ends of the image.
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| The Alien beast bend over forwards with its head looking down, perhaps a little like the sky goddess depictions |
c) Gods as shown in Egyptian art
Not mentioning the name of Nut, he stated how he understood figure stretched across the painting was based on how gods were shown in Egyptian art.
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| Depiction of Nut the sky goddess as seen in Rob Ager's video, which Getty Images things is loosely based upon one to be seen at an Egyptian temple at Denderah. |
d) Derelict ship based upon the alien, by way of the biomechanised sky goddess
He decided that Giger had designed the external design of the derelict ship to mirror the idea of the sky goddess figure as the adult alien creature, with the hammer shaped protrusion there being similar to the full grown alien's head
The human explorers in the film Alien enter into where the stomach would be in the hieroglyphic design.
The exterior of the ship itself also looked to him like a curled up sleeping alien, or at the very least looked like a set of pincers ready to close in on its prey.
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| Landscape with wreck (1978) by HR Giger as seen in Rob Ager's video |
- Rob Ager: Giger's design for the hieroglyphics didn't make it into the final cut of the final movie mimics the design of the full grown alien.
The life cycle can be seen as a series of stages moving up the pyramid and arched over the entire thing is a humanoid alien.
You can see its hands and feet at the lower edges of the image.
Giger seems to have based this on how gods were sometimes shown in ancient Egyptian art, hence the pyramid symbolism too, and I think he did the same with the external design of the derelict ship.
That hammer shaped protrusion there is similar to the full grown alien's head and the humans enter into where the stomach would be, just like in the hieroglyphic design.
The whole thing looks like a curled up sleeping alien. At the very least it looks like a set of pincers ready to close in on its prey.
I did hear rumours years ago that this design was based on a half eaten doughnut but and I think that's an urban myth. If you look and study the works of HR Giger, he didn't randomly design a thing like that , he usually had very specific themes in mind. So I think this is a symbolic play on the threatening size of the alien. The derelict spaceship version is near mountain sized, and going into it, these puny humans are entering into the belly of the beast
(Alien: The Chameleon Effect https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EoyoFotOXgU)
