Getting back after my last several posts to our recent trip to Arras, France, I took the opportunity to walk completely around the Place des Héros. It helped that our hotel was on one corner of the Place, so I just began there and made a circuit of the square in a clockwise direction.
A number of the buildings on the square are marked with what might possibly be considered to be heraldry. I suspect that they are, in fact, heraldry-like shop signs, though I could be mistaken in that suspicion.
Anyway, take a look and see what you think.
These signs included:
Three chickens or cocks:
A mermaid (labeled "la Cirene", in English, "the siren") in her vanity (using a mirror and combing her hair) with two ships and a town behind her:
A sailor in a tricorn hat peering through a telescope with a town and two ships behind him:
A salamander standing in flames, breathing flames:
This lovely unicorn passant to sinister:
A hen or cock facing sinister:
A water buffalo:
A harp in an olive branch:
Three shovels:
And a hammer (I think a piton hammer, also known as a rock-climbing hammer):
Most of these would make would easily be accepted as a coat of arms. Are they truly heraldry? As I said, I don't think so, but it's possible.
If I remember correctly the salamander was a badge of Francis I of France. The hammer appears to be a classic war-hammer.
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