3 Wise Men: East - West, Left -Right?

[Gromit]

Not sure this is the right section, but here goes.

The 3 wisemen/kings travelled from the East. If we were to depict moving from the East we would show their direction as coming from the right of a picture to the left. However, on the majority of Christmas cards, the opposte is drawn.

Can anyone think of an explaination why we do this.

[Theland]

I suppose it depends if you are standing to the north or south of them

[mikeyp]

I don't think there's a real reason, maybe it was always like that and people just copied pictures they'd seen previously. Maybe in our current culture people feel more comfortable drawing things from left to right, writing goes that way as well.

[Cetti]

Not being blessed with a sense of direction I've never noticed this, but now you've pointed it out I shall look at my cards more carefully.
Below is a card that shows the correct direction,I hope.

http://i12.tinypic.com/2u9s41y.jpg

[WaldoMcFroog]

Maybe they're being drawn by someone who lives north of them? More likely, it's almost certainly because we in the West learn to read from left to right, even with pictures.

Perhaps a more pertinant question is why they're represented as kings or wise men at all - since Magi apparently merely denotes them to be from a particular tribe and they could easily have been female - or why there are three of them since it never actually says there are three of them - it's mere assumed from the fact of three gifts.

The things you learn watching Qi, eh?

[chakka35]

Jolly clever star they followed. They lived in the east, saw a star in the east, followed it and ended up west in Jerusalem. Or perhaps they went the long way around the earth. After they had seen Herod, the star reversed direction, taking them east to Bethlehem, where it stopped over Mary's and Joseph's house. How did it do that? If I see a star standing over the house across the road that star is also standing over every house in a straight line between me and the horizon. Nonsense, but charming nonsense.
Oh and by the way, don't believe them when they tell you that the Magi were called Belthazar, Melchior and Gaspar. They were called Ov, Orry an' Tah, as the carol 'We Three Kings' plainly states.
(Groans all round)