May I ask what knot this is?

[mysteryman]

Hello, everyone. I'm a knot neophyte and have searched for a couple of weeks in an effort to discover what know what the attached knot is.

Could it be a bowline?

But sometimes it looks like a double constrictor. Granted the picture isn't clear but someone might recognize it. I'm at the end of my rope trying to untie the puzzle. (Sorry, you probably get a lot of that. :)

Any guesses welcome but certainty or close to it is the goal.

[Dan_Lehman]

Greetings, MysteryMan!

Maybe I can help, but the photo is not so
clear on what the knotted object is and what
the knots are.

IMO, it appears that there is a top knot (with
unarticulated, rather whited-out rope) that
is an overhand knot,
its two ends turning around to the lower knot
(with the articulated strands) which is of the
granny knot form.  Below that, I'm not sure
what happens!

Now, the one question I see re this lower knot
is that on its left (viewer's left) lower side there
seems to be not only one strand emerging out
over a curved part, but some shadowy white
other-strand(?) part running behind it!?  This
might be some sort of illusion in the photo,
of the "not sure what happens" stuff.

Nowhere do I see a bowline / constrictor.

(And I've no idea what the overall structure is
supposed to be, so, no idea of what one might
expect to find of knots therein.)

--dl*
====

[mysteryman]

Thanks, Dan, for the information. It would probably help if I tell what I know about the knot.

1. It was extremely tight. So someone was able to cinch it down incredibly tight.

2. The loop was cut on the top where it is fringed now. So the knot was probably a center of the rope knot.

I'm trying enhance the picture for a better view. Here are two more tries. If they aren't good enough, I'll try again.

And thanks for your help.

[mysteryman]

To clarify, the loop was incredibly tight until it was cut. There probably wasn't any effort to untie the knot itself.

Edit to add the rope was definitely  about 3 ft long and apparently looped in the center.

[Luca]

hi mysteryman,

The photo is not clear(is taken from the explanation of some trick?), but my impression is that the two legs of the cutted loop are perpendicular with respect to how the standing ends come out from the knot's nub;the visible part of the knot's nub reminds me of the "side view" of an Hunter's Bend or of a "falsely tied Hunter's bend", which can look very similar ( http://igkt.net/sm/index.php?topic=3204.msg19163#msg19163  );putting aside the fact that there apparently are five ends when they should to be four,and other anomalies,focusing on the knot's nub and what is above, I could imagine something similar (but with the loop turned in the opposite direction) to ABoK #1062?(below)

                                                                                                                         Bye!

[mysteryman]

Hi, Luca, and thanks for all the info. That sure looks like it could be it. I've been trying to learn how to tie it but end up with all kinds of cool knots that are NOT it. Will the loop cinch down tight, tight, tight?

Who knew there was so much to knot tying? No, not a magic trick and I would explain more but it might prejudice the jury, hint, hint.

To summarize.

1. The rope was a cord about 3 ft long with only 2 ends, so it must be a center of the rope loop like your diagram.
2. The loop was extremely tight.
3. There is a cut at the top of the loop (sorry, I should have explained that at first because of the poor picture quality).

I saw one knot that is used to tie off the top of open bags and such that looked like it could be it, but I lost the link and forgot the name of it.

I'll keep trying to get a better picture.

[Dan_Lehman]

2. The loop was cut on the top where it is fringed now.
So the knot was probably a center of the rope knot.

I guess your "so..." says that the overall structure
had this knot in rough/logical *center*, with just
a smaller loop above (as shown), and some longer
loop (knotted?) or separate ends below?

As for "on the top where it is fringed", do you
mean the pictured topmost part of the rope,
which I thought looked like an overhand knot
but could be someone just holding cut ends
of the rope roughly together --one end over
the other (it's not a clear image)?!

Below this, the sides of rope from the top
flow into the highlighted knot CLEARLY in
an overhand crossing such as is used to
begin a square or granny knot --and nothing
like what Luca shows, which you think looks
like it (!!     ?).
But below this --i.e., the finish to that start--,
one sees clearly a part exiting/entering off
the lower left side and down,
but no corresponding part on the other end,
and there is some whiteness to the left of
this visible strand (maybe something in the
background).
AND as a granny, this doesn't look tight at
all, in geometry  (for the ends should swing
around more, away from tail-by-SPart adjacency
(and thereby distinguishing itself from the
square knot).


--dl*
====

[DerekSmith]

HI Mysteryman,

Welcome to the forum and thank you for bringing us a puzzle.

You certainly seem to know considerably more about the situation that you are at present letting on.  What is your true objective here?

Anyway, to the puzzle -



What do I see?

I see two pieces of cord, one hanging down from the front of the gentleman, the other hanging into his lap.  They are joined by what seems to be a very straightforward Granny knot, and the gentleman is then holding the two working ends.

In you subsequent information, you tell us that he is holding the remnants of a cut loop and that he started with a single length of rope.  That would still have been easily achieved as a Granny, simply by tying one overhand knot forming a small loop, then another overhand to complete the Granny.

You also add that the loop (do you mean the knot?) was extremely tight.  If the information is available to you, look at the nature of the cordage.  In compressible cordage, the Granny can be cinched so tight that it is virtually permanent.

Now do we get more clues?

[mysteryman]

Dan,

"As for "on the top where it is fringed", do you
mean the pictured topmost part of the rope,
which I thought looked like an overhand knot
but could be someone just holding cut ends
of the rope roughly together --one end over
the other (it's not a clear image)?!"

Yes, I know it's not clear. Sorry. I should have explained it better. He is putting to two cut ends of the loop back together and they overlap just a little. It is the bottom of the loop that is the knot, and the loop would be in the center of the 3 ft rope.

DerekSmith, what I'm wondering is if this knot is unique or if any Boy Scout could tie one. If a Granny knot, the answer would be yes, just about every knot tier could tie one.  In other words, is it unique enough to be rare, and if rare, then easier to know who tied it or what their profession might me (sailor, rancher?) It is looking like the knot is not that unique. And thanks for the picture improvement.

I may as well tell you the rest. Grizzly stuff.

Do you all agree this knot isn't that special or unique?

Thanks again to all.

[DerekSmith]

Hi Mysteryman,

Wow, that's a bit grisly...

When you say "Just about every knot tier could tie one", the situation is actually a bit more extreme than that, in so far as just about anyone can tie one.  In fact if you tie an overhand knot, then tie another on top of it, unless you make a conscious effort to tie the second one the 'other way round', then you will have made a Granny.

When someone ties two overhand knots, the result is almost always a Granny.

So if you tied it to kill yourself, you would probably have tied a Granny, and if you were a canny knot proficient murderer, you would probably have tied the Granny on purpose in order to divert suspicion form yourself.

[Twine]

Hello Mysteryman!
I don't think it is a granny knot, but it sure looks as if it is related. I tried to make a granny knot around a bottle and tried to make the binding as tight as possible. I'm a strong man, but there is no give in a bottle, and the rope was not very elastic, so I had to try  on something softer. I rolled up a sweater and tied around it with a granny knot. I could get good tension now, but the knot I got did not resemble the knot in your picture. The granny knot, after serious tensioning, is very compact, and the four ends come out of the knot at almost right angles. The knot in your picture looks more like a granny knot tied very loosely for demonstration purposes, and it shouldn't look like that if it was forcefully made. It is definitely not a reef knot/square knot, but I think it belongs to the same family of knots. There is a variation of the reef knot that is used by surgeons to tie off sutures. It is like a reef knot but it has an extra half turn at the starting half-knot, so it is a bit longer than the square knot. I think it is possible that what you have is this kind of "Surgeon's Knot" (if that's what it's called in English).

I enhanced your picture so I could get a clearer view of the knot. I attach the result so others may be able to verify or falsify my speculations.

Friendliest,
Twine

[Twine]

After some thought and some experiments I now believe I was wrong in saying it was a surgeon's knot. I tried to make one of those and now it seems to me that the knot in your picture looks more like a granny after all. It's not the best possible picture for showing off a knot. The man's hand is hiding part of the rope, so one has to guess what's there.
Sorry for not being able to help more than this.
Twine

[DerekSmith]

@ Twine,

Very perceptive of you to notice the second OH in a Granny will orient itself virtually 90 degrees to the first OH.

Although from the image it is only possible to surmise that the lhs cord from the second OH is coming out towards us, there is evidence that the second cord goes away from us, in that it is in the shadow of the knot between the knot and the man holding it up for photography.  It would not be in shadow if it lay in the same plane as the first OH.

[mysteryman]

Hi all, good to see there is still some interest. For a while I decided it was a two half hitch merely because of the two parallel wraps (probably a name for those), but the knot in the picture looks like it has two strand running parallel under the bottom too, under the right outer side of the loop. I've numbered the strands and indicated what is probably a tag (piece of paper) with yellow. The two rope strands fall from the knot freely otherwise. The indicated "wraps" are marked with thin red lines and there are a, b, c and d indications for those.

So it looks to me like b and d could be the same end of the rope, being looped under on the right and over inside the loop. Does that make any sense? I should learn your terms. The e looks like the same strand and the f would be other strand, There is probably paper wrapped about it for identification. So that could be why one strand looks so fat. I tried to indicate that in this new picture with a broad yellow line.

I took out some of the grizzly details. Let's just say it was a weapon and is being held for the jurors to see.

Thanks for the interest.