THE SWASTIKA
The Earliest known Symbol and its migrations with observations on the migration of certain industries in prehistoric times.
by Thomas Wilson
(partial text)
Curator, Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U.S. National Museum.
Preface
An English gentleman, versed
in prehistoric archaeology, visited me in the summer of 1894, and during
our conversation asked if we had the Swastika in America. I answered, "Yes,"
and showed him two or three specimens of it. He demanded if we had any
literature on the subject. I cited him De Mortillet, De Morgan, and Zmigrodzki,
and he said, "No, I mean English or American." I began a search which proved
almost futile, as even the word Swastika did not appear in such works as
Worcester's or Webster's dictionaries, the Encyclopaedic Dictionary, the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, Johnson's Universal Cycopaedia, the People's
Cyclopaedia, nor Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, his
Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, or his Classical Dictionary of
Art and Archaeology, Fairholt's Dictionary of Terms in Art, "L'Art Gothique,"
by Gonza, Perrot and Chipiez's extensive histories of Art in Egypt, in
Chaldea and Assyria, and in Phenicia; also "The Cross," Ancient and Modern,"
by W.W. Blake, "The History of the Cross," by John Ashton; and a reprint
of a Dutch work by Wildener. In the American Encyclopaedia the description
is erroneous, while all the Century Dictionary says is "Same as fylfot,"
and "Compare Crux Ansata and Gammadion." I thereupon concluded that this
would be a good subject for presentation to the Smithsonian Institution
for "diffusion of knowledge among men."
The principal object of
this paper has been to gather and put in a compact form such information
as is obtainable concerning the Swastika, leaving to others the task of
adjustment of these facts and their arrangement into an harmonious theory.
The only conclusion sought to be deduced from the facts stated is as to
the possible migration in prehistoric times of the Swastika and similar
objects.
No conclusion is then attempted
as to the time or place of origin, or the primitive meaning of the Swastika,
because these are considered to be lost in antiquity. The straight line,
the circle, the cross, the triangle, are simple forms, easily made, and
might have been invented and re-invented in every age of primitive man
and in every quarter of the globe, each time being an independent invention,
meaning much or little, meaning different things among different peoples
or at different times among the same people; or they may have had no settled
or definite meaning. But the Swastika was probably the first to be made
with a definite intention and a continuous or consecutive meaning, the
knowledge of which passed from person to person, from tribe to tribe, from
people to people, and from nation to nation, until, with possibly changed
meanings, it has finally circled the globe.
There are many disputable
questions broached in this paper. The author is aware of the differences
of opinion thereon among learned men, and he has not attempted to dispose
of these questions in the few sentences employed in their announcement.
He has been conservative and has sought to avoid dogmatic decisions of
controverted questions. The antiquity of man, the locality of his origin,
the time of his dispersion and the course of his migration, the origin
of bronze and the course of its migration, all of which may be more or
less involved in a discussion of the Swastika, are questions not to be
settled by the dogmatic assertions of any individual.
Much of the information
in this paper is original, and relates to prehistoric more than to modern
times, and extends to nearly all the countries of the globe. It is evident
that the author must depend on other discoveries; therefore, all books,
travels, writers, and students have been laid under contribution without
scruple. Due acknowledgment is hereby made for all quotations of text or
figures wherever they occur.
Quotations have been freely made, instead of sifting the evidence and giving
the substance. The justification is that there has never been any sufficient
marshaling of the evidence on the subject, and that the former deductions
have been inconclusive; therefore, quotations of authors are given in their
own words, to the end that the philosophers who propose to deal with the
origin, meaning and cause of migration of the Swastika will have all the
evidence before them.
Assumptions may appear as
to antiquity, origin, and migration of the Swastika, but it is explained
that many times these only reflect the opinion of the writers who are quoted,
or are put forth as working hypotheses.
The indulgence of the reader
is asked, and it is hoped that he will endeavor to harmonize conflicting
statements upon these disputed questions rather than antagonize them.
I. Definitions, Description, and Origin.
DIFFERENT FORMS OF THE CROSS.
The simple cross made with
two sticks or marks belongs to prehistoric times. Its first appearance
among men is lost in antiquity. One may theorize as to it's origin, but
there is no historical identification of it either in epoch or by country
or people. The sign is itself so simple that it might have originated among
any people, however primitive, and in any age, however remote. The meaning
given to the earliest cross is equally unknown. Everything concerning its
beginning is in the realm of speculation. But a differentiation grew up
in early times among nations by which certain forms of the cross have been
known under certain names and with specific significations. Some of these,
such as the Maltese cross, are historic and can be well identified.
The principal forms of the
cross, known as symbols or ornaments, can be reduced to a few classes,
though when combined with heraldry its use extends to 385 varieties (1).
It is not the purpose of
this paper to give a history of the cross, but the principal forms are
shown by way of introduction to a study of the Swastika.
The Latin cross, Crux immissa,
(fig.1) is found on coins, medals, and ornaments anteriour to the Christian
era. It was on this cross that Christ is said to have been crucified, and
thus it became accepted as the Christian cross.
The Greek cross (fig.2)
with arms of equal length crossing at right angles, is found on Assyrian
and Persian monuments and tablets, Greek coins and statues.
The St. Andrew's cross,
Crux decussata, (fig.3) is the same as the Greek cross, but turned to stand
on two legs.
The Crux ansata, (fig. 4)
according to Egyptian mytholgy, was Ankh, the emblem of Ka, the spiritual
double of man. It was also said to indicate a union of Osiris and Isis
and was regarded as a symbol of the generative principle of nature.
The Tau cross (fig. 5),
so called from it's resemblance to the Greek letter of that name, is of
uncertain, though ancient, origin. In Scandinavian mythology it passed
under the name of :Thor's hammer," being therein confounded with the Swastika.
It was also called St. Anthony's cross for the Egyptian hermit of that
name, and was always colored blue. Clarkson says this mark was received
by the Mithracists on their foreheads at the time of the initiation. C.W.
King, in his work entitled "Early Christian Numismatics" (p.214), expresses
the opinion that the Tau cross was placed on the foreheads of men who cry
after abominations. (Ezekiel ix, 4.) It is spoken of as a phallic emblem.
Another variety of the cross
appeared about the second century, composed of a union of the St. Andrews'
cross and the letter P (fig.6), being the first two letters of the Greek
word Christus. This, with another variety containing all the foregoing
letters, passed as the monogram of Christ (fig.6).
As an instrument of execution,
the cross, besides being the intersection of two beams with four projection
arms, was frequently of compound forms as fig A on which convicted person
was fastened by the feet and hung head downward. Another form , whereon
he was fastened by one foot and one hand at each upper corner; still another
from , whereon his body was suspended on the central upright with
his arms outstretched upon the cross beams.
Fig.7 represents the sign
of the military order of the Knights of the Malta. It is of medieval origin.
Fig.8 represents two styles of Celtic crosses. These belong chiefly
to Ireland and Scotland, are usually of stone, and frequently set up at
marked places on the road sides.
Higgins, in his "Anacalypsis,"
a rare and costly work, almost an encyclopedia of knowledge (1), says,
concerning the origin of the cross, that the official name of the governor
of Tibet, Lama, comes from the ancient Tibetan word of the cross. The original
spelling was L-a-m-h. This is cited with approval in Davenport's "Aphrodisiacs"
(p.13).
Of the many forms of the
cross, the Swastika is the most ancient. Despite the theories and speculations
of students, its origin is unknown. It began before history, and is properly
classed as prehistoric. Its description is as follows: The bars of the
normal Swastika (frontispiece and fig.9) are straight, of equal thickness
throughout, and cross each other at right angles, making four arms of equal
size, length, and style. Their peculiarity is that all the ends are bent
at right angles and in the same direction, right, or left. Prof. Max Müller
makes the symbol different according as the arms are bent to the right
or to the left. That bent to the right, he denominates the true Swastika,
that bent to the left he calls Suavastika (fig.10), but he gives no authority
for the statement, and the author has been unable to find, except in Burnouf,
any justification for a difference of names. Professor Goodyear gives the
title of "Meander" to that form of Swastika which bends two or more times.
(fig.11).
The Swastika is sometimes
represented with dots or points in the corners of the intersections (fig.12a),
and occasionally the same when without bent ends (fig.12b), to which Zmigrodzki
gives the name of Croix Swasticale.
Some Swastikas have three
dots placed equidistant around each of the four ends (fig 12c).
There are several varieties
possibly related to the Swastika which have been found in almost every
part of the globe, and though the relation may appear slight, and at first
sight difficult to trace, yet it will appear more or less intimate as the
examination is pursued through its ramifications. As this paper is an investigation
into and report upon the facts rather than conclusions to be drawn from
them, it is deemed wise to give those forms bearing even possible relations
to the Swastika. Certain of them have been accepted by the author as related
to the Swastika, while others have been rejected; but this rejection has
been confined to cases where the known facts seemed to justify another
origin for the symbol, Speculation has been avoided.
The Swastika has been called by different names in different countries, though nearly all countries have in later years accepted the ancient Sanskrit name of Swastika; and this name is recommended as the most definite and certain, being now the most general and, indeed, almost universal. It was formerly spelled s-v-a-s-t-i-c-a and s-u-a-s-t-i-k-a, but the later spelling, both English and French, is s-w-a-s-t-i-k-a. The definition and etymology of the word is thus given in Littre's French Dictionary:
Svastika, or Swastika, a
mystic figure used by several (East) Indian sects. It was equally well
known to the Brahmins as to the Buddhists. Most of the rock inscriptions
in the Buddhist caverns in the west of India are preceded or followed by
the holy (sacramental) sign of the Swastika. (Eug. Burnouf, "Le Lotus de
la bonne loi." Paris, 1852, p.625.) It was seen on the vases and pottery
of Rhodes (Cyprus) and Etruria. (F. Delaunay, Jour. off., Nov. 18, 1873,
p.7024,3d col.)
Etymology: A Sanskrit word
signifying happiness, pleasure, good luck. It is composed of Su (equivalent
of the Greek ev), "good" and asti, "being" "good being," with the suffix
ka (Greek ka, Latin co).
In the "Revue d'Ethnographie"
(iv, 1885, p. 329), Mr. Dumoutier gives the following analysis of the Sanskrit,
swastika:
Su, radical, signifying
good, well, excellent, or suridas, prosperity.
Auti, third person, singular, indicative present of the verbs as, to
be, which is sum in Latin.
Ka, suffix forming the substantive.
Professor Whitney in the
Century Dictionary says, Swastika---[Sanskrit, lit. "of good fortune."
Svasti (Su, well, + asti, being), welfare.] Same as fylfot. Compare Crux
ansata and gammadion.
In "Ilios" (p.347), Max Müller says:
Ethnologically, Svastika
is derived from srasti, and svasti from su, "well," and as, "to be." Svasti
occurs frequently in the Veda, both as a noun in a sense of happiness,
and as an adverb in the sense of "well" or "hail!" It corresponds to the
Greek enedrea, such as are found most frequently among Buddhists and Jainas.
M. Eugèue Burnouf (1) defines the mark Swastika as follows:
A monogrammatic sign of four
branches, of which the ends are curved at right angles, the name signifying,
literally, the sign of benediction or good augury.
The foregoing explanations
relate only to the present accepted name "Swastika." The sign Swastika
must have existed long before the name was given to it. It must have been
in existence long before the Buddhist religion of the Sanskrit language.
In Great Britain the common
name given to the Swastika from Anglo-Saxon times by those who apparently
had no knowledge whence it came, or that it came from any other than their
own country was Fylfot, said to have been derived from the Anglo-Saxon
fower fot, meaning four-footed, or many-footed. (2)
George Waring, in his work entitled "Ceramie Art in Remote Ages"(p.10), says:
The word [Fylfot] is Scandinavian
and is compounded of Old Norse fiël, equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon
fela, German viel, many, and fotr, foot, the many-footed figure.
* * * It is desirable to have some settled name by which to describe
it - we will take the simplest and most descriptive, the "Fylfot."
He thus transgresses one of the oldest and soundest rules of scientific nomenclature, and ignores the fact that the name Swastika has been employed for this sign in the Sanskrit language (the etymology of the word naturally gave it the name Svastika, sv–good or well, asti–to be or being, or it is) and that two thousand and more years of use in Asia and Europe had sanctioned and sanctified that as its name. The use of Fylfot is confined to comparatively few persons in Great Britain and, possibly, Scandinavia. Outside of these countries it is scarcely known, used, or understood.
The Swastika was occasionally
called in the French language, in earlier times, Croix gammée or
Gammadion, from its resemblance to a combination of four of the Greek letters
of that name, and it is was named by count Goblet d'Alviella in his late
work, "La Migration des Symboles." It was called Croix cramponnée,
Croix patté, Croix à crochet. but the consensus even of French
etymologists favors the name Swastika.
Some foreign authors have
called it Thor's hammer, or Thor's hammer-mark, but the correctness of
this has been disputed. (1) Waring, in his work, "Ceramic Art in Remote
Ages," (2) says:
The Swastika used to be vulgarly called in Scandinavia the hammer of
Thor, and Thor's hammer-mark, or the hammer-mark, but this name properly
belongs to the mark .
Ludwig Müller gives it as his opinion
that the Swastika has no connection with the Thor hammer. The best Scandinavian
authors report the "Thor hammer" to be the same as the Greek tau (fig.5),
the same form as the Roman and English capital T. The Scandinavian name
is Mjolnir, the crusher or mallet.
The Greek, Latin, and Tau
crosses are represented in Egyptian hieroglyphics by a hammer or mallet,
giving the idea of crushing, pounding, or striking, and so an instrument
of justice, an avenger of wrong, (3) hence standing for Horus and other
gods. (4) Similar symbolic meanings have been given to these crosses in
ancient classic countries of the Orient. (5)
SYMBOLISM AND INTERPRETATION.
Many theories have been
presented concerning the symbolism of the Swastika, its relation to ancient
deities and its representation of certain qualities. In the estimation
of certain writers it has been respectively the emblem of Zeus, of Baal,
of the sun, of the sun-god, of the sun-chariot of Agni the fire-god, of
Indra the rain-god, of the sky, the sky-god, and finally the deity of all
deities the great God, the Maker and Ruler of the Universe. It has also
been held to symbolize light or the god of light, of the forked lightning,
and of water. It is believed by some to have been the oldest Aryan symbol.
In the estimation of others it represents Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, Creator,
Preserver, Destroyer.
It appears in the footprints of Buddha,
engraved upon the solid rock on the mountains of India (fig.32). It stood
for the Jupiter tonans and Pluvius of the Latins, and the Thor of the Scandinavians.
In the latter case it has been considered- erroneously, however --a variety
of the Thor hammer. In the opinion of at least one author it had an intimate
relation to the Lotus sign of Egypt and Persia. Some authors have attributed
a phallic meaning to it. Others have recognized it as representing the
generative principle of mankind, making it the symbol of the female. Its
appearance on the person of certain goddesses, Artemis, Hera, Demeter,
Astarte, and the Chaldean Nana, the leaden goddess from Hissarlik (fig.125),
has caused it to be claimed as a sign of fecundity.
In forming the foregoing
theories their authors have been largely controlled by the alleged fact
of the substitution and permutation of the Swastika sign on various objects
with recognized symbols of these different deities. The claims of these
theorists are somewhat clouded in obscurity and lost in the antiquity of
the subject. What seems to have been at all times an attribute of the Swastika
is its character as a charm or amulet, as a sign of benediction, blessing,
long life, good fortune, good luck. this character has continued into modern
times, and while the Swastika is recognized as a holy and sacred symbol
by at least one Buddhistic religions sect, it is still used by the common
people of India, China, and Japan as a sign of long life, good wishes,
and good fortune.
Whatever else the sign Swastika
may have stood for, and however many meanings it may have had, it was always
ornamental. It may have been used with any or all the above significations,
but it was always ornamental as well.
The Swastika sign had great
extension and spread itself practically over the world, largely, if not
entirely, in prehistoric times, though its use in some countries has continued
into modern times.
The elaboration of the meanings
of the Swastika indicated above and its dispersion or migrations form the
subject of this paper.
Dr. Schliemann found many
specimens of Swastika in his excavations at the site of ancient Troy on
the hill of Hissarlik. They where mostly on spindle whorls, and will be
described in due course. He appealed to Prof. Max Müller for an explanation,
who, in reply, wrote an elaborate description, which Dr. Schliemann published
in "Ilios (1) "
He commences with a protest
against the word Swastika being applied generally to the sign Swastika,
because it may prejudice the reader or the public in favor of its Indian
origin. He says:
I do not like the use of the word svastika outside of India. It is
a word of Indian origin and has its history and definite meaning in India.
* * * The occurrence of such crosses in different parts of the world may
or may not point to a common origin, but if they are once called Svastika
the vulgas profannum will at once jump to the conclusion that they all
come from India, and it will take some time to weed out such prejudice.
Very little is known of Indian
art before the third century B.C., the period when the Buddhist sovereigns
began their public buildings. (1)
The name Svastika, however,
can be traced (in India) a little farther back. It occurs as the name of
a particular sign in the old grammar of Panani, about a century earlier.
Certain compounds are mentioned there in which the last word is karna "ear.:
* * * One of the signs for marking cattle was the Svastika [fig. 41], and
what Panani teaches in his grammar is that when the compound is formed,
sraxtika-karna, i.e., "having the ear marked with the sign of a Svastika,"
the final a of Svastika is not to be lengthened, while it is lengthened
in other compounds, such as satra-karma, i.e., "having the ear marked with
the sign of a sickle."
D'Alviella (2) reinforces
Max Müller's statement that Panini lived during the middle of the
fourth century, B.C. Thus it is shown that the word Swastika had been in
use at that early period long enough to form an integral part of the Sanskrit
language and that it was employed to illustrate the particular sounds of
the letter and its grammar.
Max Müller continues his explanation: (3)
It [the Swastika] occurs
often at the beginning of the Buddhist inscriptions, on Buddhist coins,
and in Buddhist manuscripts. Historically, the Svastika is first attested
on a coin of Krananda, to be the same kind as Xandrames, the predecessor
of Sandrokyptos, whose reign came to an end in 315 B.C. (See Thomas on
the Identity of Xandrames and Krananda.) The paleographic evidence, however,
seems rather against so early a date. In the footprints of Buddha the Buddhists
recognize no less that sixty-five auspicious signs, the first of them being
the Svastika [see fig.32], (Eugene Burnouf, "Lotus de la bonne loi," p.
625); the fourth is the svastika, or that with the arms turned to the left
[see fig.10]; the third, the Nandyurarta [see fig.14], is a mere development
of the Svastika. Among the Jainas the Svastika was the sign of their seventh
Jina, Suparsva (Colebrooke "Miscellaneous Essays." ii,p.188; Indian Antiquary,
vol. 2,p.135).
In the later Sanskrit literature,
Svastika retains the meaning of an auspicious mark; thus we see in the
Ramayana (ed. Gorresio, ii,p. 348) that Bharata selects a ship marked with
the sign of the Svastika. Varahamihira in the Brihat-samhita (Med. Saee.,vi,p.ch.)
meantions certain buildings called Svastika and Nandyavarta (53,34, seq.),
but their outline does not correspond, very exactly with the form of the
signs. Some sthupas, however, are said to have been built on the plan of
the Svastika. * * * Originally, svastika may have been intended for no
more than two lines crossing each other, or a cross. Thus we find it used
in later times referring to a woman covering her breast with crossed arms
(Balaram, 75.16), svahastasvastika-slani, and likewise with reference to
persons sitting cross-legged.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter
(4) speaking of the Swastika position, either of crossed legs or arms,
among the Hindus (5) , suggest as a possible explanation that these women
bore the Swastikas upon their arms as did the goddess Aphrodite, in fig.8
of his writings, (see fig.180 in the present paper), and when they assumed
the position of arms crossed over their breast, the Swastika being brought
into prominent view, possibly gave the name to the position as being a
representative of the sign.
Max Müller continues (1):
Quite another question is,
why the sign of the Swastika should have had an auspicious meaning, and
why in Sanskrit it should have been called Svastika. The similarity between
the group of letters are in the ancient Indian alphabet and the sign of
Svastika is not very striking, and seems purely accidental.
A remark of yours [Schliemann] (Troy,
p.38) that the Svastika resembles a wheel in motion, the direction of the
motion being indicated by the crampons, contains a useful hint, which has
been confirmed by some important observations of Mr. Thomas, the distinguished
Oriental numismatist, who has called attention to the fact that in the
long list of the recognized devices of the twenty four Jaina Tirthankaras
the sun is absent, but that while the eighth Tirhaukara has the sign of
the half-moon, the seventh Tirthaukara is marked with the Svastika, i.e.,
the sun. Here, then, we have clear indications that the Svastika, with
the hands pointing in the right direction, was originally a symbol of the
sun, perhaps of the vernal sun as opposed to the autumnal sun, the Suarastika,
and, therefore, a natural symbol of light, life, health, and wealth.
But, while from these indications
we are justified in supposing that among the Aryan nations the Svastika
may have been an old emblem of the sun, there are other indications to
show that in other parts of the world the same or a similar emblem was
used to indicate the earth. Mr. Beal * * * has shown * * * that the simple
cross occurs as a sign for earth in certain ideographic groups. It was
probably intended to indicate the four quarters- north, south, east, west--
or, it may be, more generally, extension in length and breadth.
That the cross is used as
a sign for "four" in the Bactro-Pali inscriptions (Max Müller, "Chips
from a German Workshop," Vol. II, p.298) is well known; but the fact that
the same sign has the same power elsewhere, as, for instance, in the Hieratic
numerals, does not prove by any means that the one figure was derived from
the other. We forget too easily that what was possible in one place was
possible also in other places; and the more we extend our researches, the
more we shall learn that the chapter of accidents is larger than we imagine.
The "Suavastika"which Max
Müller names and believes was applied to the Swastika sign, with the
ends bent to the left (fig.10), seems not to be reported with that meaning
by any other author except Burnouf. (2) Therefore the normal Swastika would
seem to be that with the ends bent to the right. Burnouf says the word
Suarastika may be a derivative or development of the Svastikaya, and ought
to signify "he who, or, that which, bears or carries the Swastika or a
species of Swastika." Greg, (3) under the title Sovastikaya, gives it as
his opinion that there is no difference between it and the Swastika. Colonel
Low (4) mentions the word Sawattheko, which, according to Burnouf (5) is
only a variation of the Pali word Sotthika or Suvatthika, the Pali translation
of the Sanskrit Swastika. Burnouf translates it as Svastikaya.
M. Eugene Burnouf (1) speaks
of a third sign of the footprint of Cakya, called Nandavartaya, a good
augury, this meaning being the "circle of fortune," which is the Swastika
inclosed within a square with avenues radiating from the corners (fig.14).
Burnouf says the above sign has many significations. It is a sacred temple
of edifice, a species of labyrinth, a garden of diamonds, a chain, a golden
waist or shoulder belt, and a conique with spires turning to the right.
Colonel Sykes (2) concludes
that, according to the Chinese authorities Fa-hian, Soung Young, Hiuan
thsang, the "Doctors of reason, 'Tao-sse,or followers of the mystic cross
(swastika) were diffused in China and India before the advent of Sakya
in the sixth century B.C. (according to Chinese, Japanese, and Buddhist
authorities, the eleventh century B.C.), continuing until Fa-hian's time;
and that they were professors of a qualified Buddhism, which, it is stated,
was the universal religion of Tibet before Sakya's advent. (3) and continued
until the introduction of orthodox Buddhins in the ninth century A.D. (4)
Klaproth (5) calls attention
to the frequent mention by Fa-hian, of the Tao-see, sectaries of the mystic
cross (swastika) and to their existence in Central Asia and India; while
he says they were diffused over the countries to the west and southwest
of China, and came annually from all kingdoms and countries to adore Kassapo,
Buddha's predecessor. (6) Mr. James Burgess (7) mentions the Tirthankaras
or Jainas as being sectariaus of the Mystic Cross, the Swastika. The Cyclopaedia
of India (title Swastika), coinciding with Prof. Max Müller says:
The Swastika symbol is not
to be confounded with the Swastika sect in Tibet which took the symbol
for its name as typical of the belief of its members. They render the Sanskrit
Swastika as composed of sn "well" and asti "it is" meaning, as Professor
Wilson expresses it, "so be it," and implying complete resignation under
all circumstances. They claimed the Swastika of Sanskrit as the suti of
Pali, and that the Swastika cross was a combination of the two symbols
sutti-suti. They are rationalists, holding that contentment and peace of
mind should be the only objects of life. The next has preserved its existence
in different localities and under different names, Thirthankara, Ter, Musteg,
Pon, the last name meaning purity, under which a remnant are still in the
furthest parts of the most eastern province of Tibet.
General Cunningham (1) adds
his assertion of the Swastika being the symbol used by the Buddhist sect
of that name. he says in a note:
The founder of this sect
flourished about the year 604 to 523 B.C., and that the mystic cross is
a symbol formed by the combination of the two Sanskrit syllables su and
ti-suti.
Waring (2) proceeds to demolish
these statements of a sect named Swastika as pure inventionism, and "consulting
Professor Wilson's invaluable work on the Hindoo religious sects in the
'Asiatic Researches,' we find no account of any sect named Swastika."
My. V. R. Gandhi, a learned
legal gentleman of Bombay, a representative of the Jain sect of Buddhists
to the World's Parliament of Religions at Chicago, 1893, denies that there
is in either India or Tibet a sect of Buddhists named "Swastika". He suggest
that these gentlemen probably mean the sects of Jains (of which Mr. Gandhi
is a member), because this sect uses the Swastika as a sign of benediction
and blessing. This will be treated further on. (see p.804. or chapter 2
Extreme Orient: India)
Zmigrodzki, commenting on
the frequency of the Swastika on the objects found by Dr. Schliemann at
Hissarlik, gives it as his opinion (3) that these representations of the
Swastika have relation to a human cult indicating a supreme being filled
with goodness toward man. the sun, stars, etc., indicate him as a good
of light. this, in connection with the idol of Venus, with its triangular
shield engraved with a Swastika (fig.125), and the growing trees and palms,
with their increasing and multiplying branches and leaves, represent to
him the idea of fecundity, multiplication, increase, and hence the god
of life as well as of light. The Swastika sign on funeral vases indicates
to him a belief in a divine spirit in man which lives after death, and
hence he concludes that the people of Hissarlik, in the "Burnt City" (the
third of Schliemann), adored a supreme being, the god of light and of life,
and believed in the immortality of the soul.
R.P. Greg says: (4)
Originally it [the Swastika]
would appear to have been an early Aryan atmospheric device or symbol indicative
of both rain and lightning, phenomena appertaining to the god Indra, subsequently
or collaterally developing, possibly, into the Suastika, or scared fire
charm in India, and at a still later period in Greece, adopted rather as
a solar symbol, or converted about B.C. 650 into the meander or key pattern.
Waring while he testifies to the extension of the Swastika both in
time and area says: (5)
but neither in the hideous jumble of Pantheism-- the wild speculative thought, mystic fables, and perverted philosophy of life among the Buddhists–nor in the equally wild and false theosophy of the Brahmins, to whom this symbol, as distinctive of the Vishnavas, sectarian devotees of Vishnu, is ascribed by Moor in his "Indian Pantheon," nor yet in the tenets of the Jains, (6) do we find any decisive explanation of the meaning attached to this symbol, although its allegorical intention is indubitable.
He mentions the Swastika
of the Buddhists, the cross, the circle, their combination, the three foot
and adds: "They exhibit forms of those olden and widely spread pagan symbols
of Deity and sanctity, eternal life and blessing."
Professor Sayce says: (7)
The Cyprian vase figured
in Di Cesnols's "Cyprus," pl. xlv, fig.36 [see fig.156],
which associates the Swastika with the figure of an animal, is
a striking analogue of the Trojan whorls on which it is associated with
the figures of stags. The fact that it is drawn within the vulva of the
leadeu image of the Asiatic goddess [see fig.125] seems to show that it
was a symbol of generation. I believe that it is identical with the Cyprian
character or (ne), which has the form in the inscription
of golgi, and also with the Hittite or which Dr. Hyde Clarke
once suggested to me was intended to represent the organs of generation.
Mr. Waller, in his work
entitled "Monumental Crosses," describes the Swastika as having been known
in India as a sacred symbol many centuries before our Lord, and used as
the distinguishing badge of a religious sect calling them selves the "Followers
of the Mystic Cross." Subsequently, he says, it was adopted by the followers
of Buddha and was still later used by Christians at a very early period,
being first introduced on Christian monuments in the sixth century. But
Mr. Waring says that in this he is not correct, as it was found in some
of the early paintings in the Roman catacombs, particularly on the habit
of a Fossor, or gravedigger, given by D'Agincourt.
Pugin, in his "Glossary
of Oranment," under the title "Fylfot," says that Tibet the Swastika was
used as a representation of god crucified for the human race, citing as
his authority F. Augustini Antonii Georgii. (8) He remarks:
From those accounts it would
appear that the fylfot is a mystical ornament, not only adopted among Christians
from primitive times, but used, as if prophetically, for centuries before
the coming of our Lord. To descent to later times, we find it constantly
introduced in ecclesiastical vestments, * * * till the end of the fifteenth
century, a period marked by great departure from traditional symbolism.
Its use was continued in
Tibet into modern times, though its meaning is not given. (9) (see p.802.)
The Rev. G. Cox, in his "Aryan Mythology," says:
We recognize the male and
the female symbol in the trident of Poseidon, and in the fylfot or hammer
of Thor, which assumes the form of a cross-pattice in the various legends
which turn on the rings of Freya, Holda, Venus, or Aphrodite.
Here again we find the fylfot
and cross-pattice spoken of as the same symbol, and as being emblematic
of the reproductive principles, in which view of its meaning Dr. Inman,
in his "Ancient Faiths Embodied in Ancient Names," concurs.
Burnouf (1) recounts the
myth of Agni (from which comes, through the Latin ignis, the English word
igneous), the god of Sacred Fire, as told in the Veda: (2)
The young queen, the mother
of Fire, carried the royal infant mysteriously concealed in her bosom.
She was a woman of the people, whose common name was "Arani" – that is,
the instrument of wood (the Swastika) from which fire was made or brought
by rubbing. * * * the origine of the sign [Swastika] is now easy to recognize.
It represents the two pieces of wood which compose l'arani, of which the
extremities were bent to be retained by the four nails. At the junction
of the two pieces of wood was a fossette or cup-like hole, and there they
placed a piece of wood upright, in form of a lance (the Pramantha), violent
rotation of which, by whipping (after the fashion of top-whipping), produced
fire, as did Prometheus, the porteur du feu, in Greece.
And this myth was made,
as have been others, probably by the priests and poets of succeeding times,
to do duty for different philosophies. The Swastika was made to represent
Arani (the female principle); the Pramantha or upright fire stake representing
Agni the fire god (the male); and so the myth served its part to account
for the birth of fire. Burnouf hints that the myth grew out of the production
of holy fire for the sacred altars by the use of the Pramantha and Swastika,
after the manner of savages in all times. Zmigrodzki accepts this myth,
and claims all specimens with dots or points -- supposed nail holes --
as Swastikas.
The Count Goblet d'Alviella
(3) argues in opposition to the theory announced by Burnouf and by Zmigrodzki,
that the Swastika or croix swasticale, when presenting dots or points,
had relation to fire making. He denies that the points represent nails,
or that nails where made or necessary either for the Swastika or the Arani
, and concludes that there is no evidence to support the theory, and nothing
to show the Swastika to have been used as a fire-making apparatus, whether
with or without the dots or points.
Mr. Greg (4) opposes this entire theory, saying:
The difficulty about the
Swastika and its supposed connection with fire appears to me to lie in
not knowing precisely what the old fire drill and chark were like. * *
* I much doubt whether the Swastika had originally any connection either
with the fire-chark or with the sun. * * * The best authorities consider
Burnouf is in error as for the earlier use of the two lower cross pieces
of wood and the four nails said to have been used to fix or steady the
framework.
He quotes from Tylor's description
(5) of the old fire drill used in India for kindling the sacrificial fire
by the process called "churning," as it resembles that in India by which
butter is separated from milk.
It consists in drilling
one piece of Arani wood by pulling a cord with one hand while the other
is slackened, and so, alternately (the strap drill), till the wood takes
fire. Mr Greg states that the Eskimos use similar means, and the ancient
Greeks used the drill and cord, and he adds his conclusions: "There is
nothing of the Swastika and four nails in connection with the fire-churn."
Burton (6) also criticizes Burnouf's theory:
If used on sacrificial altars to reproduce the holy fire, the practice is peculiar and not derived from everyday life; for as early as Pliny they knew that the savages used two and never three, fire sticks.
Burnouf continues his discussion of myths concerning the origine of fire:
According to Hymnes, the discoverer of fire was Atharan, whose name signifies fire, but Bhrigou it was who made the sacred fire, producing resplendent flames on the earthen altar. In theory of physics, Agni, who was the fire residing within the "onction," (!) came from the milk of the cow, which, in its turn, came from the plants that had nourished her; and these plants in their turn grew by receiving and appropriating the heat or fire of the sun. Therefore, the virtue of the "onction" came from the god.
One of the Vedas says of Agni, the god of fire: (7)
Agni, thou art a sage, a
priest, a king,
Protector, father of the
sacrifice;
Commissioned by our men
thou dost ascend
A messenger, conveying to
the sky
Our hymns and offerings,
though thy origin
Be three feld, now from
air and now from water,
Now from the mystic double
Arani. (8)
Count Goblet d.Alviella combats
the hypothesis of Burnouf that the Swastika when turned to right or left,
passed, the one for the male and the other for the female principle, and
declares, on the authority of Sir George Birdwood, that it is, in modern
India, a popular custom to name objects which appear in couples as having
different sexes, so that to say the pronouns "he" and "she," would be expressed
in the same manner when speaking of the hammer and the anvil or of any
other objects used in pairs. (9)
Ludwig Müller, in his
elaborate treatise, gives it as his opinion that the Swastika had no connection
with the Tau cross or with the Crux ansata, or with the fire wheel, or
with arani, or agni, or with the mystic or alphabetic letters, nor with
the so-called spokes of the solar wheel, nor the forked lightning, nor
the hammer of Thor. He considers that the triskelion might throw light
on its origine, as indicating perpetual whirling or circular movement,
which, in certain parts of southern Asia as the emblem of Zeus, was assimilated
to that of Baal, an inference which he draws from certain Asaiatic coins
of 400 B.C.
Mr R. P. Greg (1) opposes
this theory and expresses the opinion that the Swastika is far older and
wider spread as a symbol that they triskelion, as well as being a more
purely Aryan symbol. Greg says that Ludwig Müller attaches quite too
much importance to the sun in connection with the early Aryans, and lays
too great stress upon the supposed relation of the Swastika as a solar
symbol. The Aryans, he says, were a race not given to sun worship; and,
while he may agree with Müller that the Swastika is an emblem of Zeus
and Jupiter merely as the Supreme God, yet he believes that the origine
of the Swastika had no reference to a movement of the sun through the heavens;
and he prefers his own theory that it was a device suggested by the forked
lightning as the chief weapon of the air god.
Mr. Greg's paper is of great
elaboration, and highly complicated. he devotes an entire page or plate
21 to a chart showing the older Aryan fire, water, and sun gods, according
to the Brahmin or Buddhist system. The earliest was Dyaus, the bright sky
or the air god; Adyti, the infinite expanse, mother of bright gods; Varuna,
the covering of the shining firmament. Out of this trinity came another,
Zeus, being the descendant of Dyaus, the sky god; Agni, the fire; Sulya,
the sun, and Indra, the rain god. These in their turn formed the great
Hindu trinity, Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva -- creator, preserver, and destroyer;
and, in his opnion, the Swastika was the symbol or ordinary device of Indra
as well as of Zeus. He continues his table of descent from these gods,
with their accompanying devices, to the sun, lightning, fire, and water,
and makes almost a complete scheme of the mythology of that period, into
which it is not possible to follow him. However, he declines to accept
the theory of Max Müller of any difference of form or meaning between
the Suavastika and the Swastika because the ends or arms turned to the
right or to the left, and he thinks the two symbols to be substantially
the same. He considers it to have been, in the first instance, exclusively
of early Aryan origine and use, and that down to about 600 B.C. it was
the emblem or symbol of the supreme Aryan god; that it so continued down
through the various steps of descent (according to the chart mentioned)
until it became the device and symbol of Brahma, and finally of Buddha.
He thinks that it may have been the origine of the Greek fret or meander
pattern. Later still it was adopted even by the early Christians as a suitable
variety of their cross, and became variously modified in form and was used
as a charm.
D'Alviella (2) expresses
his doubts concerning the theory advanced by Greg (3) to the effect that
the Swastika is to be interpreted as a symbol of the air or of the god
who dwells in the air, operating sometimes to produce light, other times
rain, then water, and so on , as is represented by the god Indra among
the Hindus, Thor among the Germans and Scandinavians, Perkun among the
Slavs, Zeus among the Pelasig and Greeks, Jupiter Tonans, and Plavius among
the Latins.
He disputes the theory that
the association of the Swastika sign with various others on the same object
proves its relationship with that object or sign. That it appears on vases
or similar objects associated with what is evidently a solar disk is no
evidence to him that the Swastika belongs to the sun, or when associated
with the zigzags of lightning that it represents the god of lightning,
nor the same with the god of heaven. The fact of its appearing either above
or below any one of these is, in his opinion, of no importance and has
no signification, either general or special.
D'Alviella says (4) that
the only example known to him of a Swastika upon a monument consecrated
to Zeus or Jupiter is on a Celto-Roman altar, erected, according to all
appearances, by the Daci during the time they were garrisoned at Ambloganna,
in Britain. The altar bears the letters I.O.M., which have been thought
to stand of Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Swastika theron is flanked by
two disks or ronelles, representative of the sun among the Gaulois. (5)
Dr. Brinton (6) considers
the Swastika as being related to the cross and not the circle, and asserts
that the Ta Ki or Triskeles, the Swastika and the Cross, were originally
of the same signification, or at least closely allied in meaning.
Waring, (7) after citing his authorities, sums up his opinion thus:
We have given remarks of
the various writers on this symbol, and it will be seen that, though they
are more or less vague, uncertain, and confused in their description of
it, still, with one exception they all agree that it is a mystic symbol,
peculiar to some deity or other, bearing a special signification, and generally
believed to have some connection with one of the elements -- water.
Burton says: (8)
The Svastika is apparently
the simplest from of the Guiloche [scroll pattern or spiral]. According
to Wilkinson (11, Chap. IX), the most complicated from of the Guilloche
covered an Egyptian ceiling upward of a thousand years older than the objects
found at Nineveh. The Svastika spread far and wide, everywhere assuming
some fresh mythological and mysterious significance. In the north of Europe
it became the Fylfot or Crutched cross.
Count Goblet d'Alviella
is of the opinion (p. 57) that the Swastika was "above all an amulet, talisman,
or phylactere," while (p. 56) " it is incontestable that a great number
of the Swastikas were simply motifs of ornamentation, of coin marks, and
marks of fabrics," but he agrees (p.57) that there is no symbol that has
given rise to so many interpretations, not even the trucula of the Buddhists,
and "This is a great deal to say." Ludwig Müller believes the Swastika
to have been used as an ornament and as a charm and amulet, as well as
a sacred symbol.
Dr. H. Colley March , in
his learned paper o the "Fylfot and the Futhore Tir," (1) thinks the Swastika
had no relation to fire or fire making or the fire god. His theory is that
it symbolize axial motion and not merely gyration; that it represented
the celestial pole, the axis of the heavens around which revolve the stars
of the firmament. This appearance of rotation is most impressive in the
constellation of the Great Bear. About four thousand years ago the apparent
pivot of rotation was at a Draconis, much nearer the Great Bear than now,
and at that time the rapid circular sweep must have been far more striking
than at present. In addition to the name Ursa Major the Latins called this
constellation Septentriones, "the seven plowing oxen," that dragged the
stars around the pole, and the Greeks called it ilnae, from its vast spiral
movement. (2) In the opinion of Dr. March all these are represented or
symbolized by the Swastika.
Prof. W. H. Goodyear, of
New York, has lately (1891) published an elaborate quarto work entitled
"The Grammar of the Lous: A New History of Classic Ornament as a Development
of sun Worship." (3) It comprises 408 pages, with 76 plates, and nearly
a thousand figures. His theory develops the sun symbol from the lotus by
a series of ingenious and complicated evolutions passing through the Ionic
style of architecture, the volutes and spirals forming meanders or Greek
frets, and from this to the Swastika. The result is attained by the following
line of argument and illustrations:
The lotus was a "fetish
of immemorial antiquity and has been worshiped in many countries from Japan
tot he straits of Gibraltar;" it was a symbol of "fecundity," "life," "immortality,"
and of "resurrection," and has a mortuary significance and use. But its
elementary and most important signification was as a solar symbol. (4)
He describes the Egyptian
lotus and traces it through an innumerable number of specimens and with
great variety of form. He mentions many of the sacred animals of Egypt
and seeks to maintain their relationship by or through the lotus, not only
with each other but with solar circles and the sun worship. (5)
Direct association of the
solar disk and lotus are, according to him, common on the monuments and
on Phoenician and Assyrian seals; while the lous and the sacred animals,
as in cases cited of the goose representing Seb (solar god, and father
of Osiris), also Osiris himself and Horus, the hawk and lotus, bull and
lotus, the asp and lotus, the lion and lotus, the sphinx and lotus, the
gryphon and lotus, the serpent and lotus, the ram and lotus -- all of which
animals, and with them the lotus, have, in his opnion, some related signification
to the sun or some of his deities. (6)
He is of the opinion that
the lotus motif was the foundation of the Egyptian style of architecture,
and that it appeared at n early date, say, the fourteenth century B.C.
By intercommunication with the Greeks it formed the foundation of the Greek
Ionic capital, which, he says, (7) "offers no dated example of the earlier
time than the sixth century B.C." He supports this contention by authority,
argument, and illustration. He shows (8) the transfer of the lotus motif
to Greece, and its use as an ornament on the painted vases and on those
from Cyprus, Rhodes, and Melos (fig. 15 ,16, 17). Chantre (9) bites the
presence of spirals similar to those of fig.17, in the terramares of northern
Italy and up and down the Danube, and his fig. 186 (fig. 17) he says represents
the decorating motif, the most frequent in all that part of prehistoric
Europe. He cites "Notes sur les torques on ornaments spirals." (10)
That the lotus had a foundation
deep and wide in Egyptian mythology is not to be denied; that it was allied
to and associated on the monuments and other objects with many sacred and
mythologic characters in Egypt and afterwards in Greece is accepted. How
far it extends in the direction contended for by Professor Goodyear, is
no part of this investigation. It appears well established that in both
countries it became highly conventionalized, and it is quite sufficient
for the purpose of this argument that it became thus associated with the
Swastika. Figs. 18 and 19 represent details of Cyprian vases and amphora
belonging to the Cesnola collection in the New York Metropolitan Museum
of Art, showing the lotus with curling sepals among which are interspersed
Swastikas of different forms.
According to Professor Goodyear,
(1) these bent sepals of the lotus were exaggerated and finally became
spirals, (2) which, being projected at a tangent, made volutes, and continuing
one after the other , as shown in fig. 20, formed bands of ornament; or,
(3) being connected to right and left, spread the ornament overran extended
surface as in fig. 21. One of his paths of evolution closed these volutes
and dropped the connecting tangent, when they formed the concentric rings
of which we see so much. Several forms of Egyptian scarabæi, showing
the evolution of concentric rings, are shown in figs. 22, 23, and 24.
By another path of the evolution
of his theory, on has only to square the spiral volutes, and the result
is the Greek fret shown in fig. 25. (4) The Greek fret has only to be doubled,
when it produces the Swastika shown in fig. 26. (5) Thus we have, according
to him the origins of the Swastika, as shown in figs. 27 and 28. (6) Professor
Goodyear is authority for the statement that the earliest dated instances
of the isolates scroll is in the fifth dynasty of Egypt, and of the lotus
and spiral is in the eleventh dynasty. The spiral of fig. 19 (above) belongs
th the twelfth dynasty. (7)
Professor Good year devotes an entire chapter to the Swastika. On pages 352, 353 he says:
There is no proposition in archæology which can be so easily demonstrated as the assertion that the Swastika was originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, provided Greek geometric vases are called in evidence. The connection between the meander and the Swastika has been long since suggested by Prof. A. S. Murray. (8) Hindu specialists have suggested that the Swastika produced the meander. Birdwood (9) says: "I believe the Swastika to be the origine of the key pattern ornament of Greek and Chinese decorative art." Zmigrodski, in a recent publication, (10) has not only repropsed this derivation of the meander, but has connected the Mycenæ spirals with this supposed development, and has proposed to change the name of the spiral oranment accordingly. * * * The Equivalence of the Swastika witht the meander pattern is suggested, in the first instance, by its appearance in the shape of the meander of the Rhodian (pl. 28, fig. 7), Melian (pl, 60 fig. 8), arcæie Greek (pl. 60, fig. 9, and pl. 61, fig. 12)m, and Greek geometric vases (pl. 56). The appearance in shape of the meander may be verified in the British Museum on one geometric vase of the oldest type, and it also occurs in the Louvre.
On page 354, Goodyear says:
The solar significance of the Swastika is
proven by the Hindu coins of the Jains. Its generative significance is
proven by a leaden statuette from Troy. It is an equivalent of the lotus
(pl. 47 figs. 1, 2, 3), of the solar diagram (pl. 57, fig.12, and pl. 60,
fig. 8), of the rosette (pl. 20, fig. 8), of concentric rings (pl. 47,
fig. 11), of the spiral scroll (pl. 34, fig. 8, and pl. 39, fig. 2) of
the geometric boss (pl. 48, fig. 12), of the triangle (pl. 46, fig. 5),
and of the anthemion (pl. 28, fig 7, and pl. 30, fig. 4). It appears with
the solar deer (pl. 60, figs. 1 and 2), with the solar antelope (pl. 37,
fig. 9), with the symbolic fish (pl. 42, fig. 1), with the ibex (pl. 37,
fig. 4) with the solar sphinx (pl. 34, fig. 8), with the solar lion (pl.
30, fig. 4), the solar ram (pl. 28, fig 7), and the solar horse (pl. 61,
figs. 1, 4, 5, and 12). Its most emphatic and constant association is with
the solar bird. (pl. 60, fig. 15; fig. 173).
Count Goblet d, Alviella,
following Ludwig Müller, Percy Gardner, S. Beal, Edward Thomas, Max
Müller, H. Gaidoz, and other authors, accepts their theory that the
Swastika was a symbolic representation of the sun or of a sun god, and
argues it fully. (1) he starts with the proposition that most of the nations
of the earth have represented the sun by a circle, although some of them
notably the Assyrians, Hindus, Greeks, and Celts, have represented it by
signs more or less cruciform. Examining his fig. 2, wherein signs of the
various people are set forth, it is to be remarked that there is no similarity
or apparent relationship between the six symbols given, either with themselves
or with the sun. Only one of them, that of Assyria, pretends to be a circle;
and it may or may not stand for the sun. It has no exterior rays. All the
rest are crosses of different kinds. Each of the six symbols is represented
as being from a single nation of people. They are prehistoric or of high
antiquity, and most of them appear to have no other evidence of their representation
of the sun than is contained in the sign itself, so that the first objection
is to the premises, to wit, that while his symbols may have some times
represented the sun, it is far from certain that they are used constantly
or steadily as such. An objection is made to the theory or hypothesis presented
by Count d'Alviella (2) that it is not the cross part of the Swastika which
represents the sun, but its bent arms, which show the revolving motion,
by which he says is evolved the tetraskelion or what in this paper is named
the "Ogee Swastika."
The author is more in accord
with Dr. Brinton and others that the Swastika is derived from the cross
and not from the wheel, that the bent arms do not represent rotary or gyratory
motion, and that it had no association with, or relation to , the circle.
This, if true, relieves the Swastika from all relation with the circle
as a symbol of the sun. Besides, it is not believed that the symbol of
the sun is one which required rotary or gyratory motion or was represented
by it, but, as will be explained, in speaking of the Assyrian sun-god Shamash
(. 789), it is rather by a circle with pointed rays extending outward.
D'Alviella (3) presents
several figures in support of his contention. The first (a) is on a fibula
from Etrnria (fig. 190 of this paper). His explanation is that the small
circle of rays, bent at right angles, on the broad shield of the pin, represents
graphically the rotary movement of the sun and that they bent arms in the
Swastika on the same object are taken from them. It seems curious that
so momentous a subject as the existence of a symbol of a great god, the
god of light, heat, and thus of life, should be made to depend upon an
object of so small importance. This specimen (fig. 190) is a bifula or
pin, one of the commonest objects of Etruscan, Greek, or Roman dress. The
decorations invoked are on the broad end, which has been flattened to protect
the point of the pin, where appears a semicircle of so-called rays, the
two Swastikas and two possible crosses. There is nothing about this pin,
nor indeed any of the other objects, to indicated any holy or sacred character,
nor that any of them were used in any ceremony having relation to the sun,
to any god, or to anything holy or sacred. His fig. b is fig. 88 in this
paper. It shows a quadrant of the sphere found by Schliemann at Hissarlik.
There is a slightly indefinite circle with rays from the outside, which
are bent and crooked in many directions. The sphere is of terra cotta;
The marks that have been made on it are rough and ill formed. They were
made by incision while the clay was soft and were done in the rudest manner.
There are dozens more marks upon the same sphere, none of which seem to
have received any consideration in this regard. There is a Swastika upon
the sphere, and it is the only mark or sign upon the entire object that
seems to have been made with care or precision. His third figure (c) is
taken from a reliquaire of the thirteenth century A.D. It has a greater
resemblance to the acanthus plant than it has to any solar disk imaginable.
The other two figures (d and e) are tetraskelions or ogee Swastikas from
ancient coins.
D'Alviella's next argument
(4) is that the triskelion, formed by the same process as the tetraskelion,
is an "incontestable" representation of solar movement.
No evidence is submitted
in support of this assertion, and the investigator of the present day is
required, as in prehistoric objects, to depend entirely upon the object
itself. The bent arms contain no innate evidence (even though they should
be held to represent rotary or gyratory motion) representing the sun or
sun gods. It is respectfully suggested that in times of antiquity, as in
modern times, the sun is not represented as having a rotary motion, but
is rather represented by a circle with diminishing rays projecting from
the center or exterior. It seems unjustifiable, almost rediculous, to transform
the three flexed human legs, first appearing on the coins of Lycia, into
a sun symbol, to make it the reliable evidence of sun worship, and give
it a holy or sacred character as representing a god. It is surely pushing
the argument too far to say that this is an "incontestable" representation
of the solar movement. The illustrations by d'Alviella on his page 71 are
practically the same as figs. 224 to 226 of this paper.
Count d'Alviella's further
argument (1) is that symbols of the sun god being frequently associated,
alternated with, and sometimes replaced by, the Swastika, proves it to
have been a sun symbol. But this is doubted, and evidence to sustain the
proposition is wanting. Undoubtedly the Swastika was a symbol, was intentional,
had a meaning and degree of importance, and, while it may have been intended
to represent the sun and have a higher and holier character, yet these
mere associations are not evidence of the fact.
D'Alviella's plate 2, page
80, while divided into sections a and b, is filled only with illustrations
of Swastika associated with circles, dots, etc., introduced for the purpose
of showing the association of the Swastika therewith, and that the permutation
and replacing of these signs by the Swastika is evidence that the Swastika
represented the sun. Most of the same illustrations are presented in this
paper, and it is respectfully submitted that they evidence does not bear
out his conclusion. If it be established that these other symbols are representatives
of the sun, how does that prove that they Swastika was itself a representative
of the sun or the sun god? D'Alviella himself argues (2) against the proposition
of equivalence of meaning because of association when applied to the Crux
ansata, the circle, the crescent, the triskelion, the lightning sign, and
other symbolic figures. He denies that because the Swastika is found on
objects associated with these signs therefore they became interchangeable
in meaning, or that the Swastika stood for any of them. The Count²
says that more likely the engraver added the Swastika to these in the character
of a talisman or phylactery. On page 56 he argues n the same line, that
because it is found on an object of sacred character does not necessarily
give it the signification of a sacred or holy symbol. He regards the Swastika
as a symbol of good fortune, and sees no reason why it may not be employed
as an invocation to a god of any name or kind on the principle, "Good Lord,
good devil," quoting the Neapolitan proverb, that it will do no harm, and
possibly may do good.
Prof. Max Müller (3)
refers to the discovery by Prof. Perey Gardner of one of the coins of Mesembria,
whereon the Swastika replaces the last two syllables of the word, and he
regards this as decisive that in Greece the meaning of the Swastika was
equivalent to the sun. This word, Mesembria, being translated ville de
midi, means town or city of the south, or the sun. He cites from Mr. Thomas's
paper on the "Indian Swastika and its Western Counterparts" (4) what he
considers an equally decisive discovery made some years ago, wherein it
was shown that the wheel, the emblem of the sun in motion, was replaced
by the Swastika on certain coins; likewise on some of the Andhra coins
and some punched gold coins noted by Sir Walter Elliott. (5) In these cases
the circle or wheel alleged to symbolize the sun was replaced by the Swastika.
The Swastika has been sometimes inscribed within the rings or normal circles
representing what is said to be the four suns on Ujain patterns or coins
(fig. 230). Other authorities have adopted the same view, and have extended
ti to include the lightning, the storm, the fire wheel, the sun chariot,
etc. (See Ohnefalseh-Richter, p. 790) This appears to be a non sequitur.
All these speculations may be correct, and all these meanings may have
been given to the Swastika, but the evidence submitted does not prove the
fact. There is in the case of the foregoing coins no evidence yet presented
as to which sign, the wheel or the Swastika, preceded and which followed
in point of time. The Swastika may have appeared first instead of last,
and may not have been a substitution for the disk, but an original design.
The disk employed, while possibly representing the sun in some places,
may not have done so always not in this particular case. It assumes too
much to say that every time a small circle appears on an ancient object
it represented the sun, and the same observation can be made with regard
to symbols of the other elements. Until it shall have been satisfactorily
established that the symbols represented these elements with practical
unanimity, and that the Swastika actually and intentionally replaced it
as such, the theory remains undemonstrated, the burden rests on those who
take the affirmative side; and until these points shall have been settled
with some degree of probability the conclusion in not warranted.
As an illustration of the
various significations possible, one has but to turn to Chapter IV, on
the various meanings given to the cross among the American Indians, where
it is shown that among these Indians the cross represented the four winds,
the sun, stars, dwelling, the dragon fly, midé society, flocks of
birds, human form, maidenhood, evil spirit, and divers others.
Mr. Edward Thomas, in his work entitled "The Indian Swastika and its Western Counterparts,"(1) says:
As far as I have been able
to trace or connect the various manifestations of this emblem [the Swastika],
they one and all resolve themselves into the primitive conception of solar
motions, which was intuitively associated with the rolling or wheel-like
projection of the sun through the upper or visible area of the heavens,
as understood and accepted in the crude astronomy of the ancients. The
earliest phase of astronomical science we are at present in the position
to refer to, with the still extent aid of indigenous diagrams, is the Chaldean.
The representation of the sun in this system commences with a simple ring
or outline circle, which is speedily advanced toward the impression of
onward revolving motion by the insertion of a cross or four wheel-like
spokes within the circumference of the normal ring. As the original Chaldean
emblem of the sun was typified by a single ring, so the Indian mind adopted
a similar definition, which remains to this day as the ostensible device
or east-mark of the modern Sauras or sun worshipers.
The same remarks are made
in "Ilios" (pp. 353, 354). The author will not presume to question, much
less deny, the facts stated by this learned gentleman, but it is to be
remarked that, on the theory of presumption, the circle might represent
many other things than the sun, and unless the evidence in favor of the
foregoing statement is susceptible of verification, the theory can hardly
be accepted as conclusive. Why should not the circle represent other things
than the sun? In modern astronomy the full moon is represented by the plain
circle, while the sun, at least in heraldry is always represented as a
circle with rays. It is believed that the "cross or four wheel like spokes"
in the Chaldean emblem of the sun will be found to be rays rather that
cross or spokes. A cast is in the U.S. National Museum (Cat. No. 154766)
of an original specimen from Niffer, now in the Royal Museum, Berlin, of
Shamash, the Assyrian god of the sun. He is represented on this monument
by a solar disk, 4 inches in diameter, with eight rays similar to those
of stars, their bases on a faint circle at the center, and tapering outwards
to a point, the whole surrounded by another faint circle. This is evidence
that the sun symbol of Assyria required rays as well as a circle. A similar
representation of the sun god is found on a tablet discovered in the temple
of the Sun God at Abu-Habba.(2)
Perrot and Chipiez (3) show
a tablet from Sippara, of a king, Nabuabal-iddin, 900 B.C., doing homage
to the sun god (identified by the inscription), who is represented by bas-relief
of a small circle in the center, with rays and lightning zigzags extending
to an outer circle.
In view of these authorities
and others which might be cited, it is questionable whether the plain circle
was continuously a representation of the sun in the Chaldean or Assyrian
astronomy.
It is also doubtful whether,
if the circle did represent the sun, the insertion of the cross of the
four wheel-like spokes necessarily gave the impression of "onward revolving
motion;" or whether any or all of the foregoing afford a satisfactory basis
for the origin of the Swastika or fot its relation to, or representation
of, the sun or the sun god.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter
(4) announces as his opinion that the Swastika in Cyprus had nearly always
a signification more or less religious and sacred, though it may have been
used as an ornament to fill empty spaces. He attributes to the Croix swasticale
– or, as he calls it, Croix cantonée-- the equivalence of the solar
disk, zigzag lightning, and double hatchet; while to the Swastika proper
he attributes the signification of rain, storm, lightning, sun, light,
seasons, and also that it lends itself easily to the solar disk, the fire
wheel, and the sun chariot.
Greg (5) says:
Considered finally, it may
be asked if the fylfot or gammadion was an early symbol of the sun, or,
if only an emblem of the solar revolutions or movements across the heavens,
why it was drawn square rather than curved: The (fig. j), even if
used in a solar sense, must have implied something more than, or something
distinct from , the sun, who’s proper and almost universal symbol was the
circle. It was evidently more connected with the cross (fig. h) than
with the circle (fig. i) or solar disk.
Dr. Brinton (6) considers
the Swastika as derived from the cross rather than from the circle, and
the author agrees that this is probable, although it may be impossible
of demonstration either way.
Several authors, among the
rest d'Alviella, Greg, and Thomas, have announced the theory of the evolution
of the Swastika, beginning with the Triskelion, thence to the tetraskelioin,
and so to the Swastika. A slight examination is sufficient to overturn
this hypothesis. In the first place, the triskelion, which is the foundation
of this hypotheses, made its first appearance on the coins of Lyeia. But
this appearance was within what is called the first period of coinage,
to wit, between 700 and 480 BC, and it did not become settled until the
second, and even the third period, 280 to 240 BC, when it migrated to Sicily.
But the Swastika had already appeared in Armenia, on the hill of Hissarlik,
in the terramares of northern Italy, and on the hut-urns of southern Italy
many hundred, possibly a thousand or more, years prior to that time. Count
d'Alviella, in his plate 3 (see Chart I, p. 794), assigns it ti a period
of the fourteenth or thirteenth century BC, with an unknown and indefinite
past behind it. It is impossible that a symbol which first appeared in
480 BC could have been the ancestor of one which appeared in 1400 or 1300
BC, nearly a thousand years before.
William Simpson (1) makes observations upon the latest discoveries
regarding the Swastika and gives his conclusion:
* * * The finding of the Swastika in America gives a very wide geographical space that is included by the problems connected with it, but it is wider still, for the Swastika is found over the most of the habitable world, almost literally "from China to Peru," and it can be traced back to a very early period. The latest idea formed regarding the Swastika is that it may be a form of the old wheel symbolism and that it represents a solar movement, or perhaps, in a sideral sense, the whole celestial movement of the starts. The Dharmachakra, or Buddhist wheel, of which the so-called "praying wheel" of the Lamas of Thibet is only a variant , can now be shown to have represented the solar motion. It did not originate with the Buddhists; they borrowed it from the Brahminical system to the Veda, where it is called "The wheel of the sun." I have lately collected a large amount of evidence on this subject, being engaged in writing upon it, and the numerous passages from the old Brahminical authorities leave no doubt in the matter. The late Mr. Edward Thomas * * * and Prof. Percy Gardner * * * declared that on some Andhra gold coins and one from Mesembria, Greece, the part of the word which means day, or when the sun shines, is represented by the Swastika. These details will be found in a letter published in the "Athenæum" of August 20, 1892, written by Prof. Max Müller, who affirms that it "is decisive" as to the meaning of the symbol in Greece. This evidence may be "decisive" for India and Greece, but it does not make us quite certain about other parts of the world. Still it raises a strong presumption that its meaning is likely to be some what similar wherever the symbol is found. It is now assumed that the Triskelion or three legs of the Isle of Man is only a variant of the Swastika. * * * There are many variants besides this in which the legs, or limbs, differ in number, and they may all be classed as whorls, and were probably all, more or less, forms intended originally to express motion. As the subject is too extensive to be fully treated here, and many illustrations would be necessary, to those wishing for further details I would recommend a work just published entitled "The Migration of symbols," by Count Goblet d'Alviella, with an introduction by Sir George Birdwood. The frontispiece of the book is a representation of Apollo, from a vase in the Knsthistorisches Museum of Vienna, and on the middle of Apollo's breast there is a large and prominent Swastika. In this we have another instance going far to show its solar significance. While accepting these new interpretations of the symbol, I am still inclined to the notion that the Swastika may, at the same time, have been looked upon in some cases as a cross-- that is, a pre-Christian cross, which now finds acceptance by some authorities as representing the four cardinal points. The importance of the cardinal points in primitive symbolism appears to me to have been very great, and has not as yet been fully realized. This is too large a matter to deal with here. All I can state is, that the wheel in India was connected with the title of a Chakrarartin-- from Chakra, a wheel-- the title meaning a supreme ruler, or a universal monarch, who ruled the four quarters of the world, and on his coronation he had to drive his chariot, or wheel, to the four cardinal points to signify his conquest of them. Evidence of other ceremonies of the same kind in Europe can be produced. From instances such as these, I am inclined to assume that the Swastika, as a cross, represented the four quarters over which the solar power by its revolving motion carried its influence.
ORIGIN AND HABITAT.
Prehistoric archaeologists
have found in Europe many specimens of ornamental sculpture and engraving
belonging to the Paleolithic age, but the cross is not known in any form,
Swastika or other. In the Neolithic age, which spread itself over nearly
the entire world, with many geometric forms of decoration, no form of the
cross appears in times of high antiquity as a symbol or as indicating any
other than an ornamental purpose.
In the age of bronze, however,
the Swastika appears, intentionally used, as a symbol as well as an ornament.
Whether its first appearance was in the Orient, and its spread thence throughout
prehistoric Europe, or whether the reverse was true, may not now be determined
with certainty. It is believed by some to be involved in that other warmly
disputed and much-discussed question as to the locality or origins and
the mode and routes of dispersion of Aryan peoples. There is evidence to
show that it belongs to an earlier epoch than this, and relates to the
similar problem concerning the locality or origin and the mode and routes
of the dispersion of bronze. Was bronze discovered in eastern Asia and
was its migration westward through Europe, or was it discovered on the
Mediterranean, and its spread thence! The Swastika spread through the same
countries as did the bronze, and there is every reason to believe them
to have proceeded contemporaneously -- whether at their beginning or not,
is understandable.
The first appearance of
the Swastika was apparently in the Orient, precisely in what country it
is impossible to say, but probably in central and southeastern Asia among
the forerunners or predecessors of the Brahmins and Buddhists. At all events,
a religious and symbolic signification was attributed to ti by the earliest
known peoples of these localities.
M. Michale Zmigrodski, a
Polish scholar, public librarian at Such a, near Craeow, prepared and sent
to the World's Columbian Exposition at Chicago an manuscript chart in French,
showing his opinion of the migration of the Swastika, which was displayed
in the Woman's Building. It is arranged in groups: The prehistoric (or
Pagan) and Christian. These were divided geographically and with an attempt
at chronology, as follows:
I. Prehistoric:
1. India and Bactria.
2. Cyprus, Rhodes.
3. North Europe.
4. Central Europe.
5. South Europe.
6. Asia Minor.
7. Greek and Roman epoch -- Numismatics.
II. Christian:
8. Gaul -- Numismatics.
9. Byzantine.
10. Merovingian and Carlovingian.
11. Germany.
12. Poland and Sweden.
13. Great Britain.
Lastly he introduces a group
of the Swastika in the nineteenth century. He presented figures of Swastikas
from these localities and representing these epochs. He had a similar display
at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which at this close was deposited in the
St. Germain Prehistoric Museum. I met M. Zmigrodski at the Tenth International
Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archaeology in Paris, and heard
him present the results of his investigations on the Swastika. I have since
corresponded with him, and he has kindly sent me separates of his paper
published in the Archives für Ethnographie, with 266 illustrations
of the Swastika; but on asking his permission to sue some of the information
in the chart at Chicago, he informed me he had already given the manuscript
chart and the right to reproduce it to the Chicago Folk-Lore Society. The
Secretary of this society declined to permit it to pass out of its possession,
though proffering inspection of it in Chicago.
In his elaborate dissertation
Count Goblet d'Alviella (2) shows an earlier and prehistoric existence
of the Swastika before its appearance on the hill of Hissarlik. From this
earlier place of origin it, according to him, spread to the Bronze age
terramares of northern Italy. All this was prior to the thirteenth century
B.C. From the hill of Hissarlik ti spread east and west; to the east into
Lycaonia and Caneasus, to the west into Mycenae and Greece; first on the
pottery and then on the coins. From Greece it also spread east and west;
east to Asia Minor and west to Thrace and Macedonia. From the terramares
he follows it through the Villanova epoch, through Etruruia and Grand Greece,
to Sicily, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, to all of which migration
he assigns various dates down to the second century BC it developed westward
from Asia Minor to northern Africa and to Rome, with evidence in the Catacombs;
on the eastward it goes into India, Persia, China, Tibet, and Japan. All
this can be made apparent upon examination of the plate itself. It is introduced
as Chart I, p. 794.
The Author enters into no
discussion with Count d.Alviella over the correctness or completeness of
the migrations set forth in his chart. It will be conceded, even by its
author, to be largely theoretical and impossible to verify by positive
proof. He will only contend that there is a probability of its correctness.
It is doubted whether he can maintain his proposition of the constant presence
or continued appearance of the Swastika on altars, idols, priestly vestments,
and sepulchral urns, and that this demonstrates the Swastika to have always
possessed the attributes of a religious symbol. It appears to have been
used more frequently upon the smaller and more insignificant things of
every day life-- the household utensils, the arms, weapons, the dress,
the fibulae, and the pottery; and while this may be consonant with the
attributes of the talisman or amulet or charm, it is still compatible with
the theory of the Swastika being a sign or symbol for benediction, blessing,
good fortune, or good luck; and that it was rather this than a religious
symbol.
Count Goblet d'Alviella, in the fourth section of the second chapter (1) relating to the country of its origins, argues that the Swastika sign was employed by all the Aryans except the Persians. This omission he explains by showing that the Swastika in all other lands stood for the sun or for the sun-god, while the Aryans of Persia had other signs for the same thing-- the Crux ansata and the winged globe. His conclusion is (2) that there were two zones occupied with different symbols, the frontier between them being from Persia, through Cyprus, Rhodes and Asia Minor, to Libya; that the first belonged to the Greek civilization, which employed the Swastika as a sun symbol; the second to the Egypto-Babylonian, which employed the Crux ansata and the winged globe as sun symbols.
Professor Sayce, in his preface to "Troja," says: (3)
The same symbol [the Swastika],
as is well known, occurs o the Archaic pottery of Cyrprus * * * as well
as upon the prehistoric antiquities of Athens and Mykenae [same, "Ilios,"
p. 353], but it was entirely unknown to Babylonia, to Assyria, to Phoenicia,
and to Egypt. It must therefore either have originated in Europe and spread
eastward through Asia Minor or have been disseminated westward from the
primitive home of the Hittites. The latter alternative is the more probably;
but whether it is so or not, the presence of the symbol in the land of
the Aegean indicates a particular epoch and the influence of a pre-Phoenician
culture.
Dr. Schleimann (4) reports
that "Rev. W. Brown Keer observed the Swastika innumerable times in the
most ancient Hindu temples, especially those of the Jainas."
Max Müller cites the following paragraph by Professor Sayce:(5)
It is evident to me that
the sign found at Hissarlik is identical with that found at Mycenae and
Athens, as well as on the prehistoric pottery of Cyprus (Di Cesnola, Cyprus,
pla. 44 and 47), since the general artistic character of the objects with
which this sign is associated in Cyprus and Greece agrees with that of
the objects discovered in Troy. The Cyprian vase [fig. 156, this paper]
figured in DI Cesnola's "Cyrprus," pl. 45, which associates the Swastika
with the figure of an animal, is a striking analogue of the Trojan whorls,
on which it is associated with the figure of the stags. The fact that it
is drawn within the vulva of the leaden image on the Asiatic goddess shown
in fig. 226 ("Ilios," fig. 125 this paper) seems to show that it was a
symbol of generation.
Count Goblet d'Alviella,(6) citing Albert Dumont (7) and Perrot and
Chipiez, (8) says:
The Swastika appears in
Greece, as well as in Cyprus and Rhodes, first on the pottery, with geometric
decorations, which from the second period in Greek ceramics. From that
it passes to a later period, where the decoration is more artistic and
the appearance of which coincides with the development of the Phoenician
influences on the coasts of Greece.
Dr. Ohenfalsch- Richter,
in a paper devoted to the consideration of the Swastika in Cyprus, (9)
expresses the opinion that the emigrant or commercial Phoenicians traveling
in far eastern countries brought the Swastika by the sea route of the Persian
Gulf to Asia Minor and Cyprus, while, possibly, other people brought it
by the overland route from central Asia, Asia Minor, and Hissarlik, and
afterwards by migration to Cyprus, Carthage, and the north of Africa.
Professor Goodyear says: (10)
The true home of the Swastika
is the Greek geometric style, as will be immediately obvious to every expert
who examines the question through the study of that style. In seeking the
home of a symbol, we should consider where it appears in the largest dimension
and where it appears in the most formal and prominent way. The Greek geometric
vases are the only monuments on which the Swastika systematically appears
in panels exclusively assigned to it (pl. 60, fig. 13; and pl. 56, fig.
4). There are no other monuments on which the Swastika can be found in
a dimension taking up one-half the height of the entire object (pl. 56,
fig. 4). The ordinary size of the Swastika, in very primitive times, is
under a third of an inch n diameter. They are found in Greek geometric
pottery 2 or 3 inches in diameter, but they also appear in the informal
scattering way (pl. 61, fig. 4) which characterizes the Swastika in other
styles.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Swastika dates from
the earliest diffusion of the Egyptian meander in the basin of the Mediterranean,
and it is a profound remark of De Morgan (Mission Scientigique and Caucase)
that the area of the Swastika appears to be coextensive with the area of
bronze. In northern prehistoric Europe, where the Swastika has attracted
considerable attention, it is distinctly connected with the bronze culture
derived from the south. When found on prehistoric pottery of the north,
the southern home of its beginnings is equally clear.
In seeking the home of a
symbol, we should consider not only the nature of its appearance, but also
where it is found in the largest amount, for this shows the center of vogue
and power-- that is to say, the center of diffusion. The vogue of the Swastika
at Troy is not as great as its vogue in Cyprian Greek pottery (pl. 60,
fig. 15) and Rhodian pottery (pl. 60, fig. 2). * * * It is well known to
Melian vases (pl. 60, fig. 8) and to archaic Greek vases (pl. 61, fig.
12), but its greatest prominence is on the pottery of the Greek geometric
style (pl. 60 fig. 13; pl. 56, fig. 4; pl. 61, figs. 1 and 4; and figs.
173 and 174). * * *
Aside from the Greek geometric
style, our earliest reference for the Swastika, and very possibly an earlier
reference than the first, is its appearance on the "hut urns" of Italy.
On such it appears rather as a fragment of the more complicated meander
patterns, from which it is derived. My precise view is that the earliest
and, consequently, imperfect, forms of the Swastika are on the hut urns
of Italy, but that, as an independent and definitely shaped pattern, it
first belongs to the Greek geometric style. I do not assert that the Swastika
is very common on hut urns, which are often undecorated. * * * Our present
intermediate link with India for the Swastika lies in the Caucasus and
in the adjacent territory of Koban. This last ancient center of the arts
in metal has lately attracted attention through the publication of Virehow
(Das Gräborfeld von Koban). In the original Coban bronzes of the Prehistoric
Museum of St. Germain there is abundant matte for study (p. 351).
Mr. R. P. Greg, in "Fret or Key Ornamentation in Mexico and Peru,"(11) says:
Both the Greek fret and the fylfot appear to have been unknown to the Semitic nations as an ornament or as a symbol.
In Egypt the fylfot does not occur. It is, I believe, generally admitted or supposed that the fylfot is of early Aryan origin. Eastward toward India, Tibet, and China it was adopted, in all probability, as a sacred symbol of Buddha; westward it may have spread in one form or another to Greece, Asia Minor, and even to North Germany.
Cartailhac says: (1)
Modern Christian archaeologists
have obstinately contended that the Swastika was composed of four gamma,
and so have called it the Croix Gammé. But the Ramayana placed it
on the boat of the Rama long before they had any knowledge of Greek. It
is found on a number of Buddhist edifices; the Sectarians of Vishnu placed
it as a sign upon their foreheads. Burnouf says it is the Aryan sign par
excellence. It was surely a religious emblem in use in India fifteen centuries
before the Christian era, and thence it spread to every part. In Europe
it appeared about the middle of the civilization of the bronze age, and
we find it, pure or transformed into a cross, on a mass of objects in metal
or pottery during the first age or iron. Sometimes its lines were rounded
and given a graceful curve instead of straight and square at this ends
and angles. [See letter by Gandhi, pp. 803, 805.]
M. Cartailhac notes (2)
several facts concerning the associations of the Swastika found by him
in Spain and Portugal and belonging to the first (prehistoric) age of iron:
[1] The Swastika was associated with the silhouettes of the duck , or bird,
similar to those in Greece, noted by Goodyear; [2] the association (in
fig. 41) on a slab from the lake dwellings, of the Maltese cross and reproduction
of the triskelion; [3] a tetraskelion, which he calls a Swastika "flamboyant,"
being the triskelion, but with four arms, the same shown on Lyeian coins
as being ancestors of the true triskelion (his fig. 412); [4] those objects
were principally found in the ancient lake dwellings of Sambroso and Briteiros,
supposedly dating from the eighth and ninth centuries B. C. With them were
found many ornaments, borders representing cords, spirals, meanders, ect.,
which had the same appearance as those found by Schliemann at Mycenae.
Cartailhac says: (3)
Without doubt Asiatic influences
are evident in both cases; first appearing in the Troad, then in Greece,
they were spread through Iberia and , possibly, who can tell, finally planted
in a far-away Occident. A writer in the Edinburgh Review, in an extended
discussion on "The pre-christian cross," treats of the Swastika under the
local name of "Fylfot," but in such an enigmatical and uncertain manner
that it is difficult to distinguish it from other and commoner forms of
the cross. Mr. Warling (4) criticizes him somewhat severely for his errors:
He states that it is found
* * * in the sculptured stones of Scotland (but after careful search we
can find only one or two imperfect representations of it, putting aside
the newton stone inscription, where it is probably a letter or numeral
only); that it is carved on the temples and other edifices of Mexico and
Central American (where again we have sought for it in vain); that it is
found on the cinerary urns of the terramare of Parma and Vicenza, the date
of which has been assigned by Italian antiquaries to 1000 B.C. (but there
again we have found only the plain cross, and not the fylfot). and, finally,
he asserts that "it was the emblem of Libitina or Persephone, the awful
Queen of the Shades, and it therefore commonly found on the dress of the
tumulorum fossor in the Roman catacombs," but we have only found one such
example.
"It is noteworthy, too,"
he continues, "in reference to its extreme popularity, or the superstitious
veneration in which it has been also universally held, that the cross pattée,
or cruciform hammer (but we shall show these are different symbols), was
among the very last of purely pagan symbols which was religiously preserved
in Europe long after the establishment of Christianity (not in Europe,
but in Scandinavia and wherever the Scandinavians had penetrated). * *
* It may be seen upon the bells of many of our parish churches, as at Appleby,
Mexborough, Haythersaye, Waddington, Bishop's Norton, West Barkwith, and
other places, where it was placed as a magical sign to subdue the vicious
spirit of the tempest;" and he subsequently points out its constant use
in relation to water or rain.
Mr. Waring continues:
The Rev. C. Boutell, in "Notes
and Queries, " points out that it is to be found on many medieval monuments
and bells, and occurs -- e.g., at Appleby in Lincolnshire (peopled by Northmen)
-- as an initial cross to the formula on the bell "Sta. Maria, o.p.n. and
c." In these cases it has clearly been adopted as a Christian symbol. In
the same author's "Heraldry," eh merely describes it as a mystic cross.
Mr. Waring makes one statement
which, being within his jurisdiction, should be given full credit. He says,
on page 15:
It [the Swastika] appears
in Scotland and England only in those parts where Scandinavians penetrated
and settled, but is not once found in any works of purely Irish or Franco-Celtic
art.
He qualifies this, however, by a note:
I believe it occurs twice
on an "Ogam" stone in the Museum of the Royal Irish Academy, figured in
Wilde's Catalogue (p. 136), but the fylfots are omitted in the woodcut.
[See fig. 215.]
Dr. Brinton, (5) describing
the normal Swastika, "with four arms of equal length, the hook usually
pointing from left to right," says: "In this form it occurs in India and
on very early (Neolithic) Grecian, Italic, and Iberian remains." Dr. Brinton
is the only author who, writing at length or in a critical manner, attributes
the Swastika to the Neolithic period in Europe, in this, more than likely,
he is correct. Professor Virchow's opinion as to the antiquity of the hill
of Hissarlik, wherein Dr. Schliemann found so many Swastikas, should be
considered in this connection. (Seel p. 832, 833 of this paper.) Of course,
its appearance among the aborigines of America, we can imagine, must have
been the Neolithic period.
II. – Dispersion of the Swastika.
Extreme Orient
Japan
The Swastika was in use in
Japan in ancient as well as modern times. Fig. 29 represents a bronze statue
of Buddha, one fifteenth natural size. Form Japan, in the collection of
M. Ceruschi, Paris. It has eight Swastikas on the pedestal, the ends all
turned at right angles to the right. This specimen is shown by De Mortillet
(1) because it relates to prehistoric man. The image or statue holds a
cane in the form of a “tintinnabulum,” with movable rings arranged to make
a jingling noise, and De Mortillet inserted it in his volume to show the
likeness of this work in Japan to a number of similar objects found in
the Swiss lake dwellings in the prehistoric age of bronze (p.806).
The Swastika mark was employed
by the Japanese on their porcelain. Sir Augustus W. Franks (2) shows one
of these marks, a small Swastika turned to the left and inclosed in a circle
(fig. 30). Fig. 9 also represent a mark on Japanese bronzes. (3)
Korea
The U.S. national Museum
has a ladies’ sedan or carrying chair from Korea. It bears eight Swastika
marks, cut by stencil in the brass-bound corners, two on each corner, one
looking each way. The Swastika is normal, with arms crossing at right angles,
the ends bent at right angles and to the right. It is quite plain; the
lines are all straight, heavy, of equal thickness, and the angles all at
90 degrees. In appearance it resembles the Swastika in fig. 9.
China
In the Chinese language the sign of the Swastika is pronounced wan (p. 801), and stands for “many,” “a great number,” “ten thousand,” “infinity,” and by a syneedoche is construed to mean “long
life, a multitude of blessings, great happiness,” ect.’ as is said in
French, “mille pardons,” mille remerciments,” a thousand thanks , etc.
During a visit to the Chinese legation in the city of Washington, while
this paper was in progress, the author met one of the attaches, Mr. Chung,
dressed in his robes of state; his outer garment was of moire silk. The
pattern woven in the fabric consisted of a large circle with certain marks
therein, prominent among which were two Swastikas, one turned to the right,
the other to the left. The name given to the sign was as reported above,
wan, and the signification was “longevity,” “long life,” “many years.”
Thus was shown that in far as well as near countries in modern as well
as ancient times, this sign stood for blessing, good wishes, and, by a
slight extension, for good luck.
The author conferred with
the Chinese minister, Yang Yu, with the request that he should furnish
any appropriate information concerning the Swastika in China. In due course
the author received the following letter and accompanying notes with drawings:
* * * I have the pleasure to submit abstracts from historical and literary
works on the origin of the Swastika in China and the circumstances connected
with it in Chinese ancient history. I have had this paper translated into
English and illustrated by India-ink drawings. The Chinese copy is made
by Mr. Ho Yen-Shing, the first secretary of the legation, translation by
Mr. Chung, and drawings by Mr. Li.
With assurance of my high
esteem, I am,
1. Very cordially, Yang Yu.
Buddhist philosophers consider
simple characters as half incomplete characters and compound characters
as complete characters, while the Swastika is regarded as a natural
formation. A Buddhist priest of the Tang Dynasty, Tao Shih by name, in
a chapter of his work entitled Fa Yuen Chu Liu, on the original Buddha,
describes him as having this mark on his breast and sitting on a
high lily of unnumerable petals. [Pl. 1]
Empress Wu (684-704 A.D.),
of the Tang Dynasty, invented a number of new forms for characters already
in existence, amongst which was the word for sun, for moon,
for star, and so on. These characters where once very extensively used
in ornamental writing, and even now the word sun may be found in
many of the famous stone inscriptions of that age, which have been preserved
to us up to the present day. [Pl.2.]
The history of the Tang
Dynasty (620-906 A.D.), by Lui Hsu and others of the Tsin Dynasty, records
a decree issued by Emperor Tai Tsung (763-779 A.D.) forbidding the use
of the Swastika on silk fabrics manufactured for any purpose. [Pl.3.]
Fung Tse, of the Tang Dynasty,
records a practice among the people of Loh-yang who endeavor, on the 7th
of the 7th month of each year, to obtain spiders to weave the Swastika
on their web. Kung Ping-Chung, of the Sung Dynasty, says that the people
of Loh-yang believe it is to be good luck to find the Swastika woven by
spiders over fruits or melons. [Pl.4.]
Sung Pai, of the Sung Dynasty,
records an offering made to the Emperor by Li Yuen-su, a high official
of the Tang Dynasty, of a buffalo with a Swastika on the forehead in return
for which offering he was given a horse by the Emperor. [Pl.5.]
The Ts’ing-I-Luh, by Tao
Kuh of the Sung Dynasty, records that an Empress in
the time of the South Tang Dynasty had an incense burner the external
decoration of which had the Swastika design on it. [Pl.6.]
Chu-I-Tsu, in his work entitled
Ming Shih Tsung, says Wu Tsung-Chih, a learned man of Sin Shui, built a
residence outside of the north gate of that town, which he named “Wan-Chai,”
from the Swastika decoration of the railings about the exterior of the
house [Pl.7.]
An anonymous work, entitled
the Tung Hsi Yang K’ao, described a fruit called shan-tsao-tse (mountain
or wild date), whose leaves resemble those of the plum. The seed resembles
the lichee, and the fruit, which ripens in the ninth month of the year,
suggests a resemblance of the Swastika [Pl.8.]
The Swastika is one of the
symbolic marks of the Chinese porcelain. Prime (1) shows what he calls
a “tablet of honor,” which represents a Swastika inclosed in a lozenge
with loops at the corners (fig. 31). This mark on a piece of porcelain
signifies that it is an imperial gift.
Major-General Gordon, controller
of the royal Arsenal at Woolwich, England, writes to Dr. Schleimann: (2)
“The Swastika is Chinese. On the breech chasing of a large gun lying outside
my office, captured in the Taku fort, you will find the same sign.” But
Dumoutier (3) says this sign is nothing else than the ancient Chinese character
c h e, which according to D’Alviella, (4) carries the idea of perfection
or excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. And again,
(2) “Dr. Lockyer, formerly medical missionary to China, says the sign
is thoroughly Chinese.”
The Swastika is found on
Chinese musical instruments. The U.S. National Museum possesses a Hu-Ch’in,
a violin with four strings, the body of which is a section of bamboo about
3 ½ inches in diameter. The septum of the joint has been cut away
so as to leave a Swastika of normal form, the four arms of which are connected
with the outer walls of the bamboo. Another, a Ti-Ch’in, a two-stringed
violin, with a body of cocoanut, has a carving which is believed to have
been a Swastika; but the central part has been broken out, so that the
actual form is undetermined.
Prof. George Frederick Wright,
in an article entitled “Swastika,” (5) quotes Rev. F. H. Chalfont, missionary
at Chanting, China, as saying: “Same symbol in Chinese characters ‘ouan,’
or ‘wan’ and is a favorite ornament with the Chinese.”
Tibet
Mr. William Woodvill Rockhill, (1) speaking of the fair at Kumbum, says:
I found there a number of Lh’asa Tibetans (they call them gopa here) Selling pulo, beads of various colors, saffron, medicines, peacock feathers, incense sticks, etc. I had a talk with these traders, several of whom I had met here before in 1889. * * * One of them had a Swastika (yung-drung) tattooed on his hand, and I learned from this man that this is not an uncommon mode of ornamentation in his country.
Count D’Alviella says that
the Swastika is continued among the Buddhists of Tibet; that the women
ornament their petticoats with it, and that it is also placed upon the
breasts of their dead. (2)
He also reports (3) a Buddhist
statue at the Musée Guimet with Swastikas about the base. He does
not state to what country it belongs, so the author has no means to determining
if it is the same statue as is represented in fig. 29.
India
Burnouf (4) says approvingly of the Swastika:
Christian archaeologists believe this was the most ancient sign of the cross. * * * It was used among the Brahmins from all antiquity. (Voyez mot “Swastika” dans notre dictionaire sanskrit.) Swastika, or Swasta, in India corresponds to “benediction” among Christians.
The same author, in his translation of the “Lotus de la Bonne Loi,” one of the nine Dharmas or Canonical books of the Buddhists of the North, of 280 pages, adds an appendix of his own writing of 583 pages; and in one (No.8) devoted to an enumeration and description of the sixty-five figures traced on the footprint of Çakya (fig.32) commences as follow:
1. Swastikaya: This is the
familiar mystic figure of many Indian sects, represented thus, ,
and whose name signifies, literally, “sign of benediction or of good augury.”
(Rgya tch’er rul pa, Vol. II, p. 110.)
* * * The Sign of the Swastika
was not less known to the Brahmins than to the Buddhists. “Ramayana,” Vol.
II, p. 348, ed. Gor., Chap. XCVII, st. 17, tells of vessels on the sea
bearing this sign of fortune. This mark, of which the name and usage are
certainly ancient, because it is found on the oldest Buddhist medals, may
have been used as frequently among the Brahmins as among the Buddhists.
Most of the inscriptions on the Buddhist caverns in western India are either
preceded or followed by the holy (sacramentelle) sign of the Swastika.
It appears less common on the Brahmin monuments.
Mr W. Crooke (Bengal Civil
Service, director of Eth. Survey, North-west Provinces and Oudh), says:
(5)
The mystical emblem of the
Swastika, which appears to represent the sun in his journey through the
heavens, is of constant occurrence. The trader paints it on the flyleaf
of his ledger, he who has young children or animals liable to the evil
eye makes a representation of it on the wall beside his doorpost. It holds
first place among the lucky marks of the Jainas. It is drawn on the shaven
heads of children on the marriage day in Gujarat. A red circle with Swastika
in the center is depicted on the place where the family gods are kept (Campbell,
Notes, p. 70). In the Meerut division the worshiper of the village god
Bhumiya constructs a rude model of it in the shrine by fixing up two crossed
straws with a daub of plaster. It often occurs in folklore. In the drama
of the Toy Cart the thief hesitates whether he shall make a hole in the
wall of Charudatt’s house in the form of a Swastika or of a water jar (Manning,
Ancient India, II, 160).
Village shrines– The outside
(of the shrines) is often covered with rude representations of the mystical
Swastika.
On page 250 he continues thus:
Charms.– The bazar merchant writes the words “Ram Ram” over his door, or makes an image of Genesa, the god of luck, or draws the mystical Swastika. The jand tree is reverenced as sacred by Khattris and Brahmins to avoid the evil eye in children. The child is brought at 3 years of age before a jand tree; a bough is cut with a sickle and planted at the foot of the tree. A Swastika symbol is made before it with the rice flour and sugar brought as an offering to the tree. Threads of string, used by women to tie up their hair, are cut in lengths and some deposited on the Swastika.
Mr. Virchand R. Gandhi, a Hindu and Jain disciple from Bombay, India, a delegate to the World’s Parliament of Religions at Chicago in 1893, remained for sometime in Washington, D. C., proselyting among Christians. He is a cultivated gentleman, devoted to the spread of his religion. I asked his advice and assistance, which he kindly gave, supervising my manuscript for the Swastika in the extreme Orient, and furnishing me the following additional information relative to the Swastika in India, and especially among the Jains:
The Swastika is misinterpreted
by so-called Western expounders of our ancient Jain philosophy. The original
idea was very high, but later on some persons thought the cross represented
only the combination of the male and the female principles. While we are
on this physical plane and our propensities on the material line, we think
it necessary to unite those (sexual) principles for our spiritual growth.
On the higher plane the soul is sexless, and those who wish to rise higher
than the physical plane must eliminate the idea of sex.
I explain the Jain Swastika
by the following illustration [fig.33] : the horizontal and vertical lines
crossing each other at right angles form the Greek cross. They represent
spirit and matter. We add four other lines by bending to the right each
arm of the cross, then three circles and the crescent, and a circle within
the crescent. The idea thus symbolized is that there are four grades of
existence of souls in the material universe. The first is the lowest state–Archaic
or protoplasmic life. The soul evolves from that state to the next–the
earth with its plant and animal life. Then follows the third state– the
human; then the fourth state–the celestial. The word “celestial” is here
held to mean life in other worlds than our own. All these graduations are
comibnations of matter and soul on different scales. The spiritual plan
is that in which the soul is entirely freed from the bounds of matter.
In order to reach that plane, one must strive to possess the three jewels
(represented by the three circles), right belief, right knowledge, right
conduct. When a person has these, he will certainly go higher until he
reaches the state of liberation, which is represented by the crescent.
The crescent has the form of the rising moon and is always growing larger.
The circle in the crescent represents the omniscient state of the soul
when it has attainned full consciousness, is liberated, and lives apart
from matter.
The interpretation, according
to the Jain view of the cross, has nothing to do with the combination of
the male and female principle. Worship of the male and female principles,
ideas based upon sex. lowest even on the emotional plane, can never rise
higher than then male and female.
The Jains make the Swastika
sign when we enter our temple or worship. This sign reminds us of the great
principles represented by the three jewels and by which we are to reach
the ultimate good. Those symbols intensify our thoughts and make them ore
permanent.
Mr. Gandhi says the
Jains make the sign of the Swastika as frequently and deftly as the Roman
Catholics make the sign of the cross. It is not confined to the temple
nor to the priests or monks. Whenever or wherever a benediction or blessing
is given, the Swastika is used. Figs. 34 a,b,c form a series showing how
it is made. A handful of rice, meal, flour, sugar, salt, or any similar
substance, is spread over a circular space, say, 3 inches in diameter and
one-eight of an inch deep (fig.34a), then commence at the outside of the
circle (fig. 34b), on its upper or farther left-hand corner, and draw the
finger through the meal just to the left of the center, halfway or more
to the opposite or near edge of the circle (1), then again to the right
(2), then upward (3), finally to the left where it joins with the first
mark (4). The ends are swept outward, the dots and crescent put in above,
and the sign is complete (fig. 34c).
The sign of the Swastika
is reported in great numbers, by hundreds if not by thousands, in the inscriptions
on the rock walls of the Buddhist caves in India. It is needless to copy
them, but is enough to say that they are the same size as the letters forming
the inscription; that they all have four arms and the ends turn at right
angles, or nearly so, indifferently to the right or to the left. The following
list of inscriptions, containing the Swastikas, is taken from the first
book coming to hand–the “Report of Dr. James Burgess on the Buddhist Cave
Temples and their Inscriptions, Being a part of the result of the fourth,
Fifth, and Sixth Season’s Operations of the Archaeological Survey of
Western India, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879:” (1)
Chantre (2) says:
I remind you that the (East) Indians, Chinese, and Japanese employ the Swastika, not only as a religious emblem but as a simple ornament in painting on pottery and elsewhere, the same as we employ the Greek fret, lozenges, and similar motifs in our ornamentation. Sistres [the staff with jingling bells, held in the hand of Buddha, on whose base is engraved a row of Swastikas, fig. 29 of present paper] of similar form and style have been found in prehistoric Swiss lake dwellings and the bronze age. Thus the sistres and the Swastika are brought into relation with each other. The sistres possibly relate to an ancient religion, as they did in the Orient; the Swastika may have had a similar distinction.
De Mortillet and others hold
the same opinion. (3)
CLASSICAL ORIENT.
BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, CHALDEA, AND PERSIA.
Waring (4) says, “In Babylonian
and Assyrian remains we search for it [the Swastika] in vain.“ Max Müller
and Count Goblet d’Alviella are of the same opinion. (5)
Of Persia, D’Alviella (p.51),
citing Ludwig Müller,(5) says that the Swastika is manifested only
by its presence on certain coins of the Arsacides and the Sassanides.
Phenicia.
It is reported by various
authors that the Swastika has never been found in Phenicia, e.g. Max Müller,
J.B. Waring, Count Goblet d’Alvieall. (6)
Ohnefalsch-Richter (7) says
that the Swastika is not found in Phenicia, yet he is of the opinion that
their emigrant and commercial travelers brought it from the far east and
introduced it into Cyprus, Carthage, and the north of Africa. (See p. 796.)
Lycaonia.
Lempreire, in his Classical Dictionary, under the above title, gives the following:
A district of Asia Minor
forming the southwestern quarter of Phrygia. The origin of its name and
inhabitants, the Lycaones, is lost in obscurity. * * * Our first acquaintance
with this region is in the relation of the expedition of the younger Cyprus.
Its limits varied at different times. At first it extended eastward from
Iconium 23 geographical miles, and was separated from Cilicia on the south
by the range of Mount Taurus, comprehending a large portion of what in
later times was termed Cataonia.
Count Goblet d’Alviella,
(8) quoting Perrot and Chipiez, (9) states that the Hittites introduced
the Swastika on a bas-relief of Ibriz, Lycaonia, where it forms a border
of the robe of a king or priest offering a sacrifice to a god.
Armenia
M.J. de Morgan (the present director of the Gizeh Museum at Cairo), under the direction of the French Government, made extensive excavations and studies into the French government, made extensive excavations and studies into the prehistoric antiquities and archaeology of Russian Armenia. His report is entitled “Le Premier Age del Metaux dans I’Armenie Russe.” (10) he excavated a number of prehistoric cemeteries, and found therein various forms of crosses engraved on ceintures, vases, and medallions. The Swastika, though present, was more rare. He found it on the heads of two large bronze pins (fig. 37) from the prehistoric tombs. The bent arms are all turned to the left, and would be the Suavastika of Prof. Max Müller.
In Caucasus, M. E. Chantre
(1) found the Swastika in great purity of form. Fig. 38 represents portions
of a bronze plaque from that country, used on a ceinture or belt. Another
of slightly different style, but with square cross and arms bent at right
angles, is represented in his pl. 8, fig. 5. These belonged to the first
age of iron, and much of the art was intricate. (2) It represented animals
as well as all geometric forms, crosses, circles (concentric and otherwise),
spirals, meanders, chevrons, herring bone, lozenges, etc. these were sometimes
cast in the metal, at other times repoussé, and again were engraved,
and occasionally these methods were employed together. Fig. 39 shows another
form, frequently employed and suggested as a possible evolution of the
Swastika, from the same locality and same plate. Fig. 40 represents signs
reported by Waring (3) as from Asia Minor, which he credits, without explanation,
to Ellis’s “Antiquities of Heraldry.”
The specimen shown in fig.
41 is reported by Waring, (4) quoting Rzewusky, (5) as one of the several
branding marks used in Circassian horses for identifications.
Mr. Frederick Remington,
the celebrated artist and literateur, has an article, “Cracker Cowboy in
Florida,” (6) wherein he discourses of the forgery of brands on cattle
in that country. One of his genuine brands is a circle with a small cross
in the center. The forgery consists in elongating each arm of the cross
and turning it with a scroll, forming an ogee Swastika (fig. 13d), which,
curiously enough, is practically the same brand used on Circassian horses
(fig. 41). Max Ohnefalsch-Richter (7) says that instruments of copper (audumbaroaish)
are recommended in the Atharva-Veda to make the Swastika, which represents
the figure S; and thus he attempts to account for the use of that mark
branded on the cows in India (supra, p.772), on the horses in Circassia
(fig. 41), and said to have been used in Arabia.
Asia Minor–Troy (Hissarlik)
Many specimens of the Swastika
were found by Dr. Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, principally on spindle
whorls, vases, and bijoux of precious metal. Zmigrodzki (8) made from Dr.
Schliemann’s great atlas the following classification of the objects found
at Troy, ornamented with the Swastika and its related forms:
Fifty-five of pure form;
114 crosses with the four dots, points or alleged nail holes (Croix swasticale);
102 with three branches or arms (triskelion); 86 with five branches or
arms; 63 with six branches or arms; total 420.
Zmigrodzki continues his
classification by adding those which have
Dispersion of the Swastika
relation to Swastika thus: Eighty-two representing stars; 70 representing
suns; 42 representing branches of trees or palms; 15 animals non-ferocious,
deer, antelope, hare, swan, ect.; total 209 objects. Many of these were
whorls.
Dr Schliemann, in his works,
“Torja” and “Ilios,” describes at length his excavations of these cities
and his discoveries of the Swastika on many objects. His reports are grouped
under titles of the various cities, first, second, third, etc., up to the
seventh city, counting always from the bottom, the first being deepest
and oldest. The same system will be here pursued. The first and second
cities were 45 to 52 feet (13 to 16 meters) deep; the third, 23to 33feet
(7 to 10 meters) deep; the fourth city, 13 to 17.6 feet (4 to 5 ½
meters) deep; the fifth city, 7 to 13 feet (2 to 4 meters) deep; the sixth
was the Lydian city of Troy, and the seventh city, the Greek Ilium, approached
the surface.
First and Second Cities,—
But few whorls were found in the first and second cities (1) and none of
these bore the Swastika mark, while thousands were found in the third,
fourth, and fifth cities, many of which bore the Swastika mark. Those of
the first city, if unornamented, have a uniform lustrous black color and
are the shape of a cone (fig. 55) or of two cones joined at the base (figs.
52 and 71). Both kinds were found at 33 feet and deeper. Others from the
same city were ornamented by incised lines rubbed in with white chalk,
in which case they were flat. (2) In the second city the whorls were smaller
than in the first. They were all of a black color and their incised ornamentation
was practically the same as those from the upper cities. (3)
Zmigrodzki congratulated
himself on having discovered among Schleimann’s finds what he believed
to be the oldest representation of the Swastika of which we had reliable
knowledge. It was a fragment of a vase (fig. 42) of the lustrous black
pottery peculiar to the whorls of the first and second cities. But Zmigrodzki
was compelled to recede, which he did regretfully, when Schliemann, in
the later edition, inserted the footnote (p. 350) saying, that while he
had found this (with a companion price) at a great depth in his excavations,
and had attributed them to the first city, yet, on subsequent examination,
he had become convinced that they belonged to the third city.
The swastika, turned both
ways and , was frequent in the third, fourth, and fifth cities.
The following specimens
bearing the Swastika mark are chosen, out of the many specimens in Schliemann’s
great album, in order to make a fair representation of the various kinds,
both of whorls and of Swastikas. They are arranged in the order of cities,
the depth being indicated in feet.
The Third, or Burnt City
(23 to 33 feet deep). — The spindle-whorl shown in fig. 43 contains two
Swastikas and two crosses. (4) Of the one Swastika, two arms are bent to
the right at right angles, while the other two are bent to the right in
curves. The other Swastika has but two bends, one at right angles, the
other curved, both to the right. The specimen shown in fig. 44 has two
Swastikas, in one of which the four arms are bent at right angles to the
left. The entire figure is traced in double lines, one heavy and one light,
as though to represent edges or shadows. The second Swastika has its ends
at an obtuse angle to the left, and at the extremities the lines taper
to a point. The whorl shown in fig. 45 is nearly spherical, with two Swastikas
in the upper part. The ends of the four arms in both are bent at right
angles, one to the right, the other to the left. Fig. 46 represents a spindle
whorls with two irregular Swastikas; but one arm is bent at right angles
and all the arms and points are uncertain and of unequal lengths. The rest
of the field is covered with indefinite and inexplicable marks, of which
the only ones noteworthy are points or dots, seven in number. In fig. 47
the top is surrounded by a line of zigzag
or dog-tooth ornaments. Within this field, on the upper part and equidistant
from the central hole, are three Swastikas, the ends of all of which turn
to the left, and but one at right angles. All three have one or more ends
bent, not at any angle, but in a curve or hook, making an ogee. Fig. 48
shows a large whorl with two or three Swastikas on its upper surface in connection with several indefinite marks apparently without meaning. The dots are interspersed over the field, the Swastikas all bent to the right, but with uncertain lines and at indefinite angles. In one of them the main line forming the cross is curved toward the central hole; in another, the ends are both bent in the same direction–that is, pointing to the periphery of the whorl. Fig. 49 shows a sphere or globe (see figs. 75,88) divided by longitudinal lines into four segments, which are again divided by an equatorial line. These segments contain marks or dots and circles, while one segment contains a normal Swastika turned to the left. This terr-cotta ball has figured in a peculiar degree in the symbolic representation of the Swastika. Greg says of it: (1)
We see on one hemisphere the standing for Zeus (=Indra) the sky god, and on the other side a rude representation of a sacred (somma) tree; a very interesting and curious western perpetuation of the original idea and a strong indirect proof of the standing for the emblem of the sky god.
Fig. 50 represents one of the biconical spindle-whorls with various decorations on the two sides, longitudinal lines interspersed with dots, arcs of concentric circles arranged in three parallels, etc.
On one of these sides is a normal Swastika, the arms crossing at right angles, the ends bent at right angles to the left. The specimen shown in fig. 51 contains four perfect Swastikas and two inchoate and uncertain. Both of the latter have been damaged by breaking the surface. The four Swastikas all have their arms bent to the right; some are greater than at right angles, and one arm is curved. Several ends are tapered to a point. Fig. 52 shows a whorl of biconical form. It contains two Swastikas, the main arms of which are ogee forms, crossing each other at the center at nearly right angles, the ogee ends curving to the right. In fig. 53 the entire field of the upper surface is filled with, or occupied by, a Greek cross, in the center of which is the central hole of the whorl, while on each of the four arms is represented a Swastika, the main arms all crossing at right angles, the ends all bent to the right at slightly obtuse angle. Each of these bent ends tapers to a point, some with slight curves and a small flourish. (See figs. 33 and 34 for reference to this flourish.) The specimen shown in fig. 54 has a center field in its upper part, of which the decoration consists of incised parallel lines forming segments of circles, repeated in each one of the four quarters of the field. The center hole is surrounded by two concentric rings of incised lines. In one of these spaces is a single Swastika; its main arms crossing at right angles, two of its ends bent to the left at right angles, the other two in the same direction and curved.
The Fourth City (13.2 to
17.6 feet deep).– Schliemann says: (2)
We find among the successors
of the burnt city the same triangular idols; the same primitive bronze
battle-axes; the same terra-cotta vases, with or without tripod feet; the
same double-handled goblets; the same battle-axes of jade, porphyry, and
diorite; the same rude stone hammers, and saddle querns of trachyte * *
* The number of rude stone hammers and polished stone axes are fully thrice
as large as in the third city, while the masses of shells and cockles
accumulated in the debris of the houses are so stupendous that they
baffle all description. The pottery is coarser and of a ruder fabric than
in the third city. * * * There were also found in the fourth city many
needles of bone for female handiwork, bear tusks, spit rests of mica schist,
whetstones of slate, porphyry, etc., of the usual form, hundreds of small
silex saws, and some knives of obsidian, Stone whorls, which are so abundant
at Mycenae, are but rarely found here; all of those which occur are, according
to Mr. Davis, of steatite. On the other hand, terra-cotta whorls, with
or without incised ornamentations, are found by thousands; their forms
hardly vary from those in the third (the burnt) city, and they same may
be generally said of their incised ornamentation. * * * The same representation
of specimens of whorls are given as in the third city, and the same observations
apply.
Fig. 55 shows a simple cone,
the upper surface being flat and without other decoration than three Swastikas
equidistant from the hole and from each other, all made by the two crossed
ogee lines with ends curved to the right. This specimen is much like that
of fig. 71 ( Madam Schliemann collection in the U. S. national Museum,
Cat. No. 149704). Fig. 56 shows a remarkable spindle-whorl. It’s marks
greatly excited the interest of Dr. Schliemann, and he devoted much space
to the discussion of these and similar characters. The whorl is in the
form of a cone. It bears upon its conical surface four Swastikas, the ends
of three of which bend to the right and one to the left. There are but
two of these ends which bend at right angles. Most of them are at an obtuse
angle, while the ends of two are curved. Some taper to a point and finish
with a slight flourish. The other marks which so interested Dr. Schliemann
were the chevron ornament (zigzag), drawn in parallel lines, which , he
strongly argued, and fortified with many authorities, represented lightning.
The second series of marks he called a “burning altar.” This assertion
he also fortified with authorities and with illustrations of a similar
sign from different countries. (See fig. 101.) The third series of marks
represented an animal, name and character unknown, with a head or tusks
with two large branching horns or ears, a straight back, a stiff but drooping
tail, four legs, and two rows of the remarkable dots– seven in one, six
in the other–placed over the back of the animal. (See figs. 99 and 100.)
Fig. 57 represents another cone-shaped whorl, the flat surface of which
is engraved with one perfect Swastika, the two arms crossing each other
at right angles and the two ends bending at right angles to the right;
the other two are curved, also to the right. Two of the other figures Dr.
Schliemann calls Swastikas, although they are uncertain in some of their
arms and angles. The fourth character he imagined to be an inchoate or
attempted Swastika. Fig. 58 shows a biconical whorl with curious and inexplicable
characters. One of them forms a crude Swastika, which, while the main arms
cross at right angles the ends are bent at uncertain angles, three to the
left and one to the right. These characters are so undetermined that it
is doubtful if they could have had any signification, either ornamental
or otherwise. Fig. 59 is almost conical, the flat surface thereof being
only slightly raised at the center. It is much the same form as the whorls
shown in fig. 55 and 71. The nearly flat surface is the top, and on it,
equidistant form the center hole and from each other, are three ogee Swastikas
of double lines, with their ends all curved to the right. In the alternate
spaces are small incised circles, with dots in the centers. In fig. 60
a biconical
whorl is shown. It has three of the circle segments marked in equilateral
positions, with three or four parallel lines, after the style shown in
fig. 54. In the spaces are two Swastikas, in both of which the two main
arms cross at right angles. Some of the ends bend at a right, and others
at an obtuse, angle. In one of the Swastikas the bent ends turn toward
each other, forming a rude figure 8. The specimen shown in fig. 61 is biconical,
but much flattened; it contains five ogee Swastikas, of which the ends
of four bend to the right and one to the left. In an interval between them
is one of the burning altars. Fig. 62 shows three Swastikas with double
parallel lines. The main arms cross each other at right angles; the ends
are bent at nearly right angles, one to the left, one to the right, and
the other both ways. Fig. 63 represents a spindle-whorl with a cup-shaped
depression around the central hole, which is surrounded by three lines
in concentric circles, while on the field, at 90 degrees from each other,
are four ogee Swastikas (tetraskelions), the arms all turning to the left
and spirally each upon itself. The specimen shown in fig. 64 is biconical,
though, as usual, the upper cone is the smallest. There are parallel lines,
three in a set, forming the segments of three circles, in one space of
which appears a Swastika of a curious and unique form, similar to that
shown in fig. 60. The two main arms cross each other at very nearly right
angles and the ends also bend at right angles toward and approaching each
other, so that if contained slightly farther they would close and form
a decorative figure 8. The specimen shown in fig. 65 is decorated with
parallel lines, three in number, arranged in segments of three circles,
the periphery of which is toward the center, as in fig. 60 and 64. In one
of the spaces is a Swastika of curious form; the main arms cross each other
at right angles, but the four ends represent different styles–two are bent
square to the left, one square to the right, and the fourth curves to the
left at no angle. Fig. 66 shows a biconical whorl, and its top is decorated
to represent three Swastikas and three burning altars. The ends of the
arms of the Swastikas all bend to the left, some are at right angles and
some at obtuse angles, while two or three are curved two of them show corrections,
the marks at the ends having been changed in one case at a different angle
and in another from a straight line to a curve. Fig. 67 shows four specimens
of Swastika, the main arms of all of which cross at right angles. The ends
all bend to the right, at nearly right angles, tapering to a point and
finishing with the slight flourish noted in the Jain Swastika (fig. 34c).
They are alternated with a chevron decoration. Fig. 67 shows three Swastikas,
the ends of the arms of which are all bent to the left. One Swastika is
composed of two ogee lines. Two arms of another are curved, but all others
are bent at right angles, some of them tapering to points, finishing with
a
little flourish (figs. 67 and 34c). One of these ends, like that in
fig. 66, has been corrected by the maker. Figs. 69
represents one Swastika in which the main arms cross at nearly right
angles. Both ends of one arm turn to the left and those of the other arm
turn to the right in figure 8 style. One of the ends is curved, the others
bent at different angles. Fig. 70
shows the parallel lines representing segments of a circle similar to
figs. 60, 64, 65 and 69, except that it has four instead of three. It has
one Swastika; the main arms (of double lines) cross at right angles, the
ends all curving to the left with a slight ogee.
The U. S. National Museum
was, during 1893, the fortunate recipient of a collection of objects from
Madame Schliemann, which her husband, before his death, had signified should
be given to the United States as a token of his remembrance of and regard
for his adopted country. He never forgot that he was an American citizen,
and, preparing for death, made his acknowledgments in the manner mentioned.
The collection consisted of 178 objects, all from ancient Troy, and they
made a fair representation of his general finds. This collection is in
the Department of Prehistoric Anthropology. In this collection is a spindle-whorl,
found at 13 ½ feet (4 meters) depth and belonging to the fourth
city. It had three Swastikas upon it’s face, and is here shown as fig.
71. (1)
The Fifth City.–Schliemann
says: (2)
The rude stone hammers found
in enormous quantities in the fourth city are no longer found in this stratum,
nor did the stone axes, which are so very abundant there, occur again here.
In stead of the hundreds of axes I gathered in the fourth city, I collected
in all only two here. * * * The forms of the terra-cotta whorls, too, are
in innumerable instances different here. These objects are of a much inferior
fabric, and become elongated and pointed. Forms of whorls like Nos. 1801,
1802, and 1803 [see figs. 72, 73, and 74], which were never found before,
are here plentiful.
The Sixth and Seventh Cities.–The
sixth city is described in “Ilios,” page 587, and the seventh on pages
608 and 618. Both cities contained occasional whorls of clay, all thoroughly
baked, without incised or pointed ornamentation, and shed no further light
on the Swastika.
Fig. 75 represents the opposite
hemispheres of a terra-cotta ball, found at a depth of 26 feet, divided
by incised lines into fifteen zones, of which two are
ornamented with points and the middle zone, the largest of all,
with thirteen specimens of and .
Zmigrodzki says (3) that
there were found by Schliemann, at Hissarlik, fifty-five specimens of the
Swastika “pure and simple” (pp. 809,826). It will be perceived by examination
that the Swastika “pure and simple” comprised Swastikas of several forms;
those in which the four arms of the cross were at other angles besides
right angles, those in which the ends bent at square and other angles to
the right; then those to the left (Burnouf and Max Müller’s Suavastika);
those in which the bends were, some to the right and some to the left,
in the same design; where the points tapered off and turned outward with
a flourish; where the arms bent at no angle, but were in spirals each upon
itself, and turned, some to the right, some to the left. We shall see other
related forms, as where the arms turn spirally upon each other instead
of upon themselves. These will sometimes have three, five, six, for more
arms, instead of four (p. 768). The cross and the circle will also appear
in connection with the Swastika; and other designs, and zigzags (lightning),
burning altars, men, animals, and similar representations will be found
associated with the Swastika, and are only related to it by the association
of similar objects from the same locality. A description of their patterns
will include those already figured, together with Schliemann’s
comments as to signification and frequency. They become more important
because these related forms will be found in distant countries and among
distant peoples, notably among the prehistoric peoples of America. Possibly
these designs have a signification, possibly not. Dr. Schliemann, thought
that in many cases they had. Professor Sayce supported him, strongly inclining
toward an alphabetic or linguistic, perhaps ideographic, signification.
No opinion is advanced by the author on these theories, but the designs
are given in considerable numbers, to the end that the evidence may be
fully reported, and future investigators, radical and conservative, imaginative
and unimaginative, theorists and agnostics, may have a fair knowledge of
this mysterious sign, and an opportunity to indulge their respective talents
at length. Possibly these associated designs may throw some light upon
the origin or history of the Swastika or of some of its related forms.
The specimen represented
in fig. 76 is not a spindle-whorl, as shown by the number and location
of the holes. It bears a good representation of a Swastika the form of
which has been noticed several times. The two main arms cross each other
at nearly right angles. The ends of the arms all bend to the right at a
slightly obtuse angle and turn outward with a flourish somewhat after the
style of the Jain Swastika (fig. 34c). Fig. 77 represents a spindle-whorl
with a Swastika of the ogee style curved to the right. The center hole
of the whorl forms the center of the sign. The figure of double lines,
and in the interspaces are four dots, similar to those in figs. 96, 97
and 98, the others which Dr. Schliemann reports as common, and to which
he attributes some special but unknown meaning. Swastikas and crosses of
irregular shope and style are shown in the field of fig. 78. Two fairly
well formed Swastikas appear, both of the ogee style, with the ends curved
to the right. One is of the style resembling the figure 8 (see figs. 60
and 64). Two others are crudely and irregularly formed, and would scarcely
be recognized as Swastikas except for their association. Fig. 79 represents
uncertain and malformed Swastikas. The arms are bent in different directions
in the same line. Two of the main arms are not bent. The inexplicable dots
are present, and the field is more or less covered with unmeaning or, at
least, unexplained marks. Figs. 80 also illustrates the indefinite and
inchoate style of decoration. One unfinished Swastika appears which, unlike
anything we have yet seen, has a circle with a dot in the center for the
body of the Swastika at the crossing of the main arms. Fig. 81 shows two
Swastikas, both crossing their main arms at right angles and the ends bending
also at right angles–one to the right, the other to the left. This specimen
is inserted here because of the numerous decorations of apparently unmeaning,
or, at least, unexplained, lines. Fig. 82 shows four segmented circles
with an indefinite Swastika in one of the spaces. The ends are not well
turned, only one being well attached to the main arms. One of the ends
is not joined, one overruns and forms a sort of cross; the other has no
bend. Fig. 83 contains an unmistakable Swastika, the main arms of which
cross at right angles, turning to the left with an ogee curve. The peculiarity
of this specimen is that the center of the sign is inclosed in a circle,
thus showing the indifference of The Swastika sign to other signs, whether
cross or circle. The outer parts of the field are occupied with the parallel
lines of the circle segment, as shown in many other specimens. The specimen
shown in fig. 84 is similar in style to the last. The
bodies of six Swastikas are formed by a circle and dot, while the arms
of the cross start from the outside of the circle, extending themselves
in curves, all of them to the right. (See fig. 13d.) It has no other ornamentation.
The same remark is to be made about the indifferent use of the Swastika
in association with cross or circle. We have seen many swastikas composed
of the crossed ogee lines or curves. Figs. 85 and 86 show the same ogee
lines and curves not crossed; and thus, while it may be that neither of
them are Swastikas, yet they show a relationship of form from which the
derivation of a Swastika would be easy.
Attention has been called to decorations
comprising segments of the circles incised in these whorls, the periphery
of which is toward their centers (figs. 60, 64, 65, 69, 70, 82 and 83).
Also to the mysterious dots (figs, 46, 56, 75, 76, 77, 79, 84, 92, 96 and
97). Fig. 87 shows a combination of the segments of three circles, the
dots within each, and two Swastikas. Of the Swastikas, one is normal, turning
to the right; the other turns to the right, but at an obtuse angle, with
one end straight and the other irregularly curved. Fig. 88 represents two
sections of a terra-cotta sphere divided similar to fig. 49. Each of these
sections contains a figure like unto a Swastika and which may be related
to it. It is a circle with arms springing from the periphery, which arms
turn all to the left, as they do in the ogee Swastika. One has seven, the
other nine arms. One has regular, the other irregular, lines and intervals.
Fig. 89 represents a spindle-whorl of terra cotta nearly spherical, with
decoration of a large central dot and lines springing thereout, almost
like the spokes of a wheel, then all turning to the left as volutes. In
some countries this has been called the sun symbol, but there is nothing
to indicate that it had any signification at Hissarlik. One of the marks
resembles the long-backed, four-legged animal (figs. 99 and 100). (1) Figs.
90, 91, 92, and 93 show a further adaptation of the ogee curve developed
into a Swastika, in which many arms start from the center circle around
the central hole in the whorl, finally taking a spiral form. The relation
of this to a sun symbol is only mentioned and not specified or declared.
The inexplicable and constantly recurring dots are seen in fig. 90. It
is not contended that these are necessarily evolutions of the Swastika.
We will see father on many lines and forms of decoration by incised lines
on these Trojan whorls, which may have had no relation to the Swastika,
but are inserted here because persons rich in theories and brilliant in
imagination have declared that they could see s resemblance, a relation,
in this or some other decoration. As objects belonging to the same culture,
from the same locality, and intimately associated with unmistakable Swastikas,
they were part of the res gestæ, and as such entitled to admission
as evidence in the case. The effect of their evidence is a legitimate subject
for discussion and argument. The refuse these figures admission would
be to decide the case against this contention without giving the opposing
party an opportunity to see the evidence or to be heard in argument. Therefore
the objects are inserted.
Specimens of other crosses are presented
because the Swastika is considered to be a form of the cross. There may
have been no evolution or relationship between them; but no person is competent
to decide from a mere inspection or by reason of dissimilarity that there
was not. We have to plead ignoramus as to the growth and evolution of both
cross and Swastika, because the origin of both is lost in antiquity. But
all are fair subjects for discussion. There certainly is nothing improbable
in the relationship and evolution between the Swastika and the cross. It
may be almost assumed.
Evidence leading to conviction may be
found in associated contemporaneous specimens. M. Montelius, an archæologist
of repute in the National Museum at Stockholm, discovered eight stages
of culture in the bronze age of that country, which discovery was based
solely upon the foregoing principle applied to the fibulæ found in
prehistoric graves. In assorting his stock of fibulæ, he was enabled
to lay out a series of eight styles, each different, but with many presentations.
He arranged them seriatim, according to certain differences in size, style,
elegance or workmanship, etc., No. 1 being the smallest, and No. 8 the
largest and most elaborate. They were then classified according to locality
and association, and he discovered that Nos. 1 and 2 belonged together,
on the same body or in the same grave, and the same with Nos. 2 and 3,
3 and 4, and so on. Nos. 7 and 8 were associated, but not 6 and 8, nor
5 and 7, nor was there any association beyond adjoining numbers in the
series. Thus Moutelius was able to determine that each one or each two
of the series formed a stage in the culture of these peoples. While the
numbers of the series separated from each other, as 1, 5, 8, were never
found associated, yet it was conclusively shown that they were related,
were the same object, all served a similar purpose, and together formed
an evolutionary series showing their common origin, derivative growth and
continuous improvement in art, always by communication between their makers
and owners.
Thus it may be with the other forms
of crosses, and thus it appears to be with the circle and spiral Swastikas
and those with ends bent in opposite and different directions. Just what
their relations are and at which end of the series the evolution began,
is not argued. This is left for the theorists and imaginists, protesting,
however, that they must not run wild nor push their theories beyond bounds.
Fig. 94 represents four crosses, the main arms of which are at right angles,
and each and all ends, instead of being turned at an angle which would
make them Swastikas, are bifurcated and turn both ways, thus forming a
foliated cross similar to the Maya cross, the "Tree of life." Figs. 95,
96, and 97 show Greek crosses. The centers of the crosses are occupied
by the central hole of the whorl, while the arms extend to the periphery.
In the centers of the respective arms are the ubiquitous dots. The question
might here be asked whether these holes, which represented circles, stood
for the sun symbol or solar disk. The question carries its own answer and
is a refutation of those who fancy they can see mythology in everything.
Fig. 98 is the same style of figure with the same dots, save that it has
three instead of four arms. Figs. 99 and 100 each show four of the curious
animals heretofore represented (fig. 56) in connection with the Swastika.
They are here inserted for comparison. They are all of the same form, and
one description will serve. Back straight, tail drooping, four legs, round
head showing eye on one side, and long ears resembling those of a rabbit
or hare, which, in fig. 56, are called horns. The general remarks in respect
to the propriety of inserting crosses and burning altars (p. 824) apply
with equal pertinency to these animals and to the unexplained dots seen
on so many specimens. Fig. 101 shows both ends of a spindle-whorl, and
is here inserted because it represents one of the "burning altars" of Dr.
Schliemann, associated with a Swastika, as in figs. 61, 66, and 68, and
even those of figure -8 style (figs. 64 and 69).
Dr. Schliemann found, during his excavations
on the hill of Hissarlik, no less than 1,800 spindle-whorls. A few were
from the first and second cities; they were of somewhat peculiar form (figs.
72 and 74), but the greatest number were from the third city, thence upward
in decreasing numbers. The Swastika pure and simple was found on 55 specimens,
while its related or suggested forms were on 420 (pp. 809, 819). Many of
the other whorls were decorated with almost every imaginable form of dot,
dash, circle, star, lozenge, zigzag, with many indefinite and indescribable
forms. In presenting the claims of the Swastika as an intentional sign,
with intentional, though perhaps different, meanings, it might be unsatisfactory
to the student to omit descriptions of these associated decorative forms.
This description is impossible in words; therefore the author has deemed
it wiser to insert figures of these decorations as they appeared on the
spindle-whorls found at Troy, and associated with those heretofore given
with the Swastika. It is not decided, however, that these have any relation
to the Swastika, or that they had any connection with its manufacture or
existence, either by evolution or otherwise, but they are here inserted
to the end that the student and reader may take due account of the association
and make such comparison as will satisfy him. (Figs. 102 to 124.)
Leaden idol of Hissarlik. --- Dr. Schliemann,
in his explorations on the hill of Hissarlik, at a depth of 23 feet, in
the third, the burnt city, found a metal idol (fig. 125), which was determined
on a analysis to be lead. (1) It was submitted to Professor Sayce who made
the following report: (2)
It is the Artemis Nana of Chaldea, who became the chief deity of Carehemish, the Hittite capital, and passed through Asia Minor to the shores and islands of the Ægean Sea. Characteristic figures of the goddess have been discovered at Mycenæ as well as in Cyprus.
In "Troja" Professor Sayce says:
Precisely the same figure, with ringlets on either side of the head, but with a different ornament (dots instead of Swastika) sculptured on a piece of serpentine was recently found in Mæonia, and published by M. Salmou Reinach in Revue Archæologique. By the side of the goddess stands the Babylonian Bel, and among the Babylonian symbols that surround them is the representation of one of the terra-cotta whorls, of which Dr. Schliemann found such multitudes at Troy.
The chief interest to us of Dr. Schliemann´s description of the idol lies in the last paragraph: (3)
The vulva is represented by a large triangle,
in the upper side of which we see three globular dots; we also see two
lines of dots to the right and left of the vulva. The most curious ornament
of the figure is a Swastika, which we see in the middle of the vulva. *
* * So far as we know, the only figures to which the idol before us has
any resemblance are the female figures of white marble found in tombs in
Attica and in the Cyclades. Six of them, which are in the museum at Athens.
* * * Represent naked women. * * * The vulva is represented on the six
figures by a large triangle. * * * Similar white Parian marble figures,
found in the Cyclades, whereon the vulva is represented by a decorated
triangle, are preserved in the British Museum. Lenorment, in "Les Autiquités
de la Troade" (p. 46), says: "the statuettes of the Cyclades, in the form
of a naked woman, appear to be rude copies made by the natives, at the
dawn of their civilization, from the images of the Asiatic goddess which
had been brought by Phœnician merchants. They were found in the most ancient
sepulchers of the Cyclades, in company with stone weapons, principally
arrowheads of obsidian form Milo, and with polished pottery without large
numbers from the banks of the Tigris to the island of Cyprus, through the
whole extent of the Chaldeo-Assyrian, Aramæan, and Phœnician world.
Their prototype is the Babylonian Zarpanit, or Zirbanit, so frequently
represented on the cylinders and by terra-cotta idols, the fabrication
of which begins in the most primitive time of Chaldea and continues among
the Assyrians.
It is to be remarked that this mark
is not on the vulva, as declared by Schliemann, but rather on a triangle
shield which covers the mons veneris.
Professor Sayce is of the opinion, from
the evidence of this leaden idol, that the Swastika was, among the Trojans,
a symbol of the generative power of man.
An added interest centers in these specimens
from the fact that terra-cotta shields of similar triangular form, fitted
to the curvature of the body,w ere worn in the same way in prehistoric
times by the aboriginal women of Brazil. These pieces have small holes
at the angles, apparently for suspension by cords. The U.S. National Museum
has some of these, and they will be figured in the chapter related to Brazil.
The similarity between these distant objects is remarkable, whether they
were related or not, and whether they knowledge or custom came over by
migration or not.
Owl-shaped vases. --- It is also remarkable
to note in this connection the series of owl-shaped terra-cotta vases of
the ruined cities of Hissarlik and their relation to the Swastika as a
possible symbol of the generative power. These vases have rounded bottoms,
wide bellies, high shoulders (the height of which is emphasized by the
form and position of the handles), the mouth narrow and somewhat bottle
shaped, but not entirely so. What would be the neck is much larger than
usual for a bottle, and more like the neck of a human figure, which the
object in its entirety represents in a rude, but, nevertheless, definite,
manner. At the top of the vase are the eyes, eyebrows, and the nose. It
is true that the round eyes, the arched eyebrows, and the pointed nose
give it somewhat an owlish face, but if we look at fig. 127, the human
appearance of which is emphasized by the cover of the vase, which serves
as a cap for the head and has the effect of enlarging it to respectable
dimensions, we will see how nearly it represents a human being. The US
National Museum possesses one of these vases in the Schliemann collection
(fig. 126). It has the face as described, while the other human organs
are only indicated by small knobs. It and the three figures, 127, 128,
and 129, form a series of which the one in the Museum would be the first,
the others following in the order named. No. 2 in the series has the female
attributes indefinitely and rudely indicated, the lower organ being represented
by a concentric ring. In No. 3 the mammæ are well shown, while the
other organ has the concentric ring, the center of which is filled with
a Greek cross with four dots, one in each angle, the Croix swasticale of
Zmigrodzki (fig. 12). No. 4 of the series is more perfect as a human, for
the mouth is represented by a circle, the mammæ are present, while
in the other locality appears a well-defined Swastika. The first three
of these were found in the fourth city at 20 to 22 feet depth, respectively;
the last was found in the fifth city at a depth of 10 feet. The leaden
idol (fig. 125), with its Swastika mark on the triangle covering the private
parts, may properly be considered as part of the series. When to this series
is added the folium ritus of Brazil (pl. 18), the similarity becomes significant,
if not mysterious. But, with all this significance and mystery, it appears
to the author that this sign, in its peculiar position, has an equal claim
as a symbol of blessing, happiness, good fortune, as that it represents
the generative power.
From the earliest time of which we have
knowledge of the thoughts or desires of man we know that the raising up
"heirs and his body" constituted his greatest blessing and happiness, the
their failure his greatest misery. The first and greatest command of God
to man, as set forth in the Holy Bible, is to "Be fruitful, and multiply,
and replenish the earth." (1) This was repeated after the Deluge, (2)
and when He pronounced the curse in the Garden, that upon the woman
(3) was, "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." God's greatest blessing
to Abraham, when He gave to him and his seed the land as far as he could
see, was that his seed should be as the dust of the earth, "so that if
a
man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered."
(1) "Tell the stars, if thou be able to number them * * * so shall thy
seed be. * * * As the father of many nations," etc. We all know the story
of Sarai, how, when she and Abraham had all riches and power on earth,
it was as naught while they were childless, and how their greatest blessing
was the Divine promise of an heir, and that their greatest happiness was
over the birth of Isaac. This may be o proof of the symbolism of the Swastika,
but it shows how, in high antiquity, man's happiness in his children was
such as makes the Swastika mark, in the position indicated, equally a symbol
of good fortune and blessing as it was when put on the spindle-whorls of
Hissarlik, the vases of Greece, or the fibulæ of Etruria.
The age of the Trojan cities. --- It
may be well to consider for a moment the age of epoch of these prehistoric
Trojan cities on the hill of Hissarlik. Professor Virchow was appealed
to by Schliemann for his opinion. He says: (2)
Other scholars have been inclined to ascribe the oldest cities of Hissarlik to the Neolithic age, because remarkable weapons and utensils of polished stone are found in them. * * * This conception is unjustified and inadmissible. To the third century A. D. belongs the surface of the fortress hill of Hissarlik, which still lies above the Macodonian wall; and the oldest "cities" --- although not only polished stones but also chipped flakes of chalcedony and obsidian occur in them --- nevertheless fall within the age of metals, for even in the first utensils of copper, gold, and even silver were dug up. No stone people, properly so called, dwelt upon the fortress hill of Hissarlik, so far as it has been uncovered.
Virchow's opinion that none of the cities
of Hissarlik were in the stone age may be correct, but the reason he gave
is certainly doubtful. He says they come within the age of metals, for
, or because, "utensils of copper, gold, and even silver were dug up among
the ruins of the first city." That the metals, gold, silver, or copper,
were used by aborigines, is no evidence that they were in a metal age,
as it has been assigned and understood by prehistoric archæologhists.
The great principle upon which the names of the respective prehistoric
ages --- stone, bronze, and iron --- were given, was that these materials
were used for cutting and similar implements. The use of gold and silver
or any metal for ornamental purposes has never been considered by archæologists
as synchronous with a metal age. Indeed, in the United States there are
great numbers of aboriginal cutting implements of copper, of which the
U. S. National Museum possesses a collection of five or six hundred; yet
they were not in sufficient number to , and they did not, supersede the
use of stone as the principal materials for cutting implements, and so
do not establish a copper age in America. In Paleolithic times bone was
largely used as material for utensils and ornaments. Bone was habitually
in use for one purpose or another, yet no one ever pretended that this
establishes a bone age. In countries and localities where stone is scarce
and shell abundant, cutting implements were, in prehistoric times, made
of shell; and chisels or hatchets of shell, corresponding to the polished
stone hatchet, where prevalent whereever the conditions were favorable,
yet nobody ever called it an age of shell. So, in the ruined cities of
Hissarlik, the first five of them abounded in stone implements peculiar
to the Neolithic age, while there may have been large numbers of implements
and utensils of other materials, yet this did not change it from the polished
stone age. In any event, the reason given by Virchow --- i. e., that the
use, undisputed, of copper, gold, and silver by the inhabitants of these
cities --- is not evidence to change their culture status from that denominated
as the polished stone age or period.
Professor Virchow subsequently does
sufficient justice to the antiquity of Schliemann's discoveries and says
(3) while "it is impossible to assign these strata to the stone age, yet
they are indications of what is the oldest known settlement in Asia Minor
of a people of prehistoric times of some advance in civilization," and
(4) that "no place in Europe is known which could be put in direct connection
with any one of the six lower cities of Hissarlik."
Professor Sayce also gives his opinion
on the age of these ruins: (5)
The antiquities, therefore, unearthed
by Dr. Schliemann at Troy, acquire for us a double interest. They carry
us back to the later stone ages of the Aryan race.
Africa. Egypt.
A consensus of the opinions of antiquarians
is that the Swastika had no foothold among the Egyptians. Prof. Max Müller
is to this opinion, as is also Count Goblet d'Alviella. (6)
Waring (7) says:
The only sign approaching the fylfot in Egyptian Hieroglyphics that we have met is shown in fig. 3, pl. 41, where it forms one of the hieroglyphs of Isis, but is not very similar to our fylfot.
Mr. Greg says: (8) "In Egypt the fylfot does not occur." Many other authors say the same. Yet many specimens of the Swastika have been found in Egypt (fig. 130 and 136). Professor Goodyear, (9) says:
The earliest dated Swastikas are of the
third millennium B. C., and occur on the foreign Cyprian and Carian (!)
pottery fragments of the time of the twelfth dynasty (in Egypt), discovered
by Mr. Flinders Petrie in 1889. (Kahun, Gurob, and Hawara, pl. 27, Nos.
162 and 173.)
Naukratis. --- Figs. 130, 131, 132,
133, 134 and 135, made after illustrations in Mr. W. Flinders Peterie's
Third Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund (Pt. 1), found by him in Naukratis,
all show unmistakable Swastikas. It should be explained that these are
said to be Greek vases which have been imported into Egypt. So that, while
found in Egypt and so classed geographically, they are not Egyptian, but
Greek.
Coptos (AchmimPanopolis). --- within
the past few years great discoveries have been made in Upper Egypt, in
Sakkarah, Fayum, and Achmim, the last of which was the ancient city of
Panopolis. The inhabitants of Coptos and the surrounding or neighboring
cities were Christian Greeks, who migrated from their country during the
first centuries of our era and settled in this land of Egypt. Strabo mentions
these people and their ability as weavers and embroiderers. Discoveries
have been made of their cemeteries, winding sheets, and grave clothes.
These clothes have been subjected to analytic investigation , and it is
the conclusion of M. Gerspach, the administrator of the national manufactory
of the Gobelin tapestry, Paris, (1) that they were woven in the same way
as the Gobelins, and that, except being smaller, they did not differ essentially
from them. He adds:
These Egyptian tapestries and those of the Gobelins, are the result of work which is identical except in some secondary details, so that I have been able, without difficulty, to reproduce these Coptic tapestries in the Gobelin manufactory.
On one of these Coptic cloths, made of
linen, reproduced in "Die Gräber und Textilfunde von Aehmim Panopolis,"
by R. Forrer, occurs a normal Swastika embroidered or woven, tapestry fashion,
with woolen thread (fig. 136). It belongs to the first epoch, which includes
portions of the first and second centuries A. D. There were on these cloths
an enormous amount of decoration, representing many figures, both natural
and geometric. Among them was the Swastika variously applied and in different
sizes, sometimes inserted in borders, and
sometimes adorning the corners of the tunics and togas as a large medallion,
as shown in the figure. (1)
Algeria.
Waring, in his "Ceramic Art in Remote
Ages," discoursing upon the Swastika, which he calls fylfot, shows in pl.
43, fig. 2 (quoting from Delamare), the base of a column from a ruined
roman building in Algeria (fig. 137), on the torus of which are engraved
two Swastikas, the arms crossing at right angles, all ends bent at right
angles to the left. There are other figures (five and six on the same plate)
of Swastikas from a roman mosaic pavement in Algeria. Instead of being
square, however, or at right angles, as might ordinarily be expected from
mosaic, they are ogee. In one of the specimens the ogee ends finish in
a point; in the other they finish in a spiral volute turning upon itself.
The Swastika has been found on a tombstone in Algeria. (2)
Ashantee.
Mr. R. B. Mcleod, of Invergordon Castle,
Ross-shire, Scotland, reported (3) that, on looking over some curious bronze
ingots captured at Coomassee in 1874, during the late Ashantee war, by
Captain Eden, in whose possession they were at Inverness, he had found
some marked with the Swastika sign (fig. 138). These
specimens were claimed to be aboriginal, but whether the marks were
cast or stamped in the ingot is not stated.
Classical Occident --- Mediterranean.
Greece and the Islands of Cyprus, Rhodes, Melos, and Thera.
The Swastika has been discovered in
Greece and in the islands of Archipelago on objects of bronze an gold,
but the principal vehicle was pottery; and of these the greatest number
were the painted vases. It is remarkable that the vases on which the Swastika
appears in the largest proportion should be the oldest, those belonging
to the Archaic period. Those already shown as having been found at Naukratis,
in Egypt, are assigned by Mr. Flinders Petrie to the sixth and fifth centuries
B. C., and their presence is accounted for by migrations from Greece.
The Greek and Egyptian meander not the
same as the Swastika. --- Professor Goodyear says: (4) "There is no proposition
in archæology which can be so easily demonstrated as the assertion
that the Swastika is originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, provided
Greek geometric vases are called in evidence."
Egyptian meander here means the Greek
fret. Despite the ease with which he says it can be demonstrated that the
Swastika was originally a fragment of the Egyptian meander, and with all
respect for the opinion of so profound a student of classic ornament, doubts
must arise as to the existence of the evidence necessary to prove his proposition.
Figs. 139, 140, 141 and 142
Professor Goodyear, and possibly others,
ascribe the origin of the Swastika to the Greek fret; but this is doubtful
and surely has not been proved. It is difficult, if not impossible, to
procure direct evidence on the proposition. Comparisons may be made between
the two signs; but this is secondary or indirect evidence, and depends
largely on argument. No man is so poor in expedients that he may not argue.
Goldsmith's schoolmaster "e'en tho' vanquished, he could argue still."
The Greek fret, once established, might easily be doubled or crossed in
some of its members, thus forming a figure similar to the Swastika (fig.
139), which would serve as an ornament, but is without any of the characteristics
of the Swastika as s symbol. The crossed lines in the Greek fret seem to
have been altogether fortuitous. They gave it no symbolic character. It
was simply a variation of the fret, and at best was rarely used, and like
it, was employed only for ornament and not with any signification --- not
a sign of benediction, blessing, or good luck, as was the Swastika. The
foundation principle of the Greek fret, so far as we can see its use, is
its adaptability to form an extended ornamental band, consisting of doubled,
bent, and sometimes crossed or interlaced lines, always
continuous and never ending, and running between two parallel border
lines. Two interlacing lines can be used, crossing each other at certain
places, both making continuous meanders and together forming the ornamental
band (fig. 139). In the Greek fret the two lines meandered between the
two borders back and forth, up and down, but always forming a continuous
line. This seems to be the foundation principle of the Greek fret. In all
this requirement or foundation principle the Swastika fails. A row or band
of Swastikas can not be made by continuous lines; each one is and must
be separated from its fellows. The Swastika has four arms, each made by
a single line which comes to an end in each quarter. This is more imperative
with the meander Swastika than with the normal. If the lines be doubled
on each other to be carried along to form another Swastika adjoining, in
the attempt to make a band, it will be found impossible. The four lines
from each of the four arms can be projected, but each will be in a different
direction, and no band can be made. It is somewhat difficult to describe
this, and possibly not of great need. An Attempt to carry out the project
of making a band of Swastikas, to be connected with each other, or to make
them travel in any given direction with continuous lines, will be found
impossible. Professor Goodyear attempts to show how this is done by his
figure on page 96, in connection with pl. 10, fig. 9, also figs. 173 and
174 (pp. 353 and 354). These figures are given in this paper and are, respectively,
Nos. 21, 25, 26, and 27. Exception is taken to the pretended line of evolution
in these figures: (1) There is nothing to show any actual relationship
between them. There is no evidence that they agreed either in locality
or time, or that there was any unity of thought or design in
the minds of their respective artists. [2] Single specimens are no
evidence of custom. This is a principle of the common law which has still
a good foundation,
and was as applicable in those days as it is now. The transition
form the spiral of the Greek fret and from the Greek fret to the Swastika
can be shown only by the existence of the custom or habit of the artist
to make them both in the same or adjoining epochs of time, and this is
not proved by showing a single specimen. [3] If a greater number of
specimens were produced, the chain of evidence would still be incomplete,
for the meander of the Greek fret will, as has just been said, be found
impossible of transition into the meander Swastika. It (the Swastika) does
not extend itself into a band, but if spread at all, it spreads in each
of the four directions (figs. 21 and 25). the transition will be found
much easier from the
Greek meander fret to the normal Swastika and from that to the meander
Swastika than to proceed in the opposite direction. Anyone who doubts this
has but to try to make the Swastika in a continuos or extended band or
line (fig. 26), similar to the Greek fret.
Figs. 133 and 134, from Naukratis, afford
palpable evidence of the different origin of the Swastika and the Greek
fret. Evidently Grecian vases, though found in Egypt, these specimens bear
side by side examples of the fret and the Swastika used contemporaneously,
and both of them complete and perfect. If one had been parent of the other,
they would have belonged to different generations and would not have appeared
simultaneous use is in fig. 194, which represents an Etruscan vase (1)
ornamented with bronze nail heads in the form of
Swastikas, but associated with it is the design of the Greek fret,
showing them to be of contemporaneous use, and therefore not as Professor
Goodyear believes, an evolution of one from the other. The specimen is
in the Museum at Este, Italy.
The Greek fret has been in common use
in all ages and all countries adopting the Grecian civilization. Equally
in all ages and countries has appeared the crossed lines which have been
employed by every architect and decorator, most or many of whom had no
knowledge of the Swastika, either as an ornament or as a symbol. (1)
Swastika in panels. --- Professor Goodyear,
in another place, (2) argues in a manner which tacitly admits the foregoing
proposition, where, in his endeavor to establish the true home of the Swastika
to be in the Greek geometric style, he says we should seek it where it
appears in "the largest dimension" an din "the most prominent way." In
verification of this declaration, he says that in this style the Swastika
systematically appears in panels exclusively assigned to it. But he gives
only two illustrations of the Swastika in panels. These have been copied,
and are shown in figs. 140 and 142, from Dennis's "Etruria," from Waring's
"Ceramic Art," and from Cesnola an Obnefalsch-richter. It might be too
much to say that these are the only Swastikas in Greece appearing in panels,
but it is certain that the great majority of them do not thus appear. Therefore,
Professor Goodyear's theory is not sustained, for no one will pretend that
four specimens found in panels will form a rule for the great number which
did not thus appear. This argument of Professor Goodyear is destructive
of his other proposition that the Swastika sign originated by evolution
from the meander or Greek fret, for we have seen that the latter was always
used in a band
and never in panels. Although the Swastika and the Greek fret have
a certain similarity of appearance in that they consist of straight lines
bent at right angles, and this continued many times, yet the similarity
is more apparent than real; for an analysis of the motifs of both show
them to have been essentially different in their use, and so in their foundation
and origin.
Swastikas with four arms, crossing at
right angles, with ends bent to the right. --- The author has called this
the normal Swastika. He has been at some trouble to gather such Swastikas
from Greek vases as was possible, and has divided them according to forms
and peculiarities. The first group (figs. 140, 143, 147, 148, and 150)
shows the normal Swastika with four arms, all bent at right angles and
to the right. In the aforesaid division no distinction has been made between
specimens from different parts of Greece and the islands of the Grecian
Archipelago, and these, with such specimens as have been found in Smyrna,
have for this purpose all been treated as Greek.
Swastikas with four arms crossing at
right angles, ends bent to the left. --- Figs. 141, 142, 144, 149, 151,
153, 154, 156, and 157 represent the normal Swastika with four arms, all
bending at right angles, but to the left. The vases on which they have
been found are not described as to color of form. It would be difficult
to do so correctly; besides, these descriptions are not important in our
study of the Swastika. Fig. 155 represents a vase or pitcher (oinochoë,
Greek --- oinoj, wine, and cew, to pour) with painted Swastika, ends turned
to the left. It is in the Museum of St. Germain, and is figured by M. De
Mortillet in "Musée Préhistorique." Fig. 156 represents a
Cyprian vase from Ormidia, in the New York Museum. It is described by Cesnola
(1) and by Perrot and Chipiez. (2) Fig. 157 is taken from a fragment or
archaic Greek pottery found in Santorin (Ancient Thera), an island in the
Greek Archipelago. This island was first inhabited by the Phenicians, afterwards
by the Greeks, a colony of whom founded Cyrene in Africa. This specimen
is cited by Rochette and figured by Waring. (1)
Swastika with four arms, crossing at other than right angles, the ends ogee and to the left. --- Figs. 158, 159, and 160 show Swastikas with four arms crossing at other than right angles, many of them ogee, but turned to the left. Fig. 161 is a representation of a wooden button or clasp, much resembling the later gold brooch of Sweden, classified by Montelius (p. 867), covered with plates of gold, from Sepulcher IV, Mycenæ (Schleimann, Mycenæ, fig. 385, p. 259). The ornament in its center is one of the ogee Swastikas with four arms (tetraskelion) curved to the left. It shows a dot in each of the four angles of the cross similar to the Suavastika of Max Müller and the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki, which Burnouf attributed to the four nails which fastened the cross Arani (the female principle), while the Pramantha (the male), produced, by rotation, the holy fire from the sacred cross. An almost exact reproduction of this Swastika will be found on the shield of the Pima Indians of New Mexico (fig. 258).
He also reports (2) that Swastikas (turned
both ways) may be seen in the Royal Museum at Berlin incised on a balustrade
relief of the hall which surrounded the temple of Athene at Pergamos. Fig.
162 represents a spiral Swastika with four arms crossing at right angles,
the ends all turned to the left and each one forming a spiral.
Waring (3) figures and describes a Grecian
oinochoë from Camirus, Rhodes, dating, as he says from 700 to 500
B. C., on which is a band of decoration similar to fig. 130. It is about
10 inches high, of cream color, with ornamentation of dark brown. Two ibexes
follow each other with an ogee spiral Swastika between the forelegs of
one.
Meander pattern, with ends bent to right
and left. --- Figs. 163, 164, and 165 show the Swastika in meander pattern.
Fig. 163 shows two Swastikas, the arms of both bent to the right, one six,
the other nine times. The Swastika shown in fig. 164 is bent to the right,
one six, the other nine times. The Swastika shown in fig. 164 is bent to
the right eight times. That shown in fig. 165 bends to the left eight times.
Swastika of different kinds on the same
object. --- The next group (figs. 167, 168, 169, 170, 171, 172, 173, 174,
175 and 176) is of importance in that it represents objects which, bearing
the normal Swastika, also show on the same object other styles of Swastika,
those turned to the left at right angles, those at other than right angles,
and those which are spiral or meander. The presence on a single object
of different forms of Swastika is considered as evidence of their chronologic
identity and their consequent relation to each other, showing them to be
all the same sign --- that is, they were all Swastikas, whether the arms
were bent to the right or to the left, ogee or in curves, at right angles
or at other than right angles, in spirals in the the London, Paris, and
New York museums, and in other collections. (See figs. 149, 159.) Fig.
174 shows an Attic painted vase (Lebes) of the Archaic period, from Athens.
It is a pale yellowish ground, probably the
natural color, with figures in maroon. It belongs to the British Museum.
It bears on the front side five Swastikas, all of different styles; three
turn to the right, two to the left. The main arms cross at right angles,
but the ends of four are bent at right angles, while one is curved (ogee).
Three have the ends bent (at right angles) four times, making a meander
form, while two make only one bent. They seem not to be placed with any
reference to each other, or to any other object, and are scattered over
the field as chance or luck might determined. A specimen of Swastika interesting
to prehistoric archæologists is that on a vase from Cyprus (Musée
St. Germain, No. 21557), on which is represented an arrowhead, stemmed,
barbed, and suspended by its points between the Swastika. (1)
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter presented
a paper before the Société d'Anthropologie in Paris, December
6, 1888, reported in the Bulletin of that year (pp. 668-681). it was entitled
"La Croix gammée et la Croix contonnée en Chypre." (The Croix
gammeé is the Swastika, while the Croix cantonnée is the
cross with dots, the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki.) In this paper the
author describes his finding the Swastika during his excavations into prehistoric
Cyprus. On the first page of his paper the following statement appears:
The Swastika comes from India as an ornament
in form of a cone (conique) of metal, gold, silver, or bronze gilt, worn
on the ears (see G. Perrot: "Histoire de l'Art," III, p. 562 et fig. 384),
and nose-rings (see S. Reinach: "Chronique d'Orient," 3c série,
t. IV, 1886). I was the first to make known the nose-ring worn by the goddess
Aphrodite-Astarte, even at Cyprus. In the Indies the women still wear these
ornaments in their nostrils and ears. The fellahin of Egypt also wear similar
jewelry; but as Egyptian art gives us no example of the usage of these
ornaments in antiquity, it is only from the Indies that the Phenicians
could have borrowed them. The nose-ring is unknown in the antiquity of
all countries which surrounded the island of Cyprus.
The first pages of his memoir are employed
in demonstrating that
the specimens of the Swastika found in Cyprus, the most of which are
set forth in this paper (figs. 177, 178, 179, 180, 181 and 182), show a
Phenician influence; and according to his theory demonstrate their migration
or importation. He does not specify the evidence on which he bases his
assertion of Phenician influence in Cyprus, except in one or two particulars.
Speaking of the specimen shown in fig. 177 of the present paper, he says:
It represents the sacred palm under which
Apollo, the god of light, was born.
* * * At Cyprus the palm did not appear only with the Phenicians; it
was not known prior to that time (p.674).
The design shown in fig. 178 he describes
as representing two birds in the attitude of adoration before a Swastika,
all being figured on a Greek cup of the style Dipylon. (1)
Dr. Ohnefalsch-richter adds:
On the vases of Dipylon the Swastikas
are generally transformed into other ornaments, mostly meanders. But this
is not the rule in Cyprus. The Swastika disappeared from there as it came,
in its sacred form, with the Phenician influence, with the Phenician inscriptions
on the vases, with the concentric circles without central points or tangents.
He says (2) that the Swastika as well
as the "Croix cantonnée" (with points or dots), while possibly not
always the equivalent of the solar disk, zigzag lightning, or the double
hatchet, yet are employed together and are given the same signification,
and are frequently replace each other. It is his opinion (3) that the Swastika
in Cyprus had nearly always a signification more or less religious, although
it may have been used as an ornament to fill empty spaces. His interpretation
of the Swastika in Cyprus is that it will signify tour à tour the
storm, the lightning, the sun, the light, the seasons --- sometimes one,
sometimes another of these significations --- and that its form lends itself
easily (facilement) to the solar disk, to the fire wheel, and to the sun
chariot. In support of this, he cites a figure (fig. 179) taken from Cesnola,
(4) in which the wheels of the chariot are decorated with four Swastikas
displayed in each of the four quarters. The chief personage on the car
he identifies as the god of war and also the god of light, which he identifies
him with Helios. The other personage is Herakles-Meequars, the right hand
of Apollo, both of them heroes of the sun.
The supreme goddess of the Isle of Cyprus
was Aphrodite-Astarte, (5) whose presence with a preponderating Phenician
influence can be traced back to the period of the age of iron, her images
bearing signs of the Swastika, being, according to Dr. Ohenfalsch-Richter,
found in Cyprus. In fig. 180 the statue of this goddess is shown, which
he says was found by himself in 1884 at Curium. It bears four Swastikas,
two on the shoulders and two on the forearms. Fig. 181 represents a centaur
found by him at the same time, on the right arm of which is a Swastika
painted in black, as in the foregoing statue.
We have found, in the course of this
paper, many statues of human figures bearing the mark of the Swastika on
some portion of their garments. M. Ohnefalsch-Richter, on page 677, gives
the following explanation thereof:
It appears to me that the priests and priestesses, also the boys who performed the services in the sacred places, were in the habit of burning or tattooing Swastikas upon their arms. * * * In 1885, among the votive offerings found in one of the sacred places dedicated to Aphrodite-Astoret, near Idalium, was a stone statuette tattooed or painted in red color upon his naked arm.
And, says Richter, when, later on, the custom of tattooing had disappeared, they placed the Swastika on the sacerdotal garments. He was found in a Greek tomb in 1885, near Polistis Chrysokon, two statuettes representing female dancers in the service of Aphrodite-Ariadne, one of which (fig. 182) bore six or more Swastikas. In other cases, says he (p.678), the Croix cantonnée (the Croix swasticale of Zmigrodzki) replaced the Swastika on the garments, and he cites the statue of Hercules strangling the lion in the presence of Athena, whose robe is ornamented with the Croix cantonnée. He repeats that the two signs of the cross represent the idea of light, sun, sacrifice, rain, storm, and the seasons.
Europe.
Bronze Age.
Prehistoric archæologists claim
that bronze was introduced into Europe in prehistoric times from the extreme
Orient. The tin mines of the peninsula of Burma and Siam, with their extension
into China on the north, Malacea and the islands of the archipelago on
the south, are known to have been worked in extremely ancient times and
are believed to have furnished the tin for the first making of bronze.
The latter many not be susceptible of proof, but everything is consistent
therewith. After if became known that copper and tin would make bronze,
the discovery of tin would be greatly extended, and in the course of time
the tin mines of Spain, Britain, and Germany might be opened. A hundred
and more prehistoric bronze foundries have been discovered in western Europe
and tens of thousands of prehistoric bronze implements. If bronze came
originally from the extreme Orient, and the Swastika belonged there also,
and as objects of bronze belonging to prehistoric times and showing connection
with the Orient, like the tintinuabulum (fig. 29) have been found in the
Swiss lake dwellings of prehistoric times, it is a fir inference that the
Swastika mark found on the same objects came also from the Orient. This
inference is strengthened by the manufacture and continuous use of the
Swastika on both bronze and pottery, until it practically covered, and
is to be found over, all Europe wherever the culture of bronze prevailed.
Nearly all varieties of the Swastika came into use during the Bronze age.
The objects on which it was placed may have been different in different
localities, and so also another variety of form may have prevailed in a
given locality; but, subject to these exceptions, the Swastika came into
general use throughout the countries wherein the Bronze Age prevailed.
As we have seen, on the hill of Hissarlik the Swastika is found principally
on the spindle-whorl; in Greece and Cyprus, on the pottery vases; in Germany,
on the ceintures of bronze; in Scandinavia, on weapons and on toilet and
dress ornaments. In Scotland and Ireland it was mostly on sculptured stones,
which are many times themselves ancient Celtic crosses. In England, France,
and Etruria, the Swastika appears on small bronze ornaments, principally
fibulæ. Different forms of the Swastika, i.e., those to the right,
left, square, ogee, curved, spiral and meander, triskelion and tetraskelion,
have been found on the same object, thereby showing their inter-relationship.
No distinction is apparent between the arms bent to the right or the the
left. This difference, noted by Prof. Max Müller, seems to fail altogether.
Greg says: (1)
About 500 to 600 B. C., the fylfot, (Swastika) curiously enough begins to disappear as a favorite device of early Greek art, and is rarely, if ever, seen on the regular Etruscan vase.
This indicates that the period of the
use of the Swastika during the Bronze Age in Europe lay back of the period
of its disappearance in the time of early Greek art, and that it was of
higher antiquity than would otherwise be suspected.
Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter says: (2)
The Swastika makes absolute default in Cyprus during all the age of bronze and in all its separate divisions according as the vases were decorated with intaglio or relief, or were painted.
Etruria and Italy. --- The Etruscans
were a prehistoric people. The country was occupied during the two ages
of stone, Paleolithic and Neolithic, and during the Bronze Age. The Etruscans
were probably the descendants of the Bronze Age people. The longest continued
geographical discussion the world has heard was as to who were the Etruscans,
and whence or by what route did they come to their country? It was opened
by Herodotus and Dionysius Halicarnassus in the fourth century B.C.; while
Dr. Brinton and the late President Welling have made the latest contributions
thereto. The culture of the Etruscans
was somewhat similar to that of the Bronze Age peoples, and many of
the implements had great resemblance, but with sufficient divergence to
mark the difference between them. There were different stages of culture
among the Etruscans, as can be easily and certainly determined from the
tombs, modes of burial, pottery, etc.
The Swastika appears to have been employed
in all these epochs or stages. It was undoubtedly used during the Bronze
Age, and in Italy it continued throughout the Etruscan and into the Roman
and Christian periods.
While it may be doubtful if any specimen
of Swastika can be identified as having belonged to the Neolithic Age in
Europe, there can be no doubt that it was in common use during the Bronze
Age. Professor Goodyear gives it as his opinion, and in this he may be
correct, that the earliest specimens of Swastika of which identification
can be made are on the hut urns of central Italy. These have been considered
as belonging definitely to the Bronze Age in that country. Fig. 183 is
a representation of one of those hut urns. It shows upon its roof several
specimens of Swastika, as will be apparent from examination. There are
other figures, incised and in relief. One of them is the celebrated "burning
altar" mark of Dr. Schliemann. This specimen was found in the Via Appia
near Rome, and is exhibited in the Vatican Museum. Similar specimens have
been found in other parts of Etruria. The author saw in the Municipal Museum
at Corneto many of them, which had been excavated from the neighboring
cemetery of the prehistoric city of Corneto-Tarquinii. They are pottery,
but made as if to represent rude huts of skin, stretched on cross poles,
in general appearance not unlike the cane and rush conical cabins used
to this day by the peasants around Rome. They belonged to the Bronze Age,
and antedated the Etruscan civilization. This was demonstrated by the finds
at Corneto-Tarquinii. Tombs to the number of about 300, containing them,
where found, mostly in 1880-81, at a lower level than, and were superseded
by, the Etruscan tombs. They contained the weapons, tools, and ornaments
peculiar to the Bronze Age --- swords, hatchets, pins, fibulæ, bronze
and pottery vases, etc., the characteristics of which were different from
Etruscan objects of similar purpose, so they could be satisfactorily identified
and segregated. The hut urns were receptacles for the ashes of the cremated
dead, which, undisturbed, are to be seen in the museum. The vases forming
part of this grave furniture bore the swastika mark; three have two Swastikas,
one three, one four, and another no less than eight.
Dennis figures a hut urn from Alba Longa,
(1) and another from the Alban Mount. (2) He says (note 1):
These remarkable urns were first found in 1817 on Montecucco, near Marino, and at Monte Crescenzio, near the Lago de Castello, beneath a stratum of peperino (tufa) 18 inches thick. They were embedded in a yellowish volcanic ash and rested on a lower and earlier stratum of peperino. (3)
Curiously enough, the three or four pronged
mark, called "burning altar" by Dr. Schliemann, is on both hut urns in
Dennis' "Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria." Dr. Schliemann argues strongly
in favor of the relationship between Swastika and the "burning altar" sign,
but assigns no other reason than the similarity of the marks on the two
objects. He appears unable, in "Ilios," to cite any instance of the Swastika
being found on the hut urns in connection with the "burning altar" sign,
but he mentions the Swastika five times repeated on one of the hut urns
in the Etruscan collection in the museum of the Vatican at Rome. (4) The
photograph of the hut urn form the Vatican (fig. 183) supplies the missing
link in Schliemann's evidence. The roof of the hut urn bears the "burning
altar" mark (if it be a burning altar, as claimed), which is in high relief
(as it is in the Dennis specimens), and was wrought in the clay by the
molder when the hut was made. Such of the other portions of the roof as
are in sight show sundry incised lines which, being deciphered, are found
to be Swastikas or parts of them. The parallelogram in the front contains
a cross and has the appearance of a labyrinth, but it is not. The other
signs or marks, however, represent Swastikas, either in whole or in part.
This specimen completes the proof cited by Schliemann, and associates the
Swastika with the "burning altar" sign in the Etruscan country, as well
as on the hill of Hissarlik and in other localities.
Dennis supposes the earliest Etruscan
vases, called by many different names, to date from the twelfth century
B. C. to 540 B. C., (5) the latter being the epoch of Theodoros of Samos,
whose improvements marked an epoch in the culture of the country. He says:
These vases were adorned with annular
bands, zigzag, waves, meanders, concentric circles, hatched lines, Swastikas,
and other geometric patterns.
A fragment of Archaic Greek pottery
is reported by Rochette from the necropolis of Cumæ, in the campagna
of Italy, and is shown in fig. 184. Rochette reports it as an example of
a very early period, believed by him to have been Phenician. When we consider
the rarity of Phenician pottery in Italy compared with the great amount
of Greek pottery found there, and that the Phenicians are not known to
have employed the Swastika, this, combined with the difficulty of determining
the place of origin of such a fragment, renders it more likely to have
been Greek than Phenician. A reason apparently moving Rochette to this
decision was the zigzag ornamentation, which he translated to be a Phenician
sign of water; but this pattern was used many times and in many places
without having any such meaning, and is no proof of his proposition.
Figs. 185 and 186 represent the one-handled
cinerary urns peculiar to the Bronze Age in Italy. They are believed to
have been contemporaneous with or immediately succeeding the hut urns just
shown. The cinerary urn shown in fig. 185 was found at Marino, near Albano,
in the same locality and under the same condition as the hut urns. The
original is in the Vatican Museum and was figured by Pigorini in "Arcæologia,:
1869. Fig. 186 shows a one-handled urn of pottery with Swastika (left)
in intaglio, placed in a band of incised squares around the body of the
vessel below the shoulder. A small though good example of Etruscan work
is shown in the gold fibula (fig. 187). It is ornamented on the outside
with the fine gold filigree work peculiar to the best Etruscan art. On
the inside are two Swastikas. It is in the Vatican Museum of Etruscan antiquities.
Fig. 188 represents another specimen of Etruscan gold filigree work with
a circle and Swastika. It is a "bulla," an ornament said to indicate the
rank of the wearer among the Etruscan people. It is decorated with a circle
and Swastika inside. The figure is taken form "L'Art pour Tous," and is
reproduced by Waring.
An ornamental Swastika (fig. 189) is
found on a silver bowl from Cervetri (Cære), Etruria. It is furnished
by Grifi, and reproduced by Waring. This specimen is to be remarked as
having a small outward flourish from the extreme end of each arm, somewhat
similar to that made by the Jains (fig. 33), or on the "Tablet of honor"
of Chinese porcelain (fig. 31). Fig. 190 shows an Etruscan bronze fibula
with two Swastikas and two Maltese crosses in the pin shield. It is in
the Museum of Copenhagen, and is taken from the report of the Congrés
Internationale d'Anthropologie et d'Archæologie Préhistorique,
Copenhagen, 1875, page 486. This specimen, by its rays or crotchets around
the junction of the pin with the shield, furnishes the basis of the argument
by Goblet d'Alviella (1) that the Swastika was evolved from the circle
and was a symbol of the sun or sun-god. (See p. 785.)
Bologna was the site of the roman city
Bononia, and is supposed to have been that of Etruscan Felsina. It's Etruscan
cemetery is extensive. Different names have been given to the excavations,
sometimes from the owner of the land and at other times from the names
of excavators. The first cemetery opened was called Villanova. The culture
was different from that of the other parts of Etruria. By some it is believed
to be older, by others younger, than the rest of Etruria. The Swastika
is found throughout the entire
Villanova epoch. Fig. 191 shows a pottery vase from the excavation
Arnoaldi. It is peculiar in shape and decoration, but is typical of that
epoch. The decoration was by stamps in the clay (intaglio) of a given subject
repeated in the narrow bands around the body of the vase. Two of these
bands were of small Swastikas with the ends all turned to the right. Fig.
192 shows a fragment of pottery from the Felsina necropolis, Bologna, ornamented
with a row of Swastikas stamped into the clay in a manner peculiar to the
locality.
Fig. 193 shows the end view of one of
the bobbins from Bologna, Italy, in the possessions of Count Gozzadini
by whom it was collected. The decoration on the end, as shown by the figure,
is the Swastika. The main arms are made up of three parallel lines, which
intersect each other at right angles, and which all turn to the right at
right angles. The lines are not incised, as is usual, but, like much of
the decoration belonging to this culture, are made by little points consecutively
placed, so as to give the appearance of a continuous line.
Swastikas turning both ways are on one
or both extremities of many terra-cotta cylinders found in the terramare
at Coazze, province of Verona, deposited in the National (Kircheriano)
Museum at Rome. (See figs. 380 and 381 for similar bobbins. [Transcribers
note: These illustrations were not included in the text.)
The museum at Este, Italy, contains
an elegant pottery vase of large dimensions, represented in fig. 194, the
decoration of which is the Greek fret around then neck and the Swastika
around the body, done with small nail heads or similar disks inserted in
the clay in the forms indicated. This association of the Swastika and the
Greek fret on the same object is satisfactory evidence of their contemporaneous
existence, and is thus far evidence that he one was not derived form the
other, especially as the authorities who claim this derivation are at variance
as to which was parent and which, child. (See fig. 133.)
A Swastika of the curious half-spiral
form turned to the left, such as has been
found in Scandinavia and also among the Pueblo Indians
of the United States, as in the museum at Este.
When in the early centuries of the Christian
era the Huns made their irruption into Europe, they apparently possessed
a knowledge of the Swastika. They settled in certain town of northern Italy,
drove off the inhabitants, and occupied the territory for themselves. On
the death of Attila and the repulse of the Huns and their general return
to their native country, many small tribes remained and gradually became
assimilated with the population. They have remained in northern Italy under
the title of Longobards. In this Longbardian civilization or barbarism,
whichever we may call it, and in their style of architecture and ornament,
the Swastika found a prominent place, and is spoken of as Langobardian.
It is needless to multiply citations
of the Swastika in Roman and Christian times. It would appear as though
the sign had descended from the Etruscans and Samnites along the coast
and had continued us use during Roman times. Schliemann says (1) that it
is found frequently in the wall paintings at Pompeii; even more than a
hundred times in a house in the recently excavated street of Vesuvius.
It may have contested with the Latin cross for the honor of being the Christian
cross, for we know that the St. Andrew's cross in connection with the Greek
letter P (figs. 6) did so, and for a long time stood as the monogram of
Christ and was the Labarum of Constantine. All three of these are on the
base of the Archiepiscopal chair in the cathedral at Milau. (2)
Swiss lake dwellings. --- Figs. 195
and 196 are interesting as giving an insight into the method of making
the sign of the Swastika. Fig. 195 shows a fragment of pottery bearing
a stamped intaglio Swastika (right), while fig. 196, represents the stamp,
also in pottery, with which the imprint was made. They are figured by Keller,
(3) and are described on page 339, and by Chantre. (4) They were found
in the Swiss lake dwelling of Bourget (Savoy) by the Duc de Chaulnes, and
are credited to his Museum of Chambery.
Germany and Austria. Fig. 197 represents
a fragment of a ceinture of thin bronze of the Halstattien epoch of the
Bronze Age form a tumulus in Alsace. It is made after the style common
to that period the work is repoussé and the design is laid off by
diagonal lines which divide the field into lozenges, wherein the Swastika
is represented in various forms, some turned square to the right, others
to the left, while one is in spiral and is turned to the left. Other forms
of the cross also appear with dots in or about the corners, which Burnouf
associates with the myth of Agni and fire making, and which Zmigrodzki
calls the Croix swasticale. This specimen is in the collection Nessel at
Haguenau. Another ceinture was found at the same place and is displayed
with it. It bears representations of the cross of different forms, one
of which might be a Swastika with dotted cross lines, with the arms turned
spirally to the left. Fig. 198 represents another fragment of a bronze
ceinture from the same country and belonging to the same epoch. It is from
the tumulus of Metzstetten, Würtemberg, and is in the Museum of Stuttgart.
It is not repoussé, but is cut in open-work of intricate pattern
in which the Swastika is the principal motif. A bronze fibula (fig. 199)
is in the museum at Mayence, the body of which has the form of the normal
Swastika. The arms are turned to the right and the lower one is broken
off. The hinge for the pin was attached at one side or arm of the Swastika
and the retaining clasp for the point at the other. Fig. 200 with a large
Swastika, the arms being indicated by three parallel lines, after the same
manner as the Swastika on the clay bobbin from Bologna (fig. 193). It is
reported by Lisch and Schröter, though the locality is not given.
It is figured by Waring. The form, appearance, and decoration are of the
type Villanova, thus identifying it with northern Italy.
The Swastika sign is on one of the three
pottery vases found on Bishop's Island, near Königswalde, on the right
bank of the Oder, and on a vase from Reichersdorf, near Guben; (1) on a
vase in the county of Lipto, Hungary, (2) and on pottery from the Cavern
of Barathegy, Hungary. (3) Fig. 201 represents a spearhead of iron from
Brandenburg, North Germany. It bears the mark of the Swastika with the
ends turned to the left, all being at right angles, the ends ornamented
with three dots recalling Zmigrodzki's Croix swasticale (figs. 12 and 13).
By the side of this Swastika is a triskelion, or three-armed ogee sign,
with its ends also decorated with the same three dots.
What relation there is between all these
marks or signs and others similar to them, but separated by great distances
of both time and space, it would be mere speculation to divine.
M. E. Chantre reports his investigations
in certain Hastattieu cemeteries in Italy and Austria. (4) At San Margarethen,
on the road
between Rudolfswerth and Kronau, Bavaria, he encountered a group of
tumuli. Many objects of the "bel age du bronze" were found; among others,
a bronze pin (fig. 202) with a short stem, but large square, flat head,
was found, with a normal Swastika engraved with small dots, pointillé,
such as has been seen in Italy, Austria, and Armenia.