SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION.
UNITED STATES NATIONAL MUSEUM.

THE SWASTIKA,

THE EARLIEST KNOWN SYMBOL, AND ITS MIGRATIONS;
WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE MIGRATION OF
CERTAIN INDUSTRIES IN PREHISTORIC TIMES.

BY
THOMAS WILSON,
Curator, Department of Prehistoric Anthropology,
U. S. National Museum.

From the Report of the U. S. National Museum for 1894, pages 757-1011,
with plates 1-25 and Figures 1-374.

WASHINGTON:
GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE.
1896.

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[Pg 762]

[Pg 763]

THE SWASTIKA,

THE EARLIEST KNOWN SYMBOL, AND ITS MIGRATIONS; WITH OBSERVATIONS ON THE
MIGRATION OF CERTAIN INDUSTRIES IN PREHISTORIC TIMES.

By Thomas Wilson,
Curator, Department of Prehistoric Anthropology, U. S. National Museum.

An English gentleman, versed in prehistoric archæology, 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 Encyclopædic Dictionary, the Encyclopædia Britannica, Johnson’s Universal Cyclopædia, the People’s Cyclopædia, nor Smith’s Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities, his Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, or his Classical Dictionary. I also searched, with the same results, Mollett’s Dictionary of Art and Archæology, 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 Encyclopædia 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[Pg 764] 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 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 discoverers; 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.

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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 its 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 anterior 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.

[Pg 766]The Crux ansata (fig. 4) according to Egyptian mythology, 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 its 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 their 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. Andrew’s cross and the letter P (fig. 6), being the first two letters of the Greek word ΧΡΙΣΤΟΣ (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 projecting arms, was frequently of compound forms as , on which the 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 form , 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 Malta. It is of medieval origin.

Fig. 8 (a and b) 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 side.

[Pg 767]Higgins, in his “Anacalypsis,” a rare and costly work, almost an encyclopedia of knowledge,[2] says, concerning the origin of the cross, that the official name of the governor of Tibet, Lama, comes from the ancient Tibetan word for 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).

[Pg 768]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 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.

NAMES AND DEFINITIONS OF THE SWASTIKA.

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:

[Pg 769]In the “Revue d’Ethnographie” (IV, 1885, p. 329), Mr. Dumoutier gives the following analysis of the Sanskrit swastika:

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 svasti, 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 εὺεστώ. The derivation Svasti-ka is of later date, and it always means an auspicious sign, such as are found most frequently among Buddhists and Jainas.

M. Eugene Burnouf[3] 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 or 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.[4]

George Waring, in his work entitled “Ceramic 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[Pg 770] 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 so named by Count Goblet d’Alviella in his late work, “La Migration des Symboles.” It was also called Croix cramponnée, Croix pattée, 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.[5] Waring, in his elaborate work, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,”[6] says:

The 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 Miölner or Mjolner, 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,[7] hence standing for Horus and other gods.[8] Similar symbolic meanings have been given to these crosses in ancient classic countries of the Orient.[9]

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[Pg 771] 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 religious 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 were 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.[10]”

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:

D’Alviella[12] 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 a in its grammar.

Max Müller continues his explanation:[13]

Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter[14] speaking of the Swastika position, either of crossed legs or arms, among the Hindus,[15] suggests as a possible explanation that these women bore the Swastikas upon their[Pg 773] 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 Swastikas being brought into prominent view, possibly gave the name to the position as being a representative of the sign.

Max Müller continues:[16]

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.[17] Therefore the normal Swastika would seem to be that with the ends bent to the right. Burnouf says the word Suavastika 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,[18] under the title Sôvastikaya, gives it as his opinion that there is no difference between it and the Swastika. Colonel Low[19] mentions the word Sawattheko, which, according to Burnouf[20] is only a variation of[Pg 774] the Pali word Sotthika or Suvatthika, the Pali translation of the Sanskrit Swastika. Burnouf translates it as Svastikaya.

M. Eugene Burnouf[21] speaks of a third sign of the footprint of Çakya, called Nandâvartaya, a good augury, the 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 or 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[22] 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 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,[23] and continued until the introduction of orthodox Buddhism in the ninth century A. D.[24]

Klaproth[25] calls attention to the frequent mention by Fa-hian, of the Tao-sse, sectaries of the mystic cross (Sanskrit 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.[26] Mr. James Burgess[27] mentions the Tirthankaras or Jainas as being sectarians of the Mystic Cross, the Swastika.

The Cyclopædia 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 su “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 sect has preserved its existence in different localities and under different names, Thirthankara, Tor, Musteg, Pon, the last name meaning purity, under which a remnant are still in the farthest parts of the most eastern province of Tibet.

[Pg 775]General Cunningham[28] adds his assertion of the Swastika being the symbol used by the Buddhist sect of that name. He says in a note:

Waring[29] proceeds to demolish these statements of a sect named Swastika as pure inventions, 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.”

Mr. 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 suggests 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.)

Zmigrodzki, commenting on the frequency of the Swastika on the objects found by Dr. Schliemann at Hissarlik, gives it as his opinion[30] 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 god 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:[31]

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 sacred fire churn 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:[32]

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[Pg 776] of the Vishnavas, sectarian devotees of Vishnu, is ascribed by Moor in his “Indian Pantheon,” nor yet in the tenets of the Jains,[33] 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:[34]

The Cyprian vase figured in Di Cesnola’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 leaden 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 themselves “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 Ornament,” under the title “Fylfot,” says that in Tibet the Swastika was used as a representation of God crucified for the human race, citing as his authority F. Augustini Antonii Georgii.[35] He remarks:

From these 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 descend 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.[36] (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-pattèe in the various legends which turn on the rings of Freya, Holda, Venus, or Aphrodite.

[Pg 777]Here again we find the fylfot and cross-pattèe 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[37] 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:[38]

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 origin 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[39] 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 were 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[40] opposes this entire theory, saying:

The difficulty about the Swastika and its supposed connection with fire appears to me to be 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 to 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[41] of the old fire drill used in India[Pg 778] 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[42] also criticises 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 know that the savages used two, and never three, fire sticks.

Burnouf continues his discussion of myths concerning the origin of fire:

According to Hymnes, the discoverer of fire was Atharan, whoso name signifies fire, but Bhrigon 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:[43]

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 fold, now from air and now from water,
Now from the mystic double Arani.[44]

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 male Swastika” and the “female Swastika,” indicating them by the pronouns “he” or “she,” would be expressed in the same manner when speaking of the hammer and the anvil or of any other objects used in pairs.[45]

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 [Pg 779]triskelion might throw light on its origin, 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 Asiatic coins of 400 B. C.

Mr. R. P. Greg[46] opposes this theory and expresses the opinion that the Swastika is far older and wider spread as a symbol than the 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 origin 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 opinion, 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 origin 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 origin 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[47] expresses his doubts concerning the theory advanced by Greg[48] to the effect that the Swastika is to be interpreted as a symbol[Pg 780] 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 Pelasgi and Greeks, Jupiter Tonans, and Pluvius 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[49] 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 for Jupiter Optimus Maximus. The Swastika thereon is flanked by two disks or rouelles, with four rays, a sign which M. Gaidoz believes to have been a representative of the sun among the Gaulois.[50]

Dr. Brinton[51] considers the Swastika as being related to the cross and not to 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,[52] 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:[53]

The Svastika is apparently the simplest form of the Guilloche [scroll pattern or spiral]. According to Wilkinson (11, Chap. IX), the most complicated form 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[Pg 781] 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 tricula 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 on the “Fylfot and the Futhore Tir,”[54] thinks the Swastika had no relation to fire or fire making or the fire god. His theory is that it symbolized 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 α 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 έλικη, from its vast spiral movement.[55] 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 Lotus: A New History of Classic Ornament as a Development of Sun Worship.”[56] 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 to the 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.[57]

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.[58] Direct association of the solar disk and lotus are, according to him, common on the monuments and on Phenician and Assyrian seals; while the lotus 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[Pg 782] 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 opinion, some related signification to the sun or some of his deities.[59] He is of the opinion that the lotus motif was the foundation of the Egyptian style of architecture, and that it appeared at an 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,[60] “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[61] 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 (figs. 15, 16, 17).

Chantre[62] notes 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 ou ornaments spirals.”[63]

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[Pg 783] 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,[64] these bent sepals of the lotus were exaggerated and finally became spirals,[65] which, being projected at a tangent, made volutes, and, continuing one after the other, as shown in fig. 20, formed bands of ornament; or,[66] being connected to right and left, spread the ornament over an 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, one has only to square the spiral volutes, and the result is the Greek fret shown in fig. 25.[67] The Greek fret has only to be doubled, when it produces the Swastika shown in fig. 26.[68] Thus we have, according to him, the origin of the Swastika, as shown in figs. 27 and 28.[69]

Professor Goodyear is authority for the statement that the earliest dated instances of the isolated 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 to the twelfth dynasty.[70]

[Pg 784]

Professor Goodyear 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.[71] Hindu specialists have suggested that the Swastika produced the meander. Birdwood[72] says: “I believe the Swastika to be the origin of the key pattern ornament of Greek and Chinese decorative art.” Zmigrodzki, in a recent publication,[73] has not only reproposed this derivation of the meander, but has even connected the Mycenæ spirals with this supposed development, and has proposed to change the name of the spiral ornament accordingly. * * * The equivalence of the Swastika with the meander pattern is suggested, in the first instance, by its appearance in the shape of the meander on the Rhodian (pl. 28, fig. 7), Melian (pl. 60, fig. 8), archæic Greek (pl. 60, fig. 9, and pl. 61, fig. 12), 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.[Pg 785] 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.[74] 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 sometimes 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[75] that it is not[Pg 786] 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 (p. 789), it is rather by a circle with pointed rays extending outward.

D’Alviella[76] presents several figures in support of his contention. The first (a) is on a fibula from Etruria (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 the bent arms in the Swastikas 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 fibula 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 indicate 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[77] is that the triskelion, formed by the same process as the tetraskelion, is an “incontestable” representation of solar[Pg 787] 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 ridiculous, 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[78] 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 a 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 the 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 the Swastika was itself a representative of the sun or the sun god? D’Alviella himself argues[79] 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 Count[79] says that more likely the engraver added the Swastika to these in the character of a talisman or phylactery. On page 56 he argues in 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[Pg 788] 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[80] refers to the discovery by Prof. Percy 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”[81] 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.[82] 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 it to include the lightning, the storm, the fire wheel, the sun chariot, etc. (See Ohnefalsch-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 nor 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 is 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 American Indians, where it is shown that among these Indians the cross represented the four winds, the sun, stars, dwellings, the dragon[Pg 789] fly, midēᐟ 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,”[83] 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 motion, which was intuitively associated with the rolling or wheel-like projection of the sun through the upper or visible arc 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 position to refer to, with the still extant 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 cast-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 than 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.[84]

Perrot and Chipiez[85] show a tablet from Sippara, of a king, Nabu-abal-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[Pg 790] 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 or 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 for its relation to, or representation of, the sun or the sun god.

Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter[86] 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 cantonnée—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[87] 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 in movements across the heavens, why it was drawn square rather than curved: The , even if used in a solar sense, must have implied something more than, or something distinct from, the sun, whose proper and almost universal symbol was the circle. It was evidently more connected with the cross than with the circle or solar disk.

Dr. Brinton[88] 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 tetraskelion, 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 hypothesis, made its first appearance on the coins of Lycia. But this appearance was within what is called the first period of coinage, to wit, between 700 and 480 B. C., and it did not become settled until the second, and even the third period, 280 to 240 B. C., 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 to a period of the fourteenth or thirteenth century B. C., with an unknown and indefinite past behind it. It is impossible that a symbol which first appeared in 480 B. C. could have been the ancestor of one which appeared in 1400 or 1300 B. C., nearly a thousand years before.

[Pg 791]William Simpson[89] makes observations upon the latest discoveries regarding the Swastika and gives his conclusion:

ORIGIN AND HABITAT.

Prehistoric archæologists have found in Europe many specimens of ornamental sculpture and engraving belonging to the Paleolithic age,[Pg 792] 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 of origin 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 of 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 undeterminable.

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 Bramins and Buddhists. At all events, a religious and symbolic signification was attributed to it by the earliest known peoples of these localities.

M. Michael Zmigrodzki, a Polish scholar, public librarian at Sucha, near Cracow, prepared and sent to the World’s Columbian Exposition at Chicago a manuscript chart in French, showing his opinion of the migration of the Swastika, which was displayed in the Woman’s Building. It was arranged in groups: The prehistoric (or Pagan) and Christian. These were divided geographically and with an attempt at chronology, as follows:

Lastly he introduces a group of the Swastika in the nineteenth century. He presented figures of Swastikas from these localities and[Pg 793] representing these epochs. He had a similar display at the Paris Exposition of 1889, which at its close was deposited in the St. Germain Prehistoric Museum. I met M. Zmigrodzki at the Tenth International Congress of Anthropology and Prehistoric Archæology 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 use 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[90] 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 it spread east and west; to the east into Lycaonia and Caucasus, to the west into Mycenæ 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 Etruria and Grand Greece, to Sicily, Gaul, Britain, Germany, Scandinavia, to all of which migration he assigns various dates down to the second century B. C. 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 everyday life—the household utensils, the arms, weapons, the dress, the fibulæ, 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.

[Pg 794]

Chart I.—Probable introduction of the Swastika into different countries, according to Count Goblet d’Alviella.

[“La Migration des Symboles,” pl. 3.]

[Pg 795]Count Goblet d’Alviella, in the fourth section of the second chapter[91] relating to the country of its origin, 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[92] 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:[93]

The same symbol [the Swastika], as is well known, occurs on the Archaic pottery of Cyprus * * * as well as upon the prehistoric antiquities of Athens and Mykênæ [same, “Ilios,” p. 353], but it was entirely unknown to Babylonia, to Assyria, to Phœnicia, 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 probable; but whether it is so or not, the presence of the symbol in the land of the Ægean indicates a particular epoch and the influence of a pre-Phœnician culture.

Dr. Schliemann[94] 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:[95]

It is evident to me that the sign found at Hissarlik is identical with that found at Mycenæ and Athens, as well as on the prehistoric pottery of Cyprus (Di Cesnola, Cyprus, pls. 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 “Cyprus,” 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,[96] citing Albert Dumont[97] and Perrot and Chipiez,[98] says:

The Swastika appears in Greece, as well as in Cyprus and Rhodes, first on the pottery, with geometric decorations, which form 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 Phœnician influences on the coasts of Greece.

Dr. Ohnefalsch-Richter, in a paper devoted to the consideration of[Pg 796] the Swastika in Cyprus,[99] expresses the opinion that the emigrant or commercial Phenicians 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:[100]

Mr. R. P. Greg, in “Fret or Key Ornamentation in Mexico and Peru,”[101] says:

Cartailhac says:[102]

Modern Christian archæologists have obstinately contended that the Swastika was composed of four gamma, and so have called it the Croix Gammée. But the Ramâyana 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 of iron. Sometimes its lines were rounded and given a graceful curve instead of straight and square at its ends and angles. [See letter by Gandhi, pp. 803, 805.]

M. Cartailhac notes[103] 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 his 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 Lycian 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, etc., which had the same appearance as those found by Schliemann at Mycenæ. Cartailhac says:[104]

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. Waring[105] criticises 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 America (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[Pg 798] 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 is 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 mediæval 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,” he 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 wood cut. [See fig. 215.]

Dr. Brinton,[106] 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, and 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. (See p. 832, 833 of this paper.) Of course, its appearance among the aborigines of America, we can imagine, must have been within the Neolithic period.

[Pg 799]

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, from Japan, in the collection of M. Cernuschi, 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[107] 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 with 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[108] shows one of these marks, a small Swastika turned to the left and inclosed in a circle (fig. 30). Fig. 9 also represents a mark on Japanese bronzes.[109]

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 synecdoche is construed to mean “long[Pg 800] life, a multitude of blessings, great happiness,” etc.; as is said in French, “mille pardons,” “mille remercîments,” 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 attachés, Mr. Chung, dressed in his robes of state; his outer garment was of moiré 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:

Plate 1. Origin of Buddha according to Tao Shih,
with Swastika Sign.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 2. Swastika Decreed by Empress Wu
(684-704 A. D.) as a Sign for Sun in China.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 3. Swastika Design on Silk Fabrics.
This use of the Swastika was forbidden in China
by Emperor Tai Tsung (763-779 A. D.).
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 4. Swastika in Spider Web over Fruit.
(A good omen in China.)
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 5. Buffalo with Swastika on Forehead.
Presented to Emperor of Sung Dynasty.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 6. Incense Burner with Swastika Decoration.
South Tang Dynasty.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S National
Museum Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 7. House of Wu Tsung-Chih of Sin Shui,
with Swastika in Railing.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

Plate 8. Mountain or Wild Date.—Fruit
Resembling the Swastika.
From a drawing by Mr. Li, presented to the U. S. National
Museum by Mr. Yang Yü, Chinese Minister, Washington, D. C.

The Swastika is one of the symbolic marks of the Chinese porcelain. Prime[110] 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. Schliemann:[111] “The Swastika is Chinese. On the breech chasing of a large gun lying outside my office, captured in the Taku fort, you will find this same sign.” But Dumoutier[112] says this sign is nothing else than the ancient Chinese character c h e, which, according to D’Alviella,[113] carries the idea of perfection or excellence, and signifies the renewal and perpetuity of life. And again,[111] “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 3½ 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,”[114] 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.”

 [Pg 802]

TIBET.

Mr. William Woodville Rockhill,[115] 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.[116]

He also reports[117] 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 of determining if it is the same statue as is represented in fig. 29.

INDIA.

Burnouf[118] says approvingly of the Swastika:

Christian archæologists believe this was the most ancient sign of the cross. * * * It was used among the Brahmins from all antiquity. (Voyez mot “Swastika” dans notre dictionnaire sanskrit.) Swastika, or Swasta, in India corresponds to “benediction” among Christians.

Fig. 32.
FOOTPRINT OF BUDDHA WITH SWASTIKA, FROM AMARAVATI TOPE.
From a figure by Fergusson and Schliemann.

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 follows:

Mr. W. Crooke (Bengal Civil Service, director of Eth. Survey, Northwest Provinces and Oudh), says:[119]

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 some time in Washington, D. C., proselyting among the 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 the physical plane and our propensities on the material line, we think it necessary to unite these (sexual) principles for our spiritual growth. On[Pg 804] the higher plane the soul is sexless, and those who wish to rise higher than the physical plane must eliminate the idea of sex.

The Jains make the Swastika sign when we enter our temple of 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 more permanent.

[Pg 805]

Fig. 34c.
THE FORMATION OF THE JAIN
SWASTIKA—THIRD STAGE.
Ends turned out, typifying animal, human,
and celestial life, as shown in fig. 33.

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-eighth 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,[Pg 806] Fifth, and Sixth Seasons’ Operations of the Archæological Survey of Western India, 1876, 1877, 1878, 1879:”[120]

Chantre[121] says:

De Mortillet and others hold the same opinion.[122]

CLASSICAL ORIENT.

BABYLONIA, ASSYRIA, CHALDEA, AND PERSIA.

Waring[123] 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.[124]

[Pg 807]Of Persia, D’Alviella (p. 51), citing Ludwig Müller,[125] 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’Alviella.[126]

Ohnefalsch-Richter[127] 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.

Lempriere, 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,[128] quoting Perrot and Chipiez,[129] 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 prehistoric antiquities and archæology of Russian Armenia. His report is entitled “Le Premier Âge de Métaux dans l’Arménie Russe.”[130] 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 (figs. 35 and 36) and on one piece of pottery (fig. 37) from the prehistoric tombs. The bent arms are all turned to the left, and would be the Suavastika of Prof. Max Müller.

 [Pg 808]

CAUCASUS.

In Caucasus, M. E. Chantre[131] 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.[132] 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[133] as from Asia Minor, which he credits, without explanation, to Ellis’s “Antiquities of Heraldry.”

[Pg 809]The specimen shown in fig. 41 is reported by Waring,[134] quoting Rzewusky,[135] as one of the several branding marks used on Circassian horses for identification.

Fig. 38.
FRAGMENT OF BRONZE CEINTURE.
Swastika repoussé. Necropolis of Koban, Caucasus.
Chantre, “Le Caucase,” pl. 11, fig. 3.

Fig. 39.
BRONZE AGRAFE OR BELT PLATE.
Triskelion in spiral. Koban, Caucasus.
Chantre, “Le Caucase,” pl. 11, fig. 4.

Mr. Frederick Remington, the celebrated artist and literateur, has an article, “Cracker Cowboy in Florida,”[136] 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[137] says that instruments of copper (audumbaroasih) are recommended in the Atharva-Veda to make the Swastika, which represents the figure 8; 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[138] 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[Pg 810] relation to the Swastika thus: Eighty-two representing stars; 70 representing suns; 42 representing branches of trees or palms; 15 animals non-ferocious, deer, antelope, hare, swan, etc.; total, 209 objects. Many of these were spindle whorls.

Dr. Schliemann, in his works, “Troja” 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, 23 to 33 feet (7 to 10 meters) deep; the fourth city, 13 to 17.6 feet (4 to 5½ 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[139] 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.[140] 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.[141]

Zmigrodzki congratulated himself on having discovered among Schliemann’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 a later edition, inserted the footnote (p. 350) saying, that while he had found this (with a companion piece) 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 [Pg 811]Swastikas. They are arranged in the order of cities, the depth being indicated in feet.

Fig. 45.
SPINDLE-WHORL WITH TWO SWASTIKAS.
Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1919.

The Third, or Burnt, City (23 to 33 feet deep).—The spindle-whorl shown in fig. 43 contains two Swastikas and two crosses.[142] 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 bent 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-whorl 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[Pg 812] 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 terra-cotta ball has figured in a peculiar degree in the symbolic representation of the Swastika. Greg says of it:[143]

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. 47.
SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE SWASTIKAS.
Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1851.

Fig. 48.
SPINDLE-WHORL WITH SWASTIKAS.
Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1982.

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.[Pg 813] 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 a 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.

Fig. 50.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH SWASTIKA.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” Fig. 1949.

The Fourth City (13.2 to 17.6 feet deep).—Schliemann says:[144]

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 (σέπα ὰμφικύπελλα); 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[Pg 814] accumulated in the débris 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, boar 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 Mycenæ, 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 ornamentation, are found by thousands; their forms hardly vary from those in the third (the burnt) city, and the 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. 59.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE OGEE SWASTIKAS.
Depth, 13½ feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1990.

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. Its 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[Pg 815] 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 figs. 55 and 71. The nearly flat surface is the top, and on it, equidistant from 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[Pg 816] 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[Pg 817] that if continued 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 figs. 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. 68 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[Pg 818] little flourish (figs. 67 and 34c). One of these ends, like that in fig. 66, has been corrected by the maker. Fig. 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.

Fig. 64.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA.
Depth, 19.8 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1865.

Fig. 69.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA
OF THE FIGURE-8 STYLE.
Depth, 19.8 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1861.

Fig. 70.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA, SLIGHT OGEE.
Depth, 19.8 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1864.

Fig. 71.
CONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH THREE OGEE SWASTIKAS.
Depth, 13.5 feet.
Gift of Madame Schliemann, Cat. No. 149704, U. S. N. M.

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 13½ feet (4 meters) depth and belonging to the fourth city. It had three Swastikas upon its face, and is here shown as fig. 71.[145]

The Fifth City.—Schliemann says:[146]

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. [Pg 819]Instead 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.

Figs. 72, 73, 74.
FORMS OF WHORLS FROM THE FIFTH BURIED CITY OF HISSARLIK, FOR COMPARISON.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” figs. 1801, 1802, 1803.

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 painted 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 .

Fig. 75.
TERRA-COTTA SPHERE WITH THIRTEEN SWASTIKAS.
Third city. Depth, 26 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” figs. 245, 246.

Fig. 76.
TERRA-COTTA DISK WITH ONE SWASTIKA.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1849.

Zmigrodzki says[147] 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, or more arms, instead of four (p. 768). The cross and the circle will also appear in connection with the Swastika; and other designs, as 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[Pg 820] 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.

Fig. 82.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH ONE SWASTIKA
AND FOUR SEGMENTS OF CIRCLES.
Third city. Depth, 33 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1989.

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 is of double lines, and in the interspaces are four dots, similar to those in figs. 96-98, and others which Dr. Schliemann[Pg 821] reports as common, and to which he attributes some special but unknown meaning. Swastikas and crosses of irregular shape 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. Fig. 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[Pg 822] 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.

Fig. 83.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL, FLATTENED.
Ogee Swastika with central circle.
Third city. Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1987.

Fig. 86.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL WITH OGEE CURVES
WHICH ARE NOT CROSSED TO FORM SWASTIKAS.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1889.

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[Pg 823] 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).[148] 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.

Fig. 87.
SPHERICAL SPINDLE-WHORL, FLATTENED.
Two Swastikas combined with segments and dots.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1988.

Fig. 88.
SECTIONS OF TERRA-COTTA SPHERE.[149]
Central circles with extended arms turning to the left,
ogee and zigzag. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1993.

Fig. 89.
SPHERICAL SPINDLE-WHORL.
Large central dot with twelve arms, similar in form to
the ogee Swastika. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1946.

It is not contended that these are necessarily evolutions of the Swastika. We will see farther 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 a 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. To refuse these figures admission would[Pg 824] 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 of 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 to No. 8, but that there was no general or indefinite intermixture; Nos. 1 and 3 or 2 and 4 were not found together and were not associated, 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 Montelius 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[Pg 825] 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 or owners.

Fig. 94.
LARGE BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL.
Four crosses with bifurcated arms. Third city. Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1855.

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[Pg 826] 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).

Fig. 99.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL.
Four animals are shown similar to those found
associated with the Swastika. Third city.
Depth, 33 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1877.

Fig. 100.
BICONICAL SPINDLE-WHORL.
Four animals are shown similar to those found
associated with the Swastika. Fourth city.
Depth, 19.6 feet. Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1867.

Fig. 101.
SPINDLE-WHORL WITH FIGURE-8 SWASTIKA (?)
AND SIX “BURNING ALTARS.”
Fourth city. Depth, 19.6 feet.
Schliemann, “Ilios,” fig. 1838.

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 undescribable 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[Pg 827] 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.)

Figs. 102-113. TROJAN SPINDLE-WHORLS. Schliemann, “Ilios.”

 [Pg 828]

Figs. 114-124. TROJAN SPINDLE-WHORLS. Schliemann, “Ilios.”

[Pg 829]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 an analysis to be lead.[150] It was submitted to Professor Sayce who made the following report:[151]

It is the Artemis Nana of Chaldea, who became the chief deity of Carchemish, 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. Salmon 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:[152]

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 Antiquités 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 from Milo, and with polished pottery without paintings. We recognize in them the figures of the Asiatic Venus found in such 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.

[Pg 830]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, were 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 relating to Brazil. The similarity between these distant objects is remarkable, whether they were related or not, and whether the 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 U. S. 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.[Pg 831] 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 vitus 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 of his body” constituted his greatest blessing and happiness, and 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.”[154] This was repeated after the Deluge,[155] and when He pronounced the curse in the Garden, that upon the woman[156] 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[Pg 832] man can number the dust of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered.”[157] “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 no 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 or epoch of these prehistoric Trojan cities on the hill of Hissarlik. Professor Virchow was appealed to by Schliemann for his opinion. He says:[158]

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 Macedonian 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 city 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 the aborigines, is no evidence that they were in a metal age, as it has been assigned and understood by prehistoric archæologists. 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 material 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[Pg 833] implements were, in prehistoric times, made of shell; and chisels or hatchets of shell, corresponding to the polished stone hatchet, were prevalent wherever 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, and 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[159] 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[160] 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:[161]

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 of this opinion, as is also Count Goblet d’Alviella.[162]

Waring[163] 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:[164] “In Egypt the fylfot does not occur.” Many other authors say the same. Yet many specimens of the Swastika have been found in Egypt (figs. 130 to 136). Professor Goodyear[165] says:

The earliest dated Swastikas are of the third millenium 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.)

[Pg 834]

Naukratis.—Figs. 130 to 135, made after illustrations in Mr. W. Flinders Petrie’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 (Achmim-Panopolis).—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,[166] 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.

 [Pg 835]

Fig. 131.
POTTERY FRAGMENTS WITH TWO MEANDER SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Third Memoir of the Egyptian
Exploration Fund, part 1, pl. 5, figs. 15, 24.

Fig. 132.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE WITH LION AND THREE MEANDER SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund,
part 2, fig. 7, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 30, fig. 2.

On one of these Coptic cloths, made of linen, reproduced in “Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-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[Pg 836] sometimes adorning the corners of the tunics and togas as a large medallion, as shown in the figure.[167]

Fig. 133.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE DECORATED WITH FIGURES OF SACRED
ANIMALS AND SWASTIKAS, ASSOCIATED WITH GREEK FRET.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, part 2, pl. 6, fig. 1.

Fig. 134.
FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE WITH FIGURES OF ANIMALS,
TWO MEANDER SWASTIKAS, AND GREEK FRET.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund,
part 2, pl. 8, fig. 1, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 30, fig. 10.

 [Pg 837]

Fig. 135.
GREEK VASE WITH DEER, AND MEANDER AND FIGURE-8 SWASTIKAS.
Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt
Exploration Fund, part 2, pl. 5, fig. 1.

Fig. 136.
GREEK TAPESTRY.
Coptos, Egypt. First and second centuries, A. D. Forrer,
“Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmin-Panopolis.”

 [Pg 838]

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.[168]

ASHANTEE.

Mr. R. B. Æneas McLeod, of Invergordon Castle, Ross-shire, Scotland, reported[169] 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.

 [Pg 839]

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 the Archipelago on objects of bronze and 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 fret and Egyptian meander not the same as the Swastika.—Professor Goodyear says:[171] “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.

[Pg 840]

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 a 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[Pg 841] 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[Pg 842] 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 from the spiral to 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[Pg 843] 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 continuous or extended band or line (fig. 26), similar to the Greek fret.

Fig. 151.
DETAIL OF GREEK VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURES OF BIRDS.
Waring, “Ceramic Art In Remote Ages,” pl. 33, fig. 24, and
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 46, fig. 5.

Fig. 152.
DETAIL OF CYPRIAN VASE.
Sunhawk, lotus, solar disk, and Swastikas.
Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1886, pl. 8; Reinach, Revue Archæologique,
1885, II, p. 360; Perrot and Chipiez, “History of Art in Phenicia
and Cyprus,” II; Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 45, fig. 3.

Fig. 153.
DETAIL OF GREEK GEOMETRIC VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURES OF HORSES.
Thera. Leyden Museum. Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 61, fig. 4.

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 simultaneously on the same specimen. Another illustration of simultaneous use is in fig. 194, which represents an Etruscan vase[174] ornamented with bronze nail heads in the form of[Pg 844] 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.

Fig. 158.
CYPRIAN VASE WITH LOTUS AND
SWASTIKAS AND FIGURE OF BIRD.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City.
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 60, fig. 15.

Fig. 159.
CYPRIAN VASE WITH TWO SWASTIKAS.
Cesnola Collection, Metropolitan Museum
of Art, New York City. Goodyear,
“Grammar of the Lotus,” fig. 151.

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[Pg 845] 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.[175]

Swastika in panels.—Professor Goodyear, in another place,[176] 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” and in “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. The author has added other specimens, figs. 141 to 148, from Dennis’s “Etruria,” from Waring’s “Ceramic Art,” and from Cesnola and Ohnefalsch-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[Pg 846] 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.

Fig. 162.
DETAIL OF GREEK VASE WITH FIGURE OF GOOSE,
HONEYSUCKLE (ANTHEMION), AND SPIRAL SWASTIKA.
Thera. “Monumenti Inedite,” LXV, p. 2, and
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 46, fig. 7.

Fig. 165.
DETAIL OF A GREEK VASE IN THE BRITISH MUSEUM.
Ram, meander Swastika (left), circles, dots, and crosses.
Salzmann, “Necropole de Camire,” LI, and Goodyear,
“Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 28, fig. 7.

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[Pg 847] possible, and has divided them according to forms and peculiarities. The first group (figs. 140, 143, 146, 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.

Fig. 166.
CYPRIAN VASE WITH SWASTIKAS AND FIGURES OF BIRDS.
Perrot and Chipiez, “History of Art in Phenicia and Cyprus,” II, p. 300, fig. 237;
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 48, figs. 6, 12; Cesnola, “Cyprus, its
Ancient Cities, Tombs, and Temples,” Appendix by Murray, p. 412, pl. 44, fig. 34.

Swastikas with four arms crossing at right angles, ends bent to the left.—Figs. 141, 142, 144, 149, 151, 152, 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 or 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—οῖνος, wine, and χέω, 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[177] and by Perrot and Chipiez.[178] Fig. 157 is taken from a fragment of archaic Greek pottery found in Santorin (Ancient Thera), an island in the[Pg 848] 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.[179]

Swastikas 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 (Schliemann, 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).

Dr. Schliemann reports that the Swastika in its spiral form is represented innumerable times in the sculptured ceiling of the Thalamos in the treasury at Orchomenos. (See figs. 21 and 25.)

He also reports[180] 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.

[Pg 849]Waring[181] 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 eight times. That shown in fig. 165 bends to the left eight times.

Swastikas of different kinds on the same object.—The next group (figs. 167 to 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 or meanders.

Fig. 170.
DETAIL OF RHODIAN VASE.
Figures of geese, circles and dots, and Swastikas (right and left).
British Museum. Waring, “Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 27, fig. 9.

Fig. 171.
DETAIL OF RHODIAN VASE.
Geese, lotus circles, and two Swastikas (right and left).
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” p. 271, fig. 145.

Many examples of vases similar to fig. 172 are shown in 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[Pg 850] 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 bend. 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 determine. A specimen of Swastika interesting to prehistoric archæologists is that on a vase from Cyprus (Musée St. Germain, No. 21537), on which is represented an arrowhead, stemmed, barbed, and suspended by its points between the Swastika.[182]

Fig. 172.
GREEK VASE OF TYPICAL RHODIAN STYLE.
Ibex, lotus, geese, and six Swastikas
(normal, meander, and ogee, all left).
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,”
p. 251, pl. 39.[183]

Dr. Max Ohnefalsch-Richter presented a paper before the Société[Pg 851] 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 cantonnée en Chypre.” (The Croix gammée 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,” 3^e 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.

Fig. 174.
ARCHAIC GREEK VASE WITH FIVE SWASTIKAS OF FOUR DIFFERENT FORMS.
Athens. Birch, “History of Ancient Pottery,” quoted by Waring in
“Ceramic Art in Remote Ages,” pl. 41, fig. 15; Dennis, “The
Cities and Cemeteries of Etruria,” I, p. 91.

The first pages of his memoir are employed in demonstrating that[Pg 852] the specimens of the Swastika found in Cyprus, the most of which are set forth in this paper (figs. 177-182), 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.[184]

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[185] 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 frequently replace each other. It is his opinion[186] that the Swastika in Cyprus had nearly[Pg 853] 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,[187] 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 Apollo-Resef, and the decoration on his shield represents the solar disk. He is at once the god of war and also the god of light, which identifies him with Helios. The other personage is Herakles-Mecquars, the right hand of Apollo, both of them heroes of the sun.