The true home of the Swastika is the Greek geometric style, as will be
immediately obvious to every expert who examines the question through
the study of that style. In seeking the home of a symbol, we should
consider where it appears in the largest dimension and where it
appears in the most formal and prominent way. The Greek geometric
vases are the only monuments on which the Swastika systematically
appears in panels exclusively assigned to it (pl. 60, fig. 13; and pl.
56, fig. 4). There are no other monuments on which the Swastika can be
found in a dimension taking up one-half the height of the entire
object (pl. 56, fig. 4). The ordinary size of the Swastika, in very
primitive times, is under a third of an inch in diameter. They are
found in Greek geometric pottery 2 or 3 inches in diameter, but they
also appear in the informal scattering way (pl. 61, fig. 4) which
characterizes the Swastika in other styles.
* * * * *
The Swastika dates from the earliest diffusion of the Egyptian meander
in the basin of the Mediterranean, and it is a profound remark of De
Morgan (Mission Scientifique au Caucase) that the area of the Swastika
appears to be coextensive with the area of bronze. In northern
prehistoric Europe, where the Swastika has attracted considerable
attention, it is distinctly connected with the bronze culture derived
from the south. When found on prehistoric pottery of the north, the
southern home of its beginnings is equally clear.
In seeking the home of a symbol, we should consider not only the
nature of its appearance, but also where it is found in the largest
amount, for this shows the center of vogue and power--that is to say,
the center of diffusion. The vogue of the Swastika at Troy is not as
great as its vogue in Cyprian Greek pottery (pl. 60, fig. 15) and
Rhodian pottery (pl. 60, fig. 2). * * * It is well known to Melian
vases (pl. 60, fig. 8) and to archaic Greek vases (pl. 61, fig. 12),
but its greatest prominence is on the pottery of the Greek geometric
style (pl. 60, fig. 13; pl. 56, fig. 4; pl. 61, figs. 1 and 4; and
figs. 173 and 171). * * *
Aside from the Greek geometric style, our earliest reference for the
Swastika, and very possibly an earlier reference than the first, is
its appearance on the "hut urns" of Italy. On such it appears rather
as a fragment of the more complicated meander patterns, from which it
is derived. My precise view is that the earliest and, consequently,
imperfect, forms of the Swastika are on the hut urns of Italy, but
that, as an independent and definitely shaped pattern, it first
belongs to the Greek geometric style. I do not assert that the
Swastika is very common on hut urns, which are often undecorated. * *
* Our present intermediate link with India for the Swastika lies in
the Caucasus and in the adjacent territory of Koban. This last ancient
center of the arts in metal has lately attracted attention through the
publication of Virchow (Das Gräberfeld von Koban). In the original
Coban bronzes of the Prehistoric Museum of St. Germain there is
abundant matter for study (p. 351).
Mr. R. P. Greg, in "Fret or Key Ornamentation in Mexico and Peru,"[101]
says:
Both the Greek fret and the fylfot appear to have been unknown to the
Semitic nations as an ornament or as a symbol.
In Egypt the fylfot does not occur. It is, I believe, generally
admitted or supposed that the fylfot is of early Aryan origin.
Eastward toward India, Tibet, and China it was adopted, in all
probability, as a sacred symbol of Buddha; westward it may have spread
in one form or another to Greece, Asia Minor, and even to North
Germany.