There has been much ink and imagination used, most of which has been
wasted, in the discussion of this branch of this subject. The opinion has
been expressed by many persons that the triskelion which formed the
armorial emblem of the island of Sicily, and also of the Isle of Man, is
but an evolution from or modification of the Swastika. In the judgment of
the author this is based rather upon the similarity of the designs than
upon any likeness in their origin and history. The acceptance by modern
writers of this theory as a fact is only justified from its long-continued
repetition.
[Illustration: Fig. 224.[226] LYCIAN COIN. Triskelion with three arms
representing cocks' heads and necks.]
[Illustration: Figs. 225 and 226.[226] LYCIAN COINS. Triskelions with
central dots and circles. Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," pl. 42,
figs. 12, 13.]
_Triskelion, Lycia._--The triskelion on ancient coins first appears on the
coins of Lycia, in Asia Minor, about B. C. 480. It was adopted for Sicily
by Agathocles, B. C. 317 to 307. The coins of Lycia were first three
cocks' heads and necks joined together equidistant in the center of the
field, as shown in fig. 224, while figs. 225 and 226 bear a center dot and
circle. This forms a hub and axle. Out of this hub spring three arms or
rays, practically equidistant, the outer ends being bent to the left. They
increase in size as they progress outward and are largest at the outer
ends. In fig. 226 there is a mint mark or counter mark of the same design
as the triskelion, except that it has but two arms or rays (diskelion).
Perrot and Chipiez,[227] speaking of Lycia, say:
The device of many of her coins is the "triskelis" or so-called
"triquetra" (literally, three-cornered, triangular), a name derived
from three serpents' heads, which usually figure in the field, much
after the fashion of those supporting the famous tripod at
Delphi,[228] consecrated by the Greeks to Apollo after the battle of
Platæa. The number of heads is not constant, some coins having as many
as four, "tetraskelis," while others have but two, "diskelis."[229]
The Greeks connected the symbol with the cult of Apollo, which they
represented as very popular and of hoary antiquity in Lycia. The
three-rayed design appears to have gained the victory over the others, and
came into commoner use. It is found on Assyrian coins, and also as a
countermark on coins of Alexander, B. C. 333 to 323. A comparison of these
designs with the Swastika will, it is believed, show their dissimilarity,
and the non-existence of relationship. In the Lycian designs, whether with
two, three, or four rays, there is a central hub out of which the spokes
spring. In the center of the hub is the small circle and dot which might
represent the axle on which the machine revolved. In fact, the Lycian
design is a fair representation of the modern screw propeller, and gives
the idea of a whirling motion.
Compare these peculiarities with the Swastika. The Swastika is almost
always square, is always a cross at right angles or near it, and whatever
may become of the ends or arms of the cross, whether they be left
straight, bent at right angles, or in a curve, it still gives the idea of
a cross. There is no center except such as is made by the crossing of the
two arms. There is not, as in these triskelions, a central hub. There is
no dot or point around which the design or machine could be made to
revolve, as in these Lycian triskelions; nothing of the central boss, cup,
or nave, which forms what the Germans call the "Rad-Kreuz," wheel cross,
as distinguished from the square cross.
In this regard Greg says:
If R. Brown's lunar and Semitic or Asiatic origin of the triquetra,
however, should be established, then the entire argument of the
triquetra being derived from the fylfot, or vice versa, falls to the
ground. * * * That the device arose out of the triskele and triquetra
I do not think can be proved. It is clear the [S] was a far older and
more widely spread symbol than the triskele, as well as a more purely
Aryan one.
Waring, explaining the tetraskelion (four-armed), declares it to have
preceded the triskelion (three-armed), and he explains its meaning,[230]
citing Sir Charles Fellows, as being a harpago, a grappling iron, a
canting sign for Harpagus, who conquered Lycia for Cyrus, circa, 564 B. C.
This, with the statement of Perrot and Chipiez (p. 872 of this paper), is
a step in explanation of the adoption of the triskelion, and together they
suggest strongly that it had no relation to the Swastika. At the date of
the appearance of the triskelion on the Lycian coins the Swastika was well
known throughout the Trojan peninsula and the Ægean Sea, and the
difference between them was so well recognized that one could not possibly
have been mistaken for the other.
[Illustration: Fig. 227. SICILIAN COIN WITH QUADRIGA AND TRISKELION.
British Museum. Barclay Head, "Coins of the Ancients," etc., pl. 35, fig.
28.]
[Illustration: Fig. 228. WARRIOR'S SHIELD. From a Greek vase, representing
Achilles and Hector. Agrigentum, Sicily. Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote
Ages," pl. 42, fig. 24.]
_Triskelion, Sicily._--Now we pass to the consideration of the triskelion
of Sicily. Fig. 227 represents a coin of Sicily. On the obverse the head
of Persephone, on the reverse the quadriga, and above, the triskelion.
Other specimens of the same kind, bearing the same triskelion, are seen in
Barclay Head's work on the "Coinage of Syracuse" and his "Guide to the
Ancient Coins in the British Museum." They belong to the early part of the
reign of Agathocles, B. C. 317 to 310. In these specimens the triskelion
is quite small; but as the coins belong to the period of the finest
engraving and die-sinking of Greece, the representation, however minute,
is capable of decipherment. Fig. 228 is taken from the shield of a warrior
on a Greek vase representing Achilles and Hector, in which the armorial
emblem of Sicily, the triskelion, occupies the entire field,[231] and
represents plainly that it is three human legs, conjoined at the thigh,
bent sharply at the knee, with the foot and toes turned out. Some of these
have been represented covered with mail armor and the foot and leg booted
and spurred. It is evident that these are human legs, and so were not
taken from the screw propeller of Lycia, while they have no possible
relation to the crossed arms of the Swastika, and all this despite their
similarity of appearance. This is rendered clearer by Waring,[232] where
the armorial emblem on a warrior's shield is a single human leg, bent in
the same manner, instead of three. Apropos of Swastikas on warriors'
shields, reference is made to figs. 257 and 258, which represent two
shields of Pima Indians, New Mexico, both of which have been in battle and
both have the four-armed Swastika or tetraskelion. There is not in the
Swastika, nor was there ever, any central part, any hub, any axis, any
revolution. It is asserted that originally the triskelion of Sicily,
possibly of Lycia, was a symbol of the sun, morning, midday, and
afternoon, respectively. But this was purely theoretical and without other
foundation than the imagination of man, and it accordingly gave way in due
course. Pliny denies this theory and attributes the origin of the
triskelion of Sicily to the triangular form of the island, ancient
Trinacria, which consisted of three large capes equidistant from each
other, pointing in their respective directions, the names of which were
Pelorus, Pachynus, and Lilybæum. This statement, dating to so early a
period, accounting for the triskelion emblem of Sicily, is much more
reasonable and ought to receive greater credit than that of its devolution
from the Swastika, which theory is of later date and has none of these
corroborations in its favor. We should not forget in this argument that
the Swastika in its normal form had been for a long time known in Greece
and in the islands and countries about Sicily.
Among hundreds of patterns of the Swastika belonging to both hemispheres
and to all ages, none of them have sought to represent anything else than
just what they appear to be, plain marks or lines. There is no likeness
between the plain lines of the Swastika and the bent form of the human
leg, with the foot turned outward, incased in chain armor and armed with
spurs.
Whenever or however the triskelion occurred, by whom it was invented, what
it represented, how it comes to have been perpetuated, is all lost in
antiquity and may never be known; but there does not seem to be any reason
for believing it to have been an evolution from the Swastika.
_Triskelion, Isle of Man._--The triskelion of Sicily is also the armorial
emblem of the Isle of Man, and the same contention has been made for it,
i. e., that it was a modification of the Swastika. But its migration
direct from Sicily to the Isle of Man can be traced through the pages of
history, and Mr. John Newton,[233] citing the Manx Note Book for January,
1886, has given this history at length, of which the following is a
résumé:
Prior to the thirteenth century the Isle of Man was under dominion of the
Norse Vikings, and its armorial emblems were theirs; usually a ship under
full sail. Two charters of Harold, King of Man (1245, 1246 in the Cotton
MSS.), bear seals with this device. Twenty years later, after the conquest
of the island by, and its cession to, Alexander III of Scotland, A. D.
1266, the Norse emblems disappeared entirely, and are replaced by the
symbol of the three legs covered with chain armor and without spurs. "It
appears then," says Newton, "almost certain, though we possess no literary
document recording the fact, that to Alexander III of Scotland is due the
introduction of the 'Tre Cassyn' as the distinguishing arms of the Isle of
Man." He then explains how this probably came about: Frederick II (A. D.
1197-1250), the Norman King of Sicily, married Isabella, the daughter of
Henry III of England. A quarrel between the King of Sicily and the Pope
led the latter to offer the crown to Henry III of England, who accepted it
for his son Edmund (the Hunchback), who thereupon took the title of King
of Sicily and quartered the Sicilian arms with the Royal arms of England.
The negotiations between Henry and the Pope progressed for several years
(1255 to 1259), when Henry, finding that he could no longer make it an
excuse for raising money, allowed it to pass into the limbo of forgotten
objects.
Alexander III of Scotland had married Margaret, the youngest daughter of
Henry III, and thus was brother-in-law to Edmund as well as to Frederick.
In 1256, and while these negotiations between Henry and the Pope
concerning Sicily were in progress, Alexander visited, at London, his
royal father-in-law, the King of England, and his royal brother-in-law,
the King of Sicily, and was received with great honors. About that time
Haco, the Norse king of the Isle of Man, was defeated by Alexander III of
Scotland, and killed, soon after which event (1266) the Isle of Man was
ceded to the latter. The Norse coat of arms disappeared from the
escutcheon of the Isle of Man, and, being replaced by the three legs of
Sicily, Mr. Newton inquires:
What more likely than that the King (Alexander III), when he struck
the Norwegian flag, should replace it by one bearing the picturesque
and striking device of Sicily, an island having so many points of
resemblance with that of Man, and over which his sister ruled as Queen
and her brother had been appointed as King?
However little we may know concerning the method of transfer of the coat
of arms from Sicily to the Isle of Man, we are not left at all in doubt as
to the fact of its accomplishment; and the triskelion of Sicily became
then and has been ever since, and is now, the armorial emblem of the Isle
of Man.
The Duke of Athol, the last proprietary of the Isle of Man, and who, in
1765, sold his rights to the Crown of England, still bears the arms of Man
as the fifth quartering, "The three human legs in armor, conjoined at the
upper part of the thigh and flexed in triangle, proper garnished," being a
perpetuation of the triskelion or triquetrum of Sicily.[234]
The arms of the Isle of Man afford an excellent illustration of the
migration of symbols as maintained in the work of Count Goblet d'Alviella;
but the attempt made by others to show it to be an evolution from and
migration of the Swastika is a failure.
_Punch marks on Corinthian coins mistaken for Swastikas._--But is the
Swastika really found on ancient coins? The use of precious metals as
money dates to an unknown time in antiquity. Gold was used in early Bible
times (1500 B. C.) among nearly every people as money, but it was by
weight as a talent, and not as minted coin. The coinage of money began
about 700 B. C. in Lydia. Lydia was a province on the western side of the
peninsula of Asia Minor looking out toward Greece, while Lycia, its
neighbor, was a province on the southern side looking toward the island of
Rhodes. The Lydians began coinage by stamping with a punch each ingot or
nugget of gold or silver, or a mixture of them called "Electrum." In the
beginning these ingots were marked upon but one side, the reverse showing
plainly the fiber of the anvil on which the ingot was laid when struck
with the punch. But in a short time, it may have been two hundred years,
this system was changed so as to use a die which would be reproduced on
the coin when it was struck with a punch. The lion, bull, boar, dolphin,
and many other figures were employed as designs for these dies. Athens
used an owl; Corinth, Pegasus; Metapontine, a sheaf of wheat; Naples, a
human-headed bull. The head and, occasionally, the entire form of the gods
were employed. During almost the entire first period of nigh three hundred
years the punch was used, and the punch marks show on the reverse side of
the coins. These punch marks were as various as the dies for the obverse
of the coins, but most of them took a variety of the square, as it would
present the greatest surface of resistance to the punch. Even the
triskelion of the Lycian coins is within an indented square (figs. 225 and
226). A series of these punch marks is given for demonstration on pl. 9. A
favorite design was a square punch with a cross of two arms passing
through the center, dividing the field into four quarters. Most of the
punch marks on the coins of that period were of this kind. These punch
marks and the method and machinery with which they were made are described
in standard numismatic works.[235]
[Illustration: Fig. 229. CORINTHIAN COINS. Obverse and reverse. Punch mark
resembling Swastika.]
It is believed by the author that the assertions as to the presence of the
Swastika on these ancient coins is based upon an erroneous interpretation
of these punch marks. Fig. 229 shows the obverse and reverse of a coin
from Corinth. It belonged to the first half of the sixth century B. C. The
obverse represents a Pegasus standing, while the reverse is a punch mark,
said to have been a Swastika; but, examining closely, we will find there
is no Swastika in this punch mark. The arms of the normal Swastika consist
of straight lines crossing each other. In this case they do not cross. The
design consists of four gammas, and each gamma is separated from its
fellows, all forming together very nearly the same design as hundreds of
other punch marks of the same period. If each outer arm of this mark is
made slightly longer, the Swastika form disappears and the entire design
resolves itself into the square habitually employed for that purpose. If
the punch mark on this Corinthian coin be a Swastika, it depends upon the
failure to make the extreme end of the bent arm an eighth of an inch
longer. This is too fine a point to be relied upon. If this punch mark had
these arms lengthened an eighth of an inch, it would confessedly become a
square.
[Illustration: PLATE 9. PUNCH MARKS ON REVERSE OF ANCIENT COINS.]