The fylfot, or “fully- or many-footed” cross, is the Anglo-Saxon name
for that form of cross whose extremities are bent back at right angles
(Fig. 130). It is otherwise known as the “gammadion,” “tetraskele,”
“croix gammée,” “croix cramponnée,” not to mention various other names,
and in India “svastika”; but when the feet are turned to the left it
is called “sauvastika”; both these words have much the same meaning,
and signify “it is well.” At the present day in Asia, this “mystical
mark made on persons or things to denote good-luck” (as Monier Williams
describes it in his Sanscrit dictionary) is clearly in the third stage
of its life-history, and its meaning must have been introduced after
its primary significance was lost.
At the risk of being somewhat tedious I will give a brief account of
the distribution of this ancient symbol, than which there are very few
others so widely distributed.
Dr. Schliemann found it represented exceeding numerously on objects
(Fig. 130, A, E) from the “second” or “burnt city” of the mound at
Hissarlik.
In Greece, as in Cyprus and at Rhodes, it first appears on pottery
with painted “geometrical” ornamentation (Fig. 130, F), that is in the
second period of Greek ceramics. Later it is found on the vases, with
decorations taken from living objects (Fig. G) which appear to coincide
with the development of Phœnician influences on the shores of Greece.
Lastly, it became a favourite symbol on coins not only of Greece proper
and the Archipelago, but also of Macedon, Thrace, Crete (Fig. 130, M),
Lycia (Fig. 130, I), and Paphlagonia (Fig. 130, H).
From Corinth, where it figures amongst the most ancient mint marks, it
passed to Syracuse under Timoleon, to be afterwards spread abroad on
the coins of Sicily and of Magna Græcia.
[Illustration: FIG. 129.—Hut-shaped ossuary; I. Taylor, _Origin of the
Aryans_, p. 176.]
In Northern Italy it was known even before the advent of the Etruscans,
for it has been met with on pottery dating from the terramara
civilisation. It appears also on the roof of some of those ossuaries in
the form of a hut (Pl. I., Fig. C), which reproduce on a small scale
the wicker huts of the people of that epoch. In the Villanova period it
adorns vases with geometrical decoration found at Cære, Chiusi, Albano,
and at Cumæ. Finally, it appears in Roman mosaics.
It is singular that at Rome itself it has not been met with, so Count
Goblet d’Alviella informs us, on any monument prior to the third, or
perhaps the fourth century of our era. About that period the Christians
of the Catacombs had no hesitation in including it amongst their
representations of the Cross of Christ, and they used it to ornament
priestly garments. At Milan it forms a row of curved crosses round the
pulpit of St. Ambrose.
It was widely distributed throughout the provinces of the Roman Empire
(Fig. 130, S, T), especially among the Celts, from the Danubian
countries to the West of Ireland (Fig. 130, K, U); but in many cases
it is difficult to decide whether it is connected with imported
civilisation or with indigenous tradition.
[Illustration: FIG. 130.—Various forms of the Fylfot or Svastika. A.
Whorl from Hissarlik (1987), 7 m., third city, The Burnt City or Ilios;
B. Do. (1861), 3½ m., fifth city; C. Do. (1990), 4 m., fifth city;
D. Do. (1873); E. Detail from whorl (1993), 5 m., fourth city; F. Lotus
derivative on a large amphora, with “geometric” decoration, Cyprus;
G. Solar goose and lotus design on a Rhodian vase, from Salzmann,
_Nécropole de Camire_; H. Coin from Selge, Pamphylia; I. Symbols on
Lycian coins; K. Triskelion on a Celtiberian coin; L. On a silver
bowl, Etruria; also on Chinese ware; M. Coin from Cnossus, Crete; N.
Ancient Indian coin; O. On coin from Ujjan, Central India; P. Footprint
of Buddha (so-called), Amarávati Tope, India; R. Thibetian symbol; S.
Roman altar at High Rochester, dedicated to Minerva by Lucius Cæcilius
Optatus; T. Roman altar at High Rochester, dedicated to the standards
of the faithful of the Varduli by Titus Licinius Valerianus; U.
Celto-Roman altar at Birdoswald, dedicated to Jupiter Optimus Maximus
(IOM), apparently by Dacians garrisoned in Ambloganna; the four-rayed
wheels were solar symbols among the Gauls; W. Ogham stone, Aglish,
County Kerry; X. Ancient Scandinavian symbols; Y. Legend on church
bell, Hathersage, Derbyshire, 1617. A-E, P. H. Schliemann, _Ilios_;
F, G. Goodyear, _Grammar of the Lotus_; H, L, O, X. R. P. Greg,
_Archæologia_, xlviii., 1885; I, K, M, N, R. Count Goblet d’Alviella,
_The Migration of Symbols_; S, T, U, W, Y. H. Colley March, _Trans.
Lanc. and Cheshire Ant. Soc._, 1886. For further details the reader is
referred to these authors.]
In England it not unfrequently occurs on Roman votive altars. In
Ireland, however, and in Scotland, the fylfot seems to have marked
Christian sepulchres. For example, a fylfot occurs on either side of
an arrow on an ogham stone (Fig. 130, W) in an abandoned graveyard at
Aglish, County Kerry, which is believed to belong to the sixth century.
In Pagan Scandinavia it occurs with other symbols (Fig. 130, X), but it
there ended by combining with, doubtless (as Count Goblet d’Alviella
points out) under the influence of Christianity, the Latin Cross. It
ornaments early Danish baptismal fonts, and according to Mr. J. A.
Hjaltalin, it “was still used a few years since as a magic sign, but
with an obscured or corrupted meaning,” in Iceland. It arrived in that
island in the ninth century, A.D.[179]
[179] Karl Blind, “Discovery of Odinic Songs in Shetland,”
_Nineteenth Century_, June 1879, p. 1098.
“Amongst the Slavs and Fins it has not yet been found save in
a sporadic state, and about the period of their conversion to
Christianity only. We may remark, by the way, that it is very
difficult to determine the age and nationality of the terra-cotta or
bronze objects on which it has been observed in countries of mixed or
superposed races, such as Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, and Bohemia.
“In the Caucasus, M. Chantre has met with it on ear-drops, ornamental
plates, sword-hilts, and other objects found in burial-places dating
back to the bronze period and the first iron age.
“Amongst the Persians its presence has been pointed out on some
Arsacian and Sassanian coins only.
“The Phœnicians do not seem to have known, or, at least, to have
used it, except on some of the coins which they struck in Sicily in
imitation of Greek pieces.
“It is not met with either in Egypt, in Assyria, or in Chaldæa.”[180]
[180] Goblet d’Alviella, _loc. cit._, p. 40.
The svastika is of common occurrence in India, and is employed alike
by Hindus and Buddhists. It was used for ear-marking cattle, appears
on the oldest known Indian coin (Fig. 130, N), on which are other
interesting symbols, and occurs frequently at the beginning and the
end of the most ancient Buddhist inscriptions; similarly it initials
the legend SCA. MA. RIA. O.P.N. at Appleby, in Lincolnshire; and
at Hathersage, Derbyshire, a fylfot occurs on a church bell in the
initial G of the legend Gloria in Excelsis Deo, 1617. (Fig. 130, Y.)
The svastika represents, according to Buddhist tradition, the first of
the sixty-five marks which distinguished the Master’s feet, and the
sauvastika is the fourth and the third, a kind of labyrinth which is
akin to the latter. It is inscribed thrice on each sole and on each
digit of the famous sculptured footprints of Gautama at Amarávati.
(Fig. 130, P.)
“Even at the present day, according to Mr. Taylor, the Hindus, at the
time of the new year, paint a svastika in red at the commencement of
their account books, and in their weddings and other ceremonies they
sketch it in flour on the floors of their houses. It also figures at
the end of manuscripts of a recent period—at least under a form which,
according to M. Kern, is a development of the tetraskele”[181] (_i.e._,
a variety with rounded angles).
[181] _Loc. cit._, p. 42.
The Buddhist women of Thibet ornament their skirts with it, and it is
placed on the breast of the dead. A Thibetian form is seen in Fig. 130,
R.
The Buddhists introduced it into China (Fig. 130, L) and Japan, where
it adorns vases, caskets, and the representations of divinities; it is
even figured upon the breasts of certain statues of Buddha. According
to M. G. Dumoutier, it is nothing else than the ancient Chinese
character _che_, which implies the idea of perfection, of excellence,
and would seem to signify the renewal and the endless duration of life.
This suggests that the symbol was brought by the Chinese across Asia in
their wandering from the West to their present home; but against this
view must be put the fact of its absence in Chaldea and Assyria; and
we know it has been introduced by the Buddhist missionaries. In Japan,
according to M. de Milloué, it represents the number 10,000, which
symbolises that which is infinite, perfect, excellent, and is employed
as a sign of felicity.
Schliemann[182] also records the fylfot in Africa, on bronzes brought
from Coomassie by the English Ashantee expedition in 1874. It is known
from South America, on a calabash from the Lenguas tribe; in North
America, on pottery from the mounds; and from Yucatan, on Zuñi pottery,
as also on the rattles made from a gourd which the Pueblos Indians use
in their religious dances. I have heard that bronze representations of
the fylfot have been obtained from excavations in Ohio, the details of
which will shortly be published.
[182] _Ilios_, 1880, Eng. edn., p. 353.
There can be no doubt that the fylfot throughout Eur-Asia had a
symbolic significance, which in many places it still retains. Its
longevity is due to this cause alone; occasionally, when it was copied
by peoples who did not understand or appreciate its symbolism, it
degenerated into a mere ornamental device.
Although all phases of symbolic meaning are interesting, I must
restrict myself to origins and to a few of the later developments of
this particular symbol.
The interpretations of the fylfot have been particularly varied, and
these have been further complicated by this sign having been confounded
with the _crux ansata_ of the Egyptians, the _tau_ of the Phœnicians,
the _vajra_ of India, the Hammer of Thor, or the Arrow of Perkun. All
these have a clearly defined form and meaning, and even if the fylfot
“ever replaced one of them—as in the catacombs it sometimes takes the
place of the Cross of Christ—it only did so as a substitute, as the
symbol of a symbol.”[183]
[183] Goblet d’Alviella, _loc. cit._, p. 45.
Some archæologists have ascribed a phallic import to the fylfot, others
recognise in it the symbol of the female sex; “but it may very well
have furnished a symbol of fecundity, as elsewhere a common symbol of
prosperity and of salvation, without therefore being necessarily a
phallic sign.”[184] These are probably secondary meanings superadded to
a primitive and less abstract conception.
[184] _Loc. cit._, p. 45.
It has been held to indicate water, storm, lightning, fire, or even
the Indian fire-drill, the “mystic double arani,” mentioned in one of
the Vedic hymns to Agni, the fire-god. These views have been combated
by Greg,[185] Colley March,[186] and Goblet d’Alviella.[187] Mr. Greg
contends that the fylfot is a symbol of the air or sky, or rather of
the god who rules the phenomena of the atmosphere, by whatever name
men may call him. Dr. March’s theory is that it symbolises axial
rotation, and not merely gyratory motion; in fact, the axis of the
heavens, the celestial pole, round which revolve all the stars of the
firmament once in twenty-four hours. This appearance of rotation is
especially impressive in the Great Bear, the largest and brightest
of the Northern constellations.... About four thousand years ago,
the apparent pivot of rotation was not where it is now, but occupied
a point at a _Draconis_ much nearer to the Great Bear, whose rapid
circular sweep must then have been far more striking than it is at
present. In addition to the name Ursa Major, the Latins called this
constellation Septentriones, ‘the seven ploughing oxen’ that dragged
the stars round the pole, and the Greeks called it ἕλικη, from its
vast spiral movement.”[188]
[185] R.P. Greg, “The Fylfot and the Swastika,” _Archæologia_,
1885, p. 293.
[186] H. Colley March, “The Fylfot and the Futhorc Tir,”
_Trans. Lanc. and Ches. Ant. Soc._, 1886.
[187] _Loc. cit._, pp. 44 _et seq._
[188] We read in the fifth book of the _Odyssey_ (v. 270)
how Odysseus “sate and cunningly guided the craft with the
helm, nor did sleep fall upon his eyelids, as he viewed the
Pleiads and Boötes, that setteth late, and the Bear, which they
likewise call the Wain, which turneth ever in one place, and
keepeth watch upon Orion, and alone hath no part in the baths
of Ocean.”
There is no need to follow Dr. March in his explanation, and we must
now turn to the view which has been supported by the greatest number of
investigators, who “have succeeded, by their studies of Hindu, Greek,
Celtic, and ancient German monuments, in establishing the fact that the
gammadion has been, among all these nations, a symbolic representation
of the sun or of a solar god.” Count Goblet d’Alviella reinforces this
theory by the following considerations:—
1. _The form of the fylfot._—To be convinced that _the branches of the
fylfot are rays in motion_ it is only necessary to cast one’s eyes on
the manner in which, at all times, the idea of solar movement has been
graphically expressed. Thus on a whorl from Troy, crooked rays, turned
towards the right, alternate with straight and undulating rays, all of
which proceed from the same disc (Fig. 130, E).
2. _The triskele, formed by the same process as the tetraskele, was an
undeniable representation of the solar movement._—On coins from Asia
Minor the triskele is frequently represented as three legs, and on
Celtiberian coins (Fig. 130, K) the face of the sun appears between
the legs. On the coins of Aspendus in Pamphylia the three legs are
combined with animal representations of the sun, the eagle, the wild
boar, and the lion; and on certain coins of Syracuse the triskele
permutes with the solar disc above the quadriga and the winged horse.
In various places transition occur between the tetraskele and triskele
(Fig. 130, I). I have already (p. 213) referred to the ultimate fate of
the triskele.
3. _The images oftenest associated with the fylfot are representations
of the sun and the solar divinities._—The fylfot and the solar disc
are, in a way, counterparts, not only amongst the Greeks, the Romans,
and the Celts, but also with the Hindus, the Chinese, and the Japanese.
The two are often combined into one figure, and the rays have been
converted into horses’ heads, as on Gallo-Belgic coins, or into cocks’
heads and lions’ busts which take the place of the rays of the triskele
on Lycian coins. Professor Goodyear points out that the fylfot is
associated on Cyprian and Rhodian pottery with the goose (Fig. 130, G),
deer, antelope, ibex, ram, horse, lion, etc. All of these are solar
animals. It is associated with the lotus (Fig. 130, F), which is also a
solar symbol.
4. _In certain symbolic combinations the fylfot alternates with
the representation of the sun._—Among the Jains of modern India, a
considerable Hindoo sect, the sun appears to be represented by the
svastika, and this symbol and the solar disc constantly replace each
other on the ancient coins of Ujjain in Central India (Fig. 130, O),
and Andhra in the Deccan. Another proof of the equivalence between
the fylfot and the sun, or, at least, the light of the sun, is found
amongst the coins of the ancient city of Mesembria in Thrace. Professor
Percy Gardner states, “Mesembria, as it stands, is simply the Greek
word for “noon” or mid-day (μεσημβρία); and there can be no doubt
that the Greek inhabitants would suppose their city to be the place
of noon; and among the coins of Mesembria occurs ΜΕΣ卐.”
Five-rayed and three-rayed (triskele) sun symbols were associated with
Apollo on coins of Megara, now Mesembria was founded by a colony of
Megarians.
Sometimes three solar discs or three fylfots, or combinations of both,
occur (Figs. 130, B, C), and in these Count Goblet d’Alviella sees a
symbolic representation of the three diurnal positions of the sun,
and suggests that when four symbols occur crosswise, as frequently
happens (Fig. 130, D), they “relate to four different positions of the
luminary, which would, perhaps, suggest no longer its daily course, but
its annual revolution marked by the solstices and equinoxes.”[189]
[189] The importance of astronomical lore in the cults of
ancient civilisations is being more forcibly brought home to
us as the remains of antiquity are being more critically and
sympathetically investigated. Professor D’Arcy W. Thompson,
Junr., has recently published a suggestive paper (“On Bird
and Beast in Ancient Symbolism,” _Trans. Roy. Soc., Edin._,
xxxviii., Pt. 1, 1895, p. 179) in which he suggests that
many of the Greek representations of animals on monument or
coin indicate not the creatures themselves but their stellar
namesakes. M. J. Svoronos (“Sur la signification des types
monétaires des anciens,” _Bull. Correspondance Hellénique_,
1894) had simultaneously and independently arrived at a similar
conclusion, but D’Arcy Thompson carries the argument a step
further, and attempts to show that the associated emblems
correspond to the positions relative to one another of the
heavenly bodies, in some cases to the configuration of the sky
at critical periods of the year, or at the festival seasons of
the cities to which the coins belong.
“The stellar symbolism that I here advocate is, I maintain,
a different thing from the sun-myths, dawn-myths, and so
forth, which are now to a large extent deservedly repudiated.
We cannot ascribe to the civilised nations of antiquity the
puerile conceptions of nature that are congruent with a
stage of awakening intelligence and with the crude results
of untrained observation. Rather are we dealing with the
elaborated gain of ages of scientific knowledge, with the
thoughts of a people whose very temples were oriented to
particular stars, or to critical points in the journey of the
sun; whose representations of Art, on frieze and pediment, in
tragedy and epic, were governed by what would at first appear
to be a tyrannical convention, which convention, however, so
far from hampering their genius, seems, under the influence
of a wholesome restraint, to have moulded their art into more
beautiful, more poetic, and more sanctified forms.... The
dominant priesthood, whose domain was knowledge, holding the
keys of treasured learning opened the lock with chary hand, and
veiled plain speech in fantastic allegory. In such allegory
Egyptian priests spoke to Greek travellers, who came to them as
Dervish-pilgrims or Wandelnde Studenten.... At Olympia, in the
beginning of each Leap-year cycle, the noblest youth of Greece
raced, round the symbolic pillars, their horses emblematic of
the Horses of the Sun; thereby glorifying a God whom they thus
ignorantly worshipped. Even so, we read in the Second Book
of Kings [xvii. 16; xxi. 3, 5; xxiii. 5] how their Phœnician
cousins worshipped with like ceremony the same God. And all the
while, in the evening and the morning, priests and πρόσπολοι
watched, measured, and compared the rising and setting of sun
and stars, in temples that were astronomical observatories, to
the glory of a religion whose mystery was astronomic science.”
The fylfot would seem to occasionally replace the moon. On coins of
Cnossus, in Crete (Fig. 130, M), the Lunar Crescent takes the place of
the solar disc in the centre of the fylfot; in such instances it may
have been applied to the revolutions or even the phases of the moon.
Various suggestions have been made with regard to the reversed fylfot
or sauvastika, but it is still uncertain whether this is of primary
(Max Müller, Birdwood, Colley March) or secondary importance (Greg,
d’Alviella).[190]
[190] P. Gardner, “Ares as a Sun-god,” _Numismatic Chronicle_,
xx., N.S., 1880, p. 59.
The last theory of the origin of the fylfot that I need mention is that
propounded by Professor Goodyear[191] in the following words:—“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.”
Professor A.S. Murray long since suggested that the “crosses which
Dr. Schliemann calls _svastikas_, but which, in fact, appear to be
only the simplest form or element of the meander pattern.”[192] Sir G.
Birdwood says: “I believe the Buddhist swastika to be the origin of
the key-pattern ornament of Chinese decorative art.”[193] Professor
Goodyear makes him say that of Greek decorative art as well.
[191] _The Grammar of the Lotus_, p. 352.
[192] “On the Pottery of Cyprus,” Appendix to General L. P. di
Cesnola’s _Cyprus_, 1877, p. 410.
[193] _The Industrial Arts of India_, 1880, i. p. 107.
It is a pity that Mr. Goodyear has pledged himself so fully as in the
statement just quoted, as it is apt to make critics more captious as
to his main thesis. If the fylfot is a detached intersection of the
meander pattern, why did not the Egyptians hit on it? Granting that
the meander may have had an indirect origin from a natural object in
the Mediterranean countries, there is no proof that any religious or
magical meaning was attached to it. The manner in which the fylfot was
employed proves that it certainly had a symbolic signification. The
strongest argument adduced by Professor Goodyear is in the case of some
“geometrically” decorated Greek vases, in which between solar geese and
other symbols occurs a small panel, which is variously decorated with a
fylfot, or an element or varietal detail of the meander pattern.[194]
But this, after all, may prove to be nothing more than that the Greeks
noticed that the fylfot occurred in certain varieties of the meander
pattern which had been arrived at from quite a different source. This
occurrence of the fylfot in these patterns was quite accidental;
it would be better to say that a fylfot design could be picked out
from these patterns rather than to suggest that it was inherent in
them. Granting the sacred associations of the fylfot, the fact that
it could be separated from a pattern which itself may have had a
recognised association with the symbolic lotus would probably appeal
to a symbol-loving people. If they recognised that the fylfot on the
one hand, and the lotus on the other, were sun-symbols, the isolation
of the associate of a sun-symbol into another sun-symbol would be a
pleasing exercise of ingenuity. I do not pretend to say that this has
occurred, but it is to me quite a possible alternative. The sequence
which Professor Goodyear seeks to establish appears to me to be nothing
more than the birth of an analogy.
[194] _Loc. cit._, p. 353.
Before a judgment upon the Chinese meander pattern can be pronounced it
would be necessary to make a detailed study of that pattern on objects
from that part of the world, and I have not access to the requisite
data.
We now come to the interesting question of the birthplace of this
important symbol.
It was long ago remarked that the fylfot is almost exclusively an Aryan
symbol. It is completely absent among the Egyptians, the Chaldeans, the
Assyrians, and even the Phœnicians, although these middle-men traded
useful objects and sacred symbols indiscriminately. The Semites did not
employ it.
Although widely spread and venerated among the Tibetians (Fig. 130,
R), the Chinese (Fig. 130, L), and the Japanese, it can be proved that
these Mongolian peoples have adopted it along with Buddhism from India.
As a recognised religious symbol it is unknown among all the other
peoples of the globe.
The conclusion is evident that the fylfot was a symbol before the
swarming-off of the Aryan hordes. There seems little doubt that it was
originally an emblem of the sun. It may, in certain combinations, have
come to symbolise the apparent daily movement of the sun, and perhaps
also the annual change of seasons. Some see in it the symbol of a
sun-god, others believe it to be the god of the sky, or air, who in the
course of time was variously known as Indra, Zeus, Jupiter, Thor, etc.
Lastly, it has been promoted to signify “the emblem of the divinity
who comprehended all the gods, or, again, of the omnipotent God of the
universe.” This latter is certainly not a primitive conception, and we
have no evidence that this meaning was ever read into the symbol.
Count Goblet d’Alviella points out that in Europe the geometric style
of ornamentation embraces two periods, that of painted and that of
incised decoration. “Now in this latter period, which is everywhere the
most ancient, the gammadion is only found on the whorls of Hissarlik
and the pottery of the Terramares. We have, therefore, two early homes
of our symbol, one on the shores of the Hellespont, the other in the
north of Italy.
“Was it propagated from one country to another by the usual medium of
commerce? It must be admitted that at this period the relations between
the Troad and the basin of the Po were very doubtful. Etruria certainly
underwent Asiatic influences; but whether the legendary migration of
Tyrrhenius and of his Lydians be admitted or not, this influence was
only felt at a period subsequent to the ‘palafittes’ [pile dwellings]
of Emilia, if not to the Necropolis of Villanova.
“There remains, therefore, the supposition that the gammadion might
have been introduced into the two countries by the same nation.
“We know the Trojans came originally from Thrace. There is, again,
a very plausible tradition to the effect that the ancestors, or
predecessors, of the Etruscans, and, in general, the earliest known
inhabitants of northern Italy, entered the peninsula from the north or
north-east, after leaving the valley of the Danube. It is, therefore,
in this latter region that we must look for the first home of the
gammadion. It must be remarked that when, later on, the coinage
reproduces the types and symbols of the local religions, the countries
nearest the Danube, such as Macedon and Thrace, are amongst those
whose coins frequently exhibit the gammadion, the traskele, and the
triskele. Besides, it is especially at Athens that it is found on
the pottery of Greece proper, and we know that Attica is supposed to
have been primitively colonised by the Thracians. ‘The nations who
had invaded the Balkan peninsula and colonised Thrace,’ writes M.
Maspero, ‘crossed, at a very early period, the two arms of the sea
which separated them from Asia, and transported there most of the names
which they had already introduced into their European home. There were
Dardanians in Macedon, on the borders of the Axios, as in the Troad,
on the borders of the Ida, Kebrenes at the foot of the Balkans, and
a town, Kebrene, near Ilium.’[195] Who will be astonished that these
emigrants had taken with them, to the opposite shore of the Hellespont,
the symbols as well as the rites and traditions which formed the basis
of their creed in the basin of the Danube?
[195] G. Maspero, _Histoire ancienne des peuples de l’Orient_,
1886, p. 241, quoted by Count G. d’Alviella.
“Even when it occurs in the north and west of Europe, with objects
of the bronze period, it is generally on pottery recalling the vases
with geometric decorations of Greece and Etruria, and later, on coins
reproducing, more or less roughly, the monetary types of Greece. It
seems to have been introduced into Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Norway,
and Iceland, in the same manner as that in which the runic writing was
brought from the Danube valley to the shores of the Baltic and the
ocean. It may have penetrated into Gaul, and from there into England
and Ireland, either through Savoy, from the time of the ‘palafittes,’
or with the pottery and jewelry imported by sea and by land from the
East, or, lastly, with the Macedonian coins which represent the origin
of Gallic coinage.
“We have already seen how it was brought among the islands of the
Mediterranean, and into Greece proper, then from Greece to Sicily and
even Southern Italy. It must be observed that even at Rome it seems to
have always been connected with the traditions of the East. We must not
forget that the Christianity of the Catacombs was likewise a religion
of Oriental origin.”
So much for the western fylfot. The oriental form even in the extreme
east of Asia can be traced without difficulty to the svastika of
India. There can be no doubt that the fylfot and the svastika are
genetically allied, but it is not at present very easy to demonstrate
all the links of the chain. Here again I quote from Count Goblet
d’Alviella.
“The svastika does not appear on the coins struck in Bactriana, or
in India, by Alexander and his Indo-Greek successors. Even amongst
the Indo-Scythians, whose coinage copies the Greek types, it is only
visible on barbarous imitations of the coins of Basu Deva. On the other
hand, as we have shown, it adorns the coins of Krananda and the most
ancient monetary ingots of India. Moreover, Panina, who already makes
mention of the svastika, is sometimes considered to have lived in the
middle of the fourth century B.C. It might therefore be possible that
the Hindus had known the svastika before feeling in their arts, and
even in their symbolism, the influence of the Greek invasion.
“Yet, for the best of reasons, it is neither the Chaldæans, the
Assyrians, the Phœnicians, nor even the Egyptians, who can have
imported the gammadion to Hindustan.
“There only remain, then, the Persians, whose influence on the nascent
arts of India was certainly felt before Alexander. But in Persia
itself the gammadion only appears as an exception on a few rare coins
approaching our era.
“Perhaps we would do well to look towards the Caucasus, where the
antique ornaments with gammadions, collected by M. Chantre, lead us
back to a civilisation closely enough allied, by its industrial and
decorative types, to that of Mycenæ.
“Until new discoveries permit us to decide the question, this gap in
the genealogy of the svastika will be equally embarrassing for those
who would like to make the gammadion the common property of the Aryan
race, for it remains to be explained why it is wanting amongst the
ancient Persians. It is right, too, to call attention to its absence
on the most ancient pottery of Greece and the Archipelago, where it
only appears with geometric decoration.
“If the gammadion is found amongst none of the nations composing the
Egypto-Semetic group; if, amongst the Aryans of Persia, it never
played but a secondary and obliterated part, might it not be because
the art and symbolism of these different nations possess other figures
which discharge a similar function, whether as a phylactery, or else
as an astronomical, or a divine symbol? The real talismanic cross of
the countries stretching from Persia to Lybia is the _crux ansata_,
the key of life of the Egyptian monuments. As for their principal
symbol of the sun in motion, is it not the Winged Globe? There would
seem to be between these figures and the gammadion, I will not say
a natural antipathy, but a repetition of the same idea. Where the
gammadion predominates—that is to say, in the whole Aryan world, except
Persia—the Winged Globe and the _crux ansata_ have never succeeded in
establishing themselves in good earnest. Even in India, granting that
these two last figures really crossed the Indus with the Greek, or the
Iranian symbolism, they are only met within an altered form, or with a
new meaning.
“In brief, the ancient world might be divided into two zones,
characterised, one by the presence of the gammadion, the other by
that of the Winged Globe as well as of the _crux ansata_; and these
two provinces barely penetrate one another at a few points of their
frontier, in Cyprus, at Rhodes, in Asia Minor, and in Lybia. The former
belongs to Greek civilisation, the latter to Egypto-Babylonian culture.
“As for India, everything, so far, tends to show that the svastika was
introduced into that country from Greece, the Caucasus, or Asia Minor,
by ways which we do not yet know. However that may be, it is owing
to its adoption by the Buddhists of India that the gammadion still
prevails amongst a great part of the Mongolian races, whilst, with
the exception of a few isolated and insignificant cases which still
survive amongst the actual populations of Hindustan, and, perhaps, of
Iceland, it has completely disappeared from Aryan symbolism and even
folk-lore.”
~TABLE ILLUSTRATING THE MIGRATIONS OF THE FYLFOT (AFTER GOBLET
D’ALVIELLA.)~
? ? ?
~Centuries B.C. & A.D.~ ................
. .
Anterior to XIIIth . Troas
. |
. +---+----+
. | |
About XIII or XII. . <-- Mycenæ --> |
+----------+--------+-----+
Villanova Greece | |
From XI to VI. <-- | (Pottery) ..... Caucasus
+-----+------+----+--+ <-- | .
| | | | +-----------+ .
| | | | Etruria | .
| | | | | Greece (Coins) .
To VI. | | | | | +-----+------+ . ?
| | | | | Thrace and| | .
To V. | | | | | Macedonia | Asia Minor .
| | | | +-----+-----+ . .
To IV. | | | | Sicily | . ? .
| | | +--------+ ..........
To III. | | | Gaul | <-- ? .. . ? | |India
+-----+------+----+-----+ ... .......+-+
From II. B.C. Scandi- Ger- British N. | ... . | |
to II. A.D. navia mania Isles Africa|... Persia | China
| | | |
To III. A.D. | Rome (Catacombs) | |
+-+ | +-+
from III to VIII. | +-+ |
| | |
To IX. Iceland Thibet Japan