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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 January 2012
In a Paper read before this Society, 15 May, 1879, printed in Archaeologia, vol. XLVII. pp. 157–160, on “The Fret or Key Ornamentation in Mexico and Peru,” I showed that this form or symbol was there without doubt emblematic of water, and probably adopted independently of Western or Old World influence; and at the conclusion of the Paper I threw out a hint that the fylfot or swastika was an old Aryan symbol, connected with the older sky or air-gods, as represented by Indra and Jupiter Tonans and Pluvius, and not found in the New World. Since then I have gone very fully into a further investigation as to the general history and meaning of that ancient and mystic symbol; and believe I have arrived at a satisfactory solution of a question which has long been a puzzle to mythologists and antiquaries; but one which—in spite of the later labours and discoveries of Dr. Schliemann, Bernouf, Max Müller, of Ludvig Müller of Copenhagen, and most recently of Mr. Edward Thomas, the eminent numismatist —I believe, with Eergusson (Tree and Serpent Worship), has not yet been fully solved.
page 294 note a See Appendix II. for a fuller account of Müller's paper.
page 295 note a The crux-ansata, or tau, has never been satisfactorily explained; it is called ânkh in Egyptian, and is generally supposed to mean “eternal life,” and is often given as one of the chief symbols of royalty or divinity. There need be nothing phallic about it as far back as the third dynasty, nearly 4000 B.C., where it first appears. The loop or oval may have originally meant life or eternity; and the cross intended to mean extension in length and breadth, i.e., infinity to space, or possibly the tree of life, or the sun rising above the horizon.
page 295 note b For some observations on the fylfot and cross, and on the importance of the Aryan hearth-fire, see artieles in Frazer's Magazine, January 1881, and June 1879, by Mr. A. J. Evans and Karl Blind; also an article by Steinthal, in The Mythology of the Hebrew Nations, by Goldzihar, on the fire-chark and on fire-gods. Mr. Evans says, “In Caithness the need-fire is kindled by the ancient process of friction.”… “The yule fire was connected also with the need-fire.”... “In the Vedas, again, the fire appears as the first man, and forefather of the human race. The family-hearth or tombstone is connected with the ancestral fire and spirits of the fathers of the household.”… “Not only our Aryan family alone, but many others, were intimately connected with the worship of the fire of the hearth.”… “The descent of fire to earth from the thunder-cloud was dramatized by myth; as were also in the Vedas the sun and the storm.” Karl Blind says, “The hammer of Thor 
had the shape of one of the numerous forms of the Christian cross; early pre-Christian runic crosses are found. Thor was a storm-god who smote the giant Frost. In Iceland another form of Thor's hammer is found in the shape of 
, and till quite lately was used as a magic sign. In reality it is the old well-known Aryan symbol for need-fire, and fabled to have been made by Agni, the divine carpenter.”…“It may also be considered as a tree-shaped cross: Odin hung on a tree-shaped cross, or perhaps on a tree only. This may have been connected with the Indian sacred tree (soma ?); partly from the Pleiades, partly from the form of the tau, and possibly from the out stretched human form.” Mr. Walter Kelly, in his European Folk-Lore, has many interesting observations connected with fire, the fire-churn, and fire-gods. He considers the divining-rod (ash) as springing from the god of lightning, and that it became the palasa tree tree (p. 159). The ash-tree was sacred to Thor. The wish-rod is probably the equivalent of the divining-rod, and of the caduceus of Hermes, who is sometimes a fire-god or messenger. The Greeks used the thorn-tree for their frictional συρειη; and not unlikely the pramantha itself, or upright fire-stick used in drilling, was the ancestor of the caduceus and of the myth of Prometheus; some attach a phallic meaning to it.
page 297 note a It is curious that the swastika was not found as a symbol among the followers of Zoroaster, or on the coins of the Sassanian kings 300–500 A.D. on which the fire-altar is so conspicuous a feature. This is against the idea of the symbol having been used for a fire-emblem at an early period.
page 297 note b Prof. Monier Williams in his Indian Wisdom, p. 12, says, in reference to the older Vedic conception of the idea of a self-existent, omnipresent supreme being, that it was very clearly defined in the time of Manu (700 B.C.), “Him some adore as transcendently present in fire; others in Manu, lord of creatures; some as more distinctly present in Indra, others in pure air, others as the most high eternal spirit.”… “Subsequently this became Brahmā which again when it manifested an actual existence was called Brahmā; developed in the world, it was called Vishnu; and when dissolved again into its simple being was called Siva.” The older and simpler worship appears to have been better preserved by the Western Aryans, and among the Pelasgians, than among the Hindoos; where the original Dyaus was continued in Zeus; and before the Olympian system of divinities was fully established.
page 298 note a According to Ludvig Müller the fylfot was not identical with Thor's hammer, which was a . But in any case the fylfot symbol was constantly used in North Germany in connection with Thor. The is exceedingly rare, according to Waring, as a Scandinavian symbol. I myself have hardly ever come across it. It may, however, be sometimes figured as a 
, or triskele.
page 298 note b According to Waring (Ceramic Art, p. 15), the best derivation of the word fylfot might be from “fiol,” an old Norse word = viel in German and full in English; and “fot,” foot, or the many-footed, which is no inapt symbol for the sky-god Thor, the lord of thunder and lighting. Pindar, in his ode to Psaumis, a victor in the chariot-race of the Olympian games B.C. 452, addresses Zeus or Jupiter thus: “O thou mightiest hurler of the thunder, unwearied of foot.” In some instances the cross terminates in a kind of foot, as in the three-legged and three-footed cognate symbols seen on Macedonian, Sicilian, and Lycian coins, and might belong almost as well to Zeus or Jupiter as to the sun, as solar-like devices. In Western Germany, Odin or Woden was held in more estimation than Thor. Odin and Thor have some attributes probably in common like Dyaus and Varuna; and Odin, besides being sometimes a storm-god, doubtless had solar attributes given to him.
page 299 note a It has been lately argued that these whorls from Hissarlik, of which Dr. Schliemann states he dug some 18,000 out of the débris of the five buried cities he describes, were ex votos, and not spinningwhorls, as elsewhere found and usually considered to be. This opinion is now shared in by Dr. Schliemann himself, I believe, as well by Mr. Edward Thomas, and it is chiefly based upon the excessive numbers of them found, as well as upon the fact that a certain number of them are not perforated at all, and would appear to have astronomical designs inscribed upon them. In the latter case, certainly, they could not have been used as spinning-whorls. But, as for the argument based on their great number, I do not see its force at all. Formed in the débris of no less than four or five successive cities, the third of which must have been destroyed not earlier than 1200 B.C. and covering in all a space of at least 1500 years, that would not give an average of more than ten or twelve per annum, distributable over not less at all events than several hundred houses, supposed by Dr. Schliemann to have consisted each of two or three or more stories or households. to most archaeologists I believe the greater part of these objects would, found anywhere else, simply appear ordinary spindle-whorls, a little more ornamented possibly, and very little better made; certainly by no means so good as those from ancient Mexico and from the early Bolognese Etruscan tombs, both of which frequently have the key-pattern. As a rule ex volos in clay are rude representations of the gods, animals, men and women, or parts of the human body. The clay tablets mentioned by Mr. Edward Thomas (p. 42), I think from Northern India, and with prayers inscribed upon them, can hardly be classed with these Trojan, whorls or with the rude baked-clay idols found by Dr. Schliemann at Mycen“Many pear-shaped and ornamented clay-whorls, pierced vertically, were found in the early Etrusean tombs near Bologna. Count Gozzodini takes them to be little weights attached to the funeral garments to make them hang property.” Mr. A. J. Evans suggests, in a paper in Frazer's Magazine, p. 357 (1880), in connection with the old fire-drill or pramantha, that these spinning-whorls may have been used as fly-wheels fastened on to the wooden spindle itself, in order to insure greater efficiency in steadiness and velocity; as such it is still used by the Iroquois Indians and Polynesians. With this opinion of Mr. Evans I am quite inclined to agree to a certain extent; and it will help us to account for the number found at Troy, without going.out of one's way to account for them as being ex votos, as well as for the tendency on them to exhibit solar and whirling devices. That the early Greeks and Aryans produced fire by the friction of two pieces of wood and worked by a drill, according to E. B. Tylor, is well known; and the myth of Prometheus is said to be connected with it. In reference to this part of the subject, reference may here be made to the curious leaden idol of a female figure with ram's-horns, found by Dr. Schliemann in the Trojan strata (see Ilium, p. 337). A rude triangle (fig. 37, PI. XIX.), intended for the vulva, has depicted on it a single fylfot! Whether this was intended to represent the solar as a reproductive energy, or was here merely used as an auspicious sign, it is not easy now to determine. Might not, however, the here used have some possible reference to the production of fire byriction ? If the western fylfot ever did represent the element of fire, this would be a not unlikely solution in the present case. Nor would it even then be altogether inconsistent with the Zeus, or “supreme deity “theory, inasmuch as there is some connection between fire and lightning, as the favourite weapon of Zeus and Indra. (See Addendum, p. 326, on spindle-whorls.)
page 302 note a Though the bull in ancient times was sometimes associated with solar attributes, and stands as one of the zodiacal signs or stations of the snn, yet in connection with Indra and Jupiter and the myth of Europe it is clearly closely connected with the sky-gods Zeus and Indra. The Rev. G. W. Cox, in his Mythology of the Aryan Nations, vol. i. p. 437, says: “The story of Europe brings before us the dawn, not as fleeing from the pursuit of the sun, but as borne across the heaven by the lord of the pure ether. Zeus here, like Indra himself, assumes the form of a bull.” Under the name of “the Wanderer,” Zeus and Indra as sky-gods have not unfrequently assumed a solar character. These myths, and the way in which the function or qualities of one god, or triad of gods, changes or tends to run into those of another, are very perplexing, and must, especially in reference to the sky- and sun-gods and elements, be carefully followed, as far as they have any possible reference to the history and origin of the fylfot and swastika emblems in connection with solar qualities or the fire-god Agni.
page 303 note a Mr. Edward Thomas states that a three-rayed device, or triskele, probably a solar or fire emblem, occurs on some of the Trojan whorls figured by Dr. Schliemann. I have carefully examined these figures, but fail to find one. There is among the Cypriote characters or syllables, in General Cesnola's work, however, a character similar to The Scandinavian triskele, fig. 32, PL XIX. refers to fire.
page 303 note b According to Mr. K. Brown, F.S.A. the triquetra, as shown in the Lycian coins, and in the threelegged devices referred to in the text, can clearly be referred to the crescent-moon of the Assyrian cult, thrice repeated. If so, the triquetra cannot possibly either be derived from the fylfot or the fylfot from the triquetra; neither could it even be a solar emblem (see Mr. Brown's very ingenious, learned, and curious dissertation on the “Unicorn,” as having a lunar origin and character, published by Longman and Co. 1881). I had not seen this interesting paper until after my present paper had been concluded. The form of the moon repeated three times, Mr. Brown of course refers to the three phases of the moon. It also has reference to the three-legged lunar ass, with one horn, mentioned in the Pehlevi work called the Bundahis, of the times of the Sassanian dynasties. Some of the Lycian coins, described in Sir Charles Fellowes's work, show the triquetra with arms, completely crescent in shape—in fact three semi-lunes, springing out of a small central disc. (See figs. 24 and 39, Pl. XIX., and fig. 4, PL XX.)
page 304 note a The single zig-zag line in the centre of the medial zone may be intended to represent lightning (the thunder-bolt of Zeus), or, as Prof. Sayce thinks possible, it might stand for the letter ki in the Cypriote language (see Ilium, p. 349). But at p. 695 it is remarked by Prof. Sayce, in an article on the inscriptions found at Hissarlik by Dr. Schliemann, that an almost identical character is the Cypriote ve, which appears (curiously) at Paphos as Z. According to Bernouf, the three dots vertically placed may represent “royal majesty,” a term here quite applicable if the fylfots are supposed to stand for Zeus.
page 304 note b The Society is indebted for this figure to the courtesy of John Murray, Esq., F.S.A.
page 305 note a Possibly owing to the diminished respect and veneration paid to Zeus, as the grand old Aryan bright air or sky-god Dyaus, and to the increased Apollo-worship in some parts of the Greek empire and Greek colonies, and extension of the numbers and importance of the other gods on Mount Olympus.
page 306 note a Mr. Edward Thomas has, however, succeeded, I think, in proving that the fylfot or swastika decidedly occurs in a solar sense, if not as standing for the solar orb itself, on some coins from Ujjain and Andhra in Southern India.
page 306 note b The Day itself being derived from the Sanskrit Dyaus, or dyu, as well as the bright sky.
page 306 note c See figs. 28, Pl. XlX. and 16, 18, 18a, and 32, Pl. XX.
page 307 note a Mr. R. A. Proctor, F.R.S. the well-known astronomer, says in the Cornhill Magazine for December 1881, in reference to the subject of early nature-worship: “I am satisfied that the doctrine of a firmament is one which almost all primitive science recognises, and occupies an important position in the astrological beliefs with which we find it associated, and is in accordance with the minds of children, and with the cosmologies of the North American Indians and South Sea Islanders, who describe their flat earth as arched over by the solid vault of heaven. The Zulu idea is that the blue heaven is a rock encireling the earth, inside of which are the sun, moon and stars, and outside which dwell the people of heaven.” The Vedic idea was somewhat similar; Varuna itself meaning originally the solid or covering firmament. It may here be noticed that Dr. Schliemann, in his “Troja,” p. 122, states that the fylfot has been found in Yucatan and Pueblo in the New World; I should feel strongly inclined, however, to consider its appearance there as only a very possible variety of the Key-pattern (see fig. 20 and 23, Pl. XX.), so common in Mexico and Peru. I have never so far been able to find a true example of the in any work on Mexico,. or in any museum; the nearest approach to it resembling fig. 13a, Pl. XIX.
page 307 note b On some of the Trojan whorls we sometimes see a single 
, evidently standing for lightning (see fig. 9, PL XIX.)
page 308 note a So very similarly in India, Dyans gave way to Indra, more especially the rain, lightning, and stormgod, and that again to Vishnu, the later solar representative of Varuna, “the investing sky and the bright firmament.” Dyaus and Zeus, as the supreme god of the Aryans, may have subsequently, or by some minor branches of it (that came more under Semitic or Turanian influence), to some extent changed both in name and idea. Ludvig Müller states that among the Lithuanians it is called Perun or Perkun. In Germany, sometimes Thor and sometimes Odin. Among the Gauls, Grannus. In China Ouan or Kuan, the blue sky, and tien, the lord of heaven. Among the Persians, probably Ormuzd. Odin as Woden may have some reference to the “Wanderer ”in connection with the solar myths.
page 309 note a It is now known that the Trojans were of Thrakian origin. The Hittites, who were not a Semitic race, also employed the fylfot symbol. (See Schliemann's Troja, pp. 125 and 262.
page 310 note a See Bernouf and Schliemann.
page 312 note a Some of the devices belonging to the Indian god Siva are given with fig. 19, Pl. XX. The Indian cruxansata, figs. 9 and 19a, is commonly depicted by a triangle, apex down, instead of by a loop or oval as in the Egyptian symbol. This symbol, supposed to indicate eternal life and royalty, may have come to India from Egypt by way of Persia, and been accepted as an appropriate emblem for the Indian god Brahma, expressive of eternal self-existence, and essence or cause of all things. The upper part, or triangle drawn apex downwards, with the Hindoos, might here however apply rather to the purifying element, water, which, according to Karl Blind, was anciently considered to be the origin of all created things. The trisul is generally considered to be the special emblem of Siva; but Fergusson sometimes applies it to Buddha. Furlong and Inman look upon the trisul as a purely phallic emblem.
page 313 note a In a paper printed in the Indian Antiquary, Mr. Edward Thomas states with reference to certain Indian coins from Ujjain and Andhra, in the Deccan. “that the place of the more definite figure of the sun, in its rayed-like wheel-form, was taken by the emblematic cross of the swastika. The position so taken in opposition to or in natural balance of the coincident semi-lune, could leave no doubt that the aim and intention in this case was to represent symbolically the great luminary itself. In seeking for further confirmation of this inference I found that in one instance the swastika had been inserted within the rings or normal circles representing the four suns of the Ujjain pattern on coins, in which position it seemed equally to declare its own meaning, as indicating the onward movement and advancing rotation of the sun. I had already noticed that there was an unaccountable absence of the visible sun, or solar disc, in the long list of recognised devices of the twenty-four Jaina Tirthankaras. The sun, moreover, occupied a high place in their estimation.” And again, “Under the advanced interpretation of the designs and purport of the swastika, from an Indian point of view, now put forward, perhaps few arch” I agree with Mr. Thomas that in this instance we have one of the few cases where the swastika may be used in a purely solar sense. The Indo-Scythic coins (figs. 22, 23, Pl. XIX.), which I have already referred to, do not further bear this out, however; here the swastika alludes evidently to Indra as the sky- or air-god. As Indra fell out of sight his original and proper emblem would be very likely used in other senses and in honour of other gods. Professor Monier Williams says, “Time with the Jainas proceeds in two eternally revolving cycles of immense duration; 1st, the Utsarpini or ascending cycle; 2nd, the Avarsarpini or descending cycle.” Possibly the revolving or circular devices on the Ujjain coins may refer to those cycles, and not necessarily to the sun. Mr. Hyde Clarke, however, considers Siva = Saba =Sabazios = Sun.
page 314 note a One can hardly adopt as real argument all the fanciful solar notions given in the Vishnu Puranàs and Vishnu-pada, as to the three steps or strides of Vishnu; and the rising meridian and setting sun and the feet of the revolving solar orb or wheel, as alluded to by Mr. Edward Thomas and Ludvig Müller, as necessarily connected with the triskele and swastika. The Puranâs were epic poems written hundreds of years after the oldest Rig Vedas. And the connection between the swastika and the triskele itself is at best somewhat doubtful; only in a very few cases do we find the swastika and fylfot having any really definite employment in a sense directly solar. R. Brown shows that the triskele was a lunar symbol.
page 315 note a The ladder or step-like device shown in fig. 28, Pl. XlX. on pottery from Magnu Græcia, is most probably an earth-symbol, and occurs here with the fylfot. Very similar figures occur also on the Trojan whoris and which have not hitherto been explained. (See also fig. 16.)
page 315 note b See also fig. 38, PL XlX. probably a Scandinavian emblem for the thunderbolt.
page 316 note a If R. Brown's lunar and Semitic or Asiatic origin of the triquetra, however, should be established, then the entire argument in favour of the triquetra being derived from the fylfot, or vice versâ, falls to the ground.
page 317 note a Among the Hindoos Brahma may have for a time expressed to some extent this idea of a “supreme deity,” and subsequently to a certain extent Vishnu possibly became among many Indian sects a kind of solar impersonification of supremacy. So also in certain of the old Greek colonies there was a later tendency to place Apollo in the first rank, or even before Zeus; we need not therefore be surprised, as I have already suggested in reference to certain coins described by Edwards, that the fylfot and swastika may have been occasionally borrowed as a symbol representing the greater sky-god of the earlier Pelasgians. We should therefore be on our guard against a too hasty inference as to the solar origin of the fylfot, or that its peculiar feet or terminal spurs were intended to express a revolving movement, whether axial or advancing.
page 319 note a The goddess Adyti, meaning the Infinite Expanse, became tho mother of the bright gods, and especially so of Surya and Mitra.
page 321 note a I have particularly remarked in the earlier, part of my Paper in reference to certain of the figs, given in the Plates on the importance of the position given for the fylfot in these figs, and have pointed out that very frequently the fylfot has assigned to it an intermediate or most open place between the sun and the earth.
page 322 note a See fig. 18a, Pl. XX. where the fylfot standing for the supreme god, or for Zeus, is centrally placed between the solar goose and a fish; in this case, possibly fire and water as the two purifying elements might be intended, in fig. 18 a middle station between the sun and earth, exactly suitable to the position of an air-god.
page 322 note b How far the soma-tree was the same with the tree of life I am not prepared to say; but Indra was said to have been slayer of the dark serpent Vitra.
page 322 note c E. B. Tylor, in his Early History of Mankind, p. 257, says: “The old fire-drill is still used in India for kindling the sacrificial fire. The process by which fire is obtained from wood is called churning, as it resembles that by which butter in India is separated from milk. It consists in drilling one piece of araniwood into another by pulling a string tied to it with a jerk with the one hand, while the other is slackened, and so alternately till the wood takes fire. The fire is received on cotton or flax, held in the hand of an assistant Brahmin.” The Esquimaux use similar means. The ancient Greeks likewise used the drill and cord. (See Kuhn and Stevenson.) There is nothing here, then, of the swastika and four nails in connection with the fire-churn.
page 321 note a I cannot help thinking that Ludvig Müller attaches too much importance to the sun in connection with the early Aryans. In the Vedas the sun at first occupied the second place, and the sky and air-god along with Indra and Agni the first. Zeus or Jupiter, or their representatives, also generally held the place as the supreme god of the Western Aryans, and as we have seen that referred to the sky and air rather than to the sun, and that the fylfot emblem belonged to Zeus. It is surely going back too far to decide whether among the Aryans 3000 to 5000 years ago they may have first worshipped the sun as a simple element.
page 325 note a Fig. 18a, Pl. XX. represents a portion of a fibula from Bœotia, figured by Ludvig Müller, which at first suggests the idea of the fylfot having a solar connection. The hooked rays to the solar disc at the top are evidently copied from the spurs or feet of the fylfot; but this is almost a unique instance. The two small lower squares with inscribed diagonals most probably stand for the earth, and, if so, the two fylfots will not be out of place in the intermediate space as representing the air-god, and need no more have any solar reference than that the two squares standing for the earth have any solar character about them.