The Swastika Part 10

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 127. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING. Fourth city. Depth, 20 feet. Schliemann, "Ilios," fig. 988. 1/3 natural size.]

_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 k.n.o.bs.

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. 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 mammae 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 mammae 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 128. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING AND CROIX SWASTICALE. Schliemann, "Ilios," fig. 986. 1/6 natural size.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 129. TERRA-COTTA VASE WITH CIRCLE OR RING INCLOSING SWASTIKA. Schliemann, "Troja," fig. 101. 2/5 natural size.]

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" const.i.tuted his greatest blessing and happiness, and their failure his greatest misery. The first and greatest command of G.o.d 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 p.r.o.nounced the curse in the Garden, that upon the woman[156] was, "In sorrow thou shalt bring forth children." G.o.d'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 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 fibulae 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 a.s.signed and understood by prehistoric archaeologists. 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 archaeologists 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 princ.i.p.al 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 sh.e.l.l abundant, cutting implements were, in prehistoric times, made of sh.e.l.l; and chisels or hatchets of sh.e.l.l, corresponding to the polished stone hatchet, were prevalent wherever the conditions were favorable, yet n.o.body ever called it an age of sh.e.l.l. 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 a.s.sign 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 Muller 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.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 130. GREEK VASE SHOWING DEER, GEESE, AND SWASTIKAS.

Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Sixth and fifth centuries, B. C. Petrie, Third Memoir, Egypt Exploration Fund, part 1, pl. 4, fig. 3, and Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 60, fig. 2.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 130_a_. DETAIL OF VASE SHOWN IN THE PRECEDING FIGURE.]

_Naukratis._--Figs. 130 to 135, made after ill.u.s.trations 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 cla.s.sed 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 a.n.a.lytic investigation, and it is the conclusion of M.

Gers.p.a.ch, 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 Graber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis," by R. Forrer, occurs a normal Swastika embroidered or woven, tapestry fas.h.i.+on, 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 sometimes adorning the corners of the tunics and togas as a large medallion, as shown in the figure.[167]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 133. FRAGMENT OF GREEK VASE DECORATED WITH FIGURES OF SACRED ANIMALS AND SWASTIKAS, a.s.sOCIATED WITH GREEK FRET. Naukratis, Ancient Egypt. Petrie, Sixth Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, part 2, pl. 6, fig. 1.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 136. GREEK TAPESTRY. Coptos, Egypt. First and second centuries, A. D. Forrer, "Die Graber- und Textilfunde von Achmin-Panopolis."]

ALGERIA.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 137. TORUS OF COLUMN WITH SWASTIKAS. Roman ruins, Algeria. Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," pl. 43, fig. 2, quoting from Delamare.]

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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 138. BRONZE INGOTS BEARING SWASTIKAS. Cooma.s.see, Ashantee.]

Mr. R. B. aeneas McLeod, of Invergordon Castle, Ross-s.h.i.+re, Scotland, reported[169] that, on looking over some curious bronze ingots captured at Cooma.s.see 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.

CLa.s.sICAL 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.signed by Mr. Flinders Petrie to the sixth and fifth centuries B. C., and their presence is accounted for by migrations from Greece.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 139. VARIATION OF THE GREEK FRET. Continuous lines crossing each other at right angles forming figures resembling the Swastikas.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 140. GREEK GEOMETRIC VASE IN THE LEYDEN MUSEUM, WITH FIGURES OF GEESE AND SWASTIKA IN PANEL.[170] Smyrna. Conze, "Anfange,"

etc., Vienna, 1870, and Goodyear, "Grammar of the Lotus," pl. 56, fig. 4.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 141. GREEK VASE WITH FIGURES OF HORSES, GEOMETRIC ORNAMENTS AND SWASTIKAS IN PANELS. Athens. Dennis, "Etruria," 1, p.

cxiii.]