The Swastika Part 15

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 repet.i.tion.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 224.[226] LYCIAN COIN. Triskelion with three arms representing c.o.c.ks' heads and necks.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 c.o.c.ks' 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 Plataea. 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 h.o.a.ry 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 a.s.syrian 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 aegean Sea, and the difference between them was so well recognized that one could not possibly have been mistaken for the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 227. SICILIAN COIN WITH QUADRIGA AND TRISKELION.

British Museum. Barclay Head, "Coins of the Ancients," etc., pl. 35, fig.

28.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: 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 pa.s.s 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 a.s.serted 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 Lilybaeum. 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 resume:

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 doc.u.ment recording the fact, that to Alexander III of Scotland is due the introduction of the 'Tre Ca.s.syn' 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.s 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 G.o.ds 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 pa.s.sing 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]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 229. CORINTHIAN COINS. Obverse and reverse. Punch mark resembling Swastika.]

It is believed by the author that the a.s.sertions 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.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLATE 9. PUNCH MARKS ON REVERSE OF ANCIENT COINS.]

EXPLANATION OF PLATE 9.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

PUNCH MARKS ON REVERSE OF ANCIENT COINS.

Fig. 1. COIN OF LYDIA. Electrum. Oblong sinking between two squares.

Babylonian stater. The earliest known coinage. Circa 700 B. C.

2. PHENICIAN HALF STATER. Electrum. Incuse square with cruciform ornament.

3. SILVER COIN OF TEOS. Incuse square. Circa 544 B. C.

4. SILVER COIN OF ACANTHUS. Incuse square.

5. SILVER COIN OF MENDE. Incuse triangles.

6. SILVER COIN OF TERONE. Incuse square.

7. COIN OF BISALTae.[236] Incuse square. Octadrachm.

8. SILVER COIN OF ORRESCII.[236] Incuse square. Octadrachm.

9. CORINTHIAN SILVER COIN. Incuse square divided into eight triangular compartments. The earliest coin of Corinth, dating B. C. 625 to 585.

10. SILVER COIN OF ABDERA. Incuse square.

11. SILVER COIN OF BYZANTIUM. Incuse square, granulated.

12. SILVER COIN OF THRASOS (THRACE). Incuse square.

_Swastika on ancient Hindu coins._--It is not to be inferred from this opposition that the Swastika never appeared on ancient coins. It did appear, but seems to have been of a later date and to have belonged farther east among the Hindus. Fig. 230 shows an ancient (Hindu?) coin reported by Waring, who cites Cunningham as authority for its having been found at Ujain. The design consists of a cross with independent circles on the outer end of each of the four arms, the circles being large enough to intersect each other. The field of each of these circles bears a Swastika of normal form. Other coins are cited of the same style, with small center dots and concentric circles in the stead of the Swastika. What meaning the Swastika has here, beyond the possible one of being a lucky penny, is not suggested.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 230. ANCIENT HINDU COIN IN THE FORM OF A CROSS WITH A SWASTIKA ON THE EXTREMITY OF EACH ARM.[237] Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," pl. 41, fig. 13.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Figs. 231, 232, 233, and 234. ANCIENT HINDU COINS WITH SWASTIKAS, NORMAL AND OGEE. Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," pl. 41, figs. 20-24.]

Other ancient Hindu coins bearing the Swastika (figs. 231-234) are attributed to Cunningham by Waring.[238] These are said by Waring to be Buddhist coins found at Behat near Scharaupur. Mr. E. Thomas, in his article on the "Earliest Indian Coinage,"[239] ascribes them to the reign of Krananda, a Buddhist Indian king contemporary with or prior to Alexander, about 330 B. C.

The coins of Krananda,[240] contemporary of Alexander the Great,[241] bear the Swastika mark, a.s.sociated with the princ.i.p.al Buddhist marks, the trisula, the stupha, sacred tree, sacred cone, etc. Waring says[242] that according to Prinsep's "Engravings of Hindu Coins," the Swastika seems to disappear from them about 200 B. C., nor is it found on the Indo-Bactrian, the Indo-Sa.s.sanian, or the later Hindu or subsequent Mohammedan, and he gives in a note the approximate dates of these dynasties: Early native Buddhist monarchs from about 500 B. C. to the conquest of Alexander, about 330 B. C.; the Indo-Bactrian or Greek successors of Alexander from about 300 to 126 B. C.; the Indo-Parthian or Scythic from about 126 B. C.; the second Hindu dynasty from about 56 B.

C.; the Indo-Sa.s.sanian from A. D. 200 to 636, and subsequent to that the Indo-Mohammedan from the eleventh to the close of the thirteenth century; the Afghan dynasty from A. D. 1290 to 1526, and the Mongol dynasty to the eighteenth century, when it was destroyed by Nadir Shah. (See p. 772.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 235. ANCIENT COIN WITH SWASTIKA. Gaza, Palestine.

Waring, "Ceramic Art in Remote Ages," pl. 42, fig. 6.]