A writer in the Edinburgh Review in an article entitled “The Pre-Christian Cross,” January, 1870, p. 254, remarks: “The Buddhists and Brahmins who together constitute nearly half the population of the world, tell us that the decussated figure of the cross, whether in a simple or complex form, symbolizes the traditional happy abode of their primeval ancestors.”
Fig. 1237.—Crosses. Sword-maker’s marks.
Rudolf Cronau (c), describing Fig. 1237, says that in the Berlin Zeughause are swords of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, bearing the marks shown in a, b, c, and d, while those having the marks e and f are from swords in the Historical Museum at Dresden.
The remarkable resemblance of some of these characters to forms on petroglyphs in the three Americas, presented in this paper, will at once be noticed.
D’Alviella (c), remarks:
One of the most frequent forms of the cross is called the gamma cross, because its four arms are bent at a right angle so as to form a figure like that of four Greek gammas turned in the same direction and joined at the base. We meet it among all the peoples of the Old World, from Japan to Iceland, and it is found in the two Americas. There is nothing to prevent us from supposing that in the instance it was spontaneously conceived everywhere, like the equilateral crosses, circles, triangles, chevrons, and other geometrical ornaments so frequent in primitive decoration. But we see it, at least among the peoples of the Old Continent, invariably passing for talisman, appearing in the funeral scenes or on the tombstones of Greece, Scandinavia, Numidia, and Thibet, and adorning the breasts of divine personages—of Apollo and Buddha—without forgetting certain representations of the Good Shepherd in the Catacombs.
It is, however, impossible within the present limits, to attempt even a summary of the vast amount of literature on this topic. Perhaps one symbolic use of the form which is not commonly known is of sufficient interest to be noted. Travelers say that crosses are exhibited in the curtains of the monasteries of the Thibetan Buddhists, to mean peace and quietness. With the same conception the loopholes of the Japanese forts were in time of peace covered with curtains embroidered with crosses, which when war broke out were removed.
It is also impossible to refrain from quoting the following, translated with condensation, from de Mortillet (a). The illustration referred to is reproduced in the present paper by Fig. 1238, the right-hand figure being from the vase, and that on the left the recognized monogram of Christ:
