Fig. 348.—From Archaic Sculpturings (L. Mann).
If as now suggested the wheel and the “spindle whorl” were alike symbols of the Eye of Heaven, it is equally probable that the amber, and many other variety of bead, was also a talismanic eyeball:[670] among grave deposits the blue bead was very popular, assumedly for the reason that blue was the colour of heaven. Large quantities of blue “whorls” were discovered by Schliemann[671] at Mykenæ, and among the many varieties of beads found in Britain one in particular is described as “of a Prussian Blue colour with three circular grooves round the circumference, filled with white paste”.[672] This design of three circles reappears in Fig. 347 taken from the base of a British Incense-cup; likewise in a group of rock sculpturings (Fig. 348) found at Kirkmabreck in Kirkcudbrightshire. Mr. Ludovic Mann, who sees traces of astronomical intention in this sculpture, writes: “If the pre-historic peoples of Scotland and indeed Europe had this conception, then the Universe to their mind would consist of eleven units, namely, the nine celestial bodies already referred to, and the Central Fire and the ‘Counter-Earth’. Very probably they knew also of elliptical motions. Oddly enough the cult of eleven units (which I detected some fifteen years ago) representing the universe can be discerned in the art of the late Neolithic and Bronze Ages in Scotland and over a much wider area. For example, in nearly all the cases of Scottish necklaces of beads of the Bronze Age which have survived intact, it will be found that they consist of a number of beads which is eleven or a multiple of eleven. I have, for example, a fine Bronze Age necklace from Wigtownshire consisting of 187 beads (that is of 17 × 11) and a triangular centre piece. The same curious recurrence of the number and its multiples can often be detected in the number of standing stones in a circle, in the number of stones placed in slightly converging rows found in Caithness, Sutherland, some parts of England, Wales, and in Brittany. The number eleven is occasionally involved in the Bronze Age pottery decorations, and in the patterns on certain ornaments and relics of the Bronze Age.... The Cult of eleven seems to survive in the numerous names of Allah, who was known by ninety-nine names, and hence it is invariably the case that the Mahommedan has a necklace consisting of either eleven or a multiple of eleven beads but not exceeding ninety-nine, as he is supposed to repeat one of the names for each bead which he tells.”[673]
We have seen that the rudraksha or eye of the god S’iva seeds are usually eleven faceted, and my surmise that the whorls of Troy were universal Eyes is further implied by the group here illustrated. According to Thomas, our British Troy Towns or Caer Troiau were originally astronomical observatories, and he derives the word troiau from the verb troi to turn, or from tro signifying a flux of time:—[674]
By ceaseless actions all that is subsists;
Constant rotation of th’ unwearied wheel
That Nature rides upon, maintains her health,
Her beauty and fertility. She dreads
An instant’s pause and lives but while she moves.
The Trojan whorls are unquestionably tyres or tours, and the notion of an eye is in some instances clearly imparted to them by radiations which resemble those of the iris. The wavy lines of No. 1835 and 1840 probably denote water or the spirit, in No. 1847 the “Jupiter chain” of our Solido coin reappears; the astral specks on 1841 and 1844 may be connoted with the stars and planets, and in 1833 the sense of rolling or movement is clearly indicated.