Among the whorls from Troy, Burnouf has deciphered objects which he describes as a wheel in motion; others as the Rosa mystica; others as the three stations of the Sun, or the three mountains. The Temple of Solomon was situated on Mount Moriah, one of the three holy hills of Hierosolyma, and it is probable that Meru, the paradise peak of Buddhism, was like Mount Moriah, originally Amour. That the wheel coins of England were symbolic of the Apple Orchard, the Garden of the Rose, or of the Isles called Fortunate is further pointed by the variant here illustrated, which is unmistakeably a Rosa mystica.
As has been pointed out by Sir George Birdwood it was the Apple Tree of the prehistoric Celtic immigrants that gave to the whole peninsular of the West of England—Gloucestershire, Somersetshire, Dorsetshire, Devonshire, and Cornwall, the mystic name of “Ancient Avalon,” or Apple Island:—
Deep meadowed, happy, fair with orchard lawns,
And bowery hollows, crowned with summer seas.
Fig. 443a—British. From Evans.
FOOTNOTES:
Primary chief bard am I to Elphin,
And my original country is the region of the summer stars;