Thus, while Dr. Keller and many other archæologists ascribe the crescents found in the Swiss lakes to some kind of religious worship, M. Vogt, whose idea is of a much more prosaic character, does not attribute them to any other worship but that of self as represented by the hair! The reader can take his choice between these two explanations. We shall only remark, in corroboration of Dr. Keller's opinion, that certain Gallic tribes used for a religious symbol this very crescent which M. Vogt would make out to be a pillow—a stone pillow which, as it seems to us, must have been very hard, even for primitive man.
Various objects found in the dwellings of man belonging to the bronze epoch appear to have been religious symbols. Such, for instance, are the designs so often met with on swords, vases, &c. These drawings never represent objects in nature; they seem rather to be cabalistic signs or talismans. Most of them bear some relation to a circle; sometimes they are single circles, and sometimes combinations of circles. Many authors have had the idea of attributing them to the worship of the sun.
Another sign was still more often used, and it was known even as early as the Stone Age—we speak of the cross. It is one of the most ancient symbols that ever existed. M. G. de Mortillet, in a work entitled 'La Croix avant le Christianisme,' has endeavoured to establish the fact, that the cross has always been the symbol of a sect which contended against fetishism. This much is at least certain, that it is one of the most ancient symbolical signs; for it is found depicted on objects belonging to the Stone Age, and on some of the earliest relics of the Bronze Age. At the time of the Etruscans the cross was generally prevalent as a sign. But at a later period Christianity exclusively monopolized this religious symbol.
A third figure is sometimes found on various objects belonging to the bronze epoch; this figure is the triangle.
It is, on the whole, very probable that all these signs which are not connected with any known object, bear some relation to certain religious or superstitious ideas entertained by the men of the bronze epoch; and, as a consequence of this, that their hearts must have been inspired with some degree of religious feeling.
FOOTNOTE:
[ [37] Indépendance Belge, November and December, 1868.