The coinage of the ancient world is not a prolific field for the discovery of the Swastika. Other specimens may possibly be found than those here given. This search is not intended to be exhaustive. Their negative information is, however, valuable. It shows, first, that some of the early stamps or designs on coins which have been claimed as Swastikas were naught but the usual punch marks; second, it shows a limited use of the Swastika on the coinage and that it came to an end in very early times. Numismatics afford great aid to archæology from the facility and certainty with which it fixes dates. Using the dates furnished by the coinage of antiquity, it is gravely to be questioned whether the prolific use of the Swastika in Asia Minor (of which we have such notable examples on specimens of pottery from the hill of Hissarlik, in Greece) did not terminate before coinage began, or before 480 B. C., when the period of finer engraving began, and it became the custom to employ on coins the figures of gods, of tutelary deities, and of sacred animals. Thus the use of the Swastika became relegated to objects of commoner use, or those having greater relation to superstition and folklore wherein the possible value of the Swastika as an amulet or sign with power to bring good luck could be better employed; or, as suggested by Mr. Greg, that the great gods which, according to him, had the Swastika for a symbol, fell into disrepute and it became changed to represent something else.
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
PRE-COLUMBIAN TIMES.
Fains Island and Toco Mounds, Tennessee.—That the Swastika found its way to the Western Hemisphere in prehistoric times can not be doubted. A specimen ([fig. 237]) was taken by Dr. Edward Palmer in the year 1881 from an ancient mound opened by him on Fains Island, 3 miles from Bainbridge, Jefferson County, Tenn. It is figured and described in the Third Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology,[247] as follows:
A shell ornament, on the convex surface of which a very curious ornamental design has been engraved. The design, inclosed by a circle, represents a cross such as would be formed by two rectangular tablets or slips slit longitudinally and interlaced at right angles to each other. The lines are neatly and deeply incised. The edge of the ornament has been broken away nearly all around.
The incised lines of this design ([fig. 237]) represent the Swastika turned to the left (though the description does not recognize it as such). It has small circles with dots in the center, a style of work that may become of peculiar value on further investigation, but not to be confounded with the dots or points in what M. Zmigrodzki calls the Croix swasticale. The mound from which this specimen came, and the objects associated with it, show its antiquity and its manufacture by the aborigines untainted by contact with the whites. The mound is on the east end of Fains Island. It was 10 feet in height and about 100 feet in circumference at the base. In the bed of clay 4 feet beneath the surface were found the remains of 32 human skeletons; of these, only 17 skulls could be preserved. There had been no regularity in placing the bodies.
Fig. 237.
SHELL GORGET WITH ENGRAVED SWASTIKA, CIRCLES, AND DOTS.
Fains Island, Tennessee. Cat. No. 62928, U. S. N. M.