Count Goblet d’Alviella, in “La Migration des Symboles,” traces many ancient symbols from what he believes to be their place of origin to their modern habitat. The idea he elucidates in his book is indicated in its title.
The sacred tree of the Assyrians.—This he holds to be one of the oldest historic symbols; that it had its origin in Mesopotamia, one of the earliest civilized centers of the world. Beginning with its simplest form, the sacred tree grew into an ornate and highly complex pattern, invariably associated with religious subjects. Two living creatures always stand on either side, facing it and each other. First they were monsters, like winged bulls or griffins, and after became human or semihuman personages—priests or kings, usually in the attitude of devotion. The Count says the migration of both these types can be readily traced. The tree between the two monsters or animals passed from Mesopotamia to India, where it was employed by the Buddhists and Brahmins, and has continued in use in that country to the present time. It passed to the Phenicians, and from Asia Minor to Greece. From the Persians it was introduced to the Byzantines, and during the early ages, into Christian symbolism in Sicily and Italy, and even penetrated to the west of France. The other type—that is, the tree between two semi-human personages—followed the same route into India, China, and eastern Asia, and, being found in the ancient Mexican and Maya codices, it forms part of the evidence cited by the Count as a pre-Columbian communication between the Old World and the New. He argues this out by similarity of the details of attitude and expression of the human figure, the arrangement of the branches of the sacred tree, etc.
The sacred cone of Mesopotamia.—This was worshipped by the western Semites as their great goddess, under the image of a conical stone. Its figurative representation is found alike on monuments, amulets, and coins. On some Phenician monuments there is to be seen, super-added to the cone, a horizontal crossbar on the middle of which rests a handle. This shape bears a striking resemblance to the Crux ansata ([fig. 4]), and, like it, was a symbol of life in its widest and most abstract meaning. The resemblance between them is supposed to have caused them to have been mistaken and employed one for the other in the same character of symbol and talisman. It is alleged that the Ephesian Artemis was but the sacred cone of Mesopotamia anthropomorphized, although, with the halo added to Artemis, the allegation of relationship has been made in respect of the Crux ansata.
The Crux ansata, the key of life.—This is probably more widely known in modern times than any other Egyptian symbol. Its hieroglyphic name is Ankh, and its signification is “to live.” As an emblem of life, representing the male and female principle united, it is always borne in the hands of the gods, it is poured from a jar over the head of the king in a species of baptism, and it is laid symbolically on the lips of the mummy to revive it. From Egypt the Crux ansata spread first among the Phenicians, and then throughout the whole Semitic world, from Sardinia to Susiana.
The winged globe.—This was a widely spread and highly venerated Egyptian symbol. From Egypt it spread, under various modifications, throughout the Old World. It is formed by a combination of the representations of the sun that have prevailed in different localities in Egypt, the mythology of which ended by becoming a solar drama. Two uræus snakes or asps, with heads erect, are twisted round a globe-shaped disk, behind which are the outstretched wings of a hawk, and on its top the horns of a goat. It commemorates the victory of the principle of light and good over that of darkness and evil. It spread readily among the Phenicians, where it is found suspended over the sacred tree and the sacred cone, and was carried wheresoever their art was introduced—westward to Carthage, Sicily, Sardinia, and Cyprus, eastward to Western Asia. Very early it penetrated on the north to the Hittites, and when it reached Mesopotamia, in the time of Sargonidæ, the winged circle assumed the shape of the wheel or rosette, surmounted by a scroll with upcurled extremities and with a feathered tail opening out like a fan, or a human figure in an attitude sometimes of benediction, sometimes warlike, was inscribed within the disk. Then it was no longer exclusively a solar emblem, but served to express the general idea of divinity. From Mesopotamia it passed to Persia, principally in the anthropoid type. It was, however, never adopted by Greece, and it is nowhere met with in Europe, except, as before stated, in the Mediterranean islands. When Greece took over from Asia symbolic combinations in which it was originally represented, she replaced it by the thunderbolt. But the aureole, or halo, which encircles the heads of her divinities, and which Christian art has borrowed from the classic, was directly derived from it.
The caduceus.—This is one of the interesting symbols of antiquity. It appears in many phases and is an excellent illustration of the migration of symbols. Its classic type held in the hand of Mercury and used to-day as a symbol of the healing art—a winged rod round which two serpents are symmetrically entwined—is due to the mythographers of later times, and is very remote from its primitive form. In the Homeric hymn it is called “the golden rod, three-petaled of happiness and wealth,” which Phœbus gave to the youthful Hermes, but on early Greek monuments the three leaves are represented by a disk surmounted by an incomplete circle. In this shape it constantly appears on Phenician monuments; and at Carthage, where it seems to have been essentially a solar emblem, it is nearly always associated with the sacred cone. It is found on Hittite monuments, where it assumes the form of a globe surmounted by horns. Numerous origins and manifold antecedents have been attributed to it, such as an equivalent of the thunderbolt, a form of the sacred tree, or a combination of the solar globe with the lunar crescent. Some examples seem to indicate a transition from the sacred tree surmounted by the solar disk, to the form of the caduceus of the Hittites. Our author believes it was employed originally as a religious or military standard or flag, and that it was gradually modified by coming in contact with other symbols. Some Assyrian bas-reliefs display a military standard, sometimes consisting of a large ring placed upon a staff with two loose bandelets attached, sometimes of a winged globe similarly disposed. This Assyrian military standard may be the prototype of the labarum, which Constantine, after his conversion to Christianity, chose for his own standard, and which might equally well have been claimed by the sun worshipers. Under its latest transformation in Greece, a winged rod with two serpents twined round it, it has come down to our own times representing two of the functions of Hermes, more than ever in vogue among men, industry and commerce. It has survived in India under the form of two serpents entwined, probably introduced in the track of Alexander the Great. It was also met with in that country in earlier times in its simpler form, a disk surmounted by a crescent, resembling our astronomical sign for the planet Mercury. This earliest type of the caduceus, a disk surmounted by a crescent, appears at a remote date in India, and seems to have been confounded with the trisula.
The trisula.—This form of the trident peculiar to the Buddhists was of great importance in the symbolism of the Hindus; but whether it was an imitation of the type of thunderbolt seen on Assyrian sculptures, or was devised by them spontaneously, is uncertain. Its simplest form, which is, however, rarely met with, is an omicron (ο) surmounted by an omega (ω). Nearly always the upper portion is flanked by two small circles, or by two horizontal strokes which often take the appearance of leaves or small wings. The points of the omega are generally changed into small circles, leaves, or trefoil; and the disk itself is placed on a pedestal. From its lower arc there fall two spires like serpents’ tails with the ends curving, sometimes up and sometimes down. This is a very complex symbol. None of the Buddhist texts give any positive information in regard to its origin or meaning, and few symbols have given rise to more varied explanations. The upper part of the figure is frequently found separated from the lower; sometimes this is plainly a trident superposed upon a disk-shaped nucleus. The trident may possibly have symbolized the flash of lightning, as did Neptune’s trident among the Greeks, but more probably it is the image of the solar radiation. Among the northern Buddhists it personifies the heaven of pure flame superposed upon the heaven of the sun. Though undoubtedly a Hindu emblem, its primitive shape seems to have early felt the influence of the caduceus, while its more complex forms exhibit a likeness to certain types of the winged globe. Still later the trisula was converted by Brahmanism into an anthropoid figure, and became the image of Jagenath. The vegetable kingdom was also laid under contribution, and the trisula came into a resemblance of the tree of knowledge. Although we have learned the probable signification of its factors in the creeds that preceded Buddhism, we know very little about its meaning in the religion that used it most, but it is a symbol before which millions have bowed in reverence. The plastic development of the trisula shows with what facility emblems of the most dissimilar origin may merge into each other when the opportunity of propinquity is given, and there is sufficient similarity in form and meaning.
The double-headed eagle on the escutcheon of Austria and Russia.—Count D’Alviella tells the history of the migration of the symbol of the double-headed eagle on the escutcheon of Austria and Russia. It was originally the type of the Garuda bird of southern India, found on temple sculptures, in carved wood, on embroideries, printed and woven cloths, and on amulets. It first appears on the so-called Hittite sculptures at Eyuk, the ancient Pteria in Phrygia. In 1217 it appeared on the coins and standards of the Turkoman conquerors of Asia Minor.
In 1227-28 the Emperor Frederick II undertook the sixth crusade, landing at Acre in the latter year, and being crowned King of Jerusalem in 1229. Within thirty years from these dates the symbol appeared on the coins of certain Flemish princes, and in 1345 it replaced the single-headed eagle on the armorial bearing of the holy Roman Empire. Thus, the historic evidence of the migration of this symbol, from the far east to the nations of the west by direct contact, would seem complete.
The lion rampant of Belgium.—This lion was incorporated into the Percy or Northumberland escutcheon by the marriage of Joceline of Louvain, the second son of Godfrey, the Duke of Brabant, to Agnes, the sister and heir of all the Percys. The Counts of Flanders, Brabant, and Louvain bore as their coat of arms the lion rampant facing to the left, which is the present coat of arms of the King of Belgium. The story is thus told in Burke’s “Peerage” (1895): Agnes de Percy married Joceline of Louvain, brother of Queen Adeliza, second wife of Henry I, and son of Godfrey Barbalus, Duke of Lower Brabant and Count of Brabant, who was descended from the Emperor Charlemagne. Her ladyship, it is stated, would only consent, however, to this great alliance upon condition that Joceline should adopt either the surname or arms of Percy, the former of which, says the old family tradition, he accordingly assumed, and retained his own paternal coat in order to perpetuate his claim to the principality of his father, should the elder line of the reigning duke become extinct. The matter is thus stated in the old pedigree at Sion House: “The ancient arms of Hainault this Lord Jocelyn retained, and gave his children the surname of Percy.”