ASIA MINOR—TROY (HISSARLIK).
Many specimens of the Swastika were found by Dr. Schliemann in the ruins of Troy, principally on spindle whorls, vases, and bijoux of precious metal. Zmigrodzki[138] made from Dr. Schliemann’s great atlas the following classification of the objects found at Troy, ornamented with the Swastika and its related forms:
Fifty-five of pure form; 114 crosses with the four dots, points or alleged nail holes (Croix swasticale); 102 with three branches or arms (triskelion); 86 with five branches or arms; 63 with six branches or arms; total, 420.
Zmigrodzki continues his classification by adding those which have relation to the Swastika thus: Eighty-two representing stars; 70 representing suns; 42 representing branches of trees or palms; 15 animals non-ferocious, deer, antelope, hare, swan, etc.; total, 209 objects. Many of these were spindle whorls.
Fig. 42.
FRAGMENT OF
LUSTROUS
BLACK POTTERY.
Swastika, right.
Depth, 23 feet.
Schliemann,
“Ilios,” fig. 247.
Dr. Schliemann, in his works, “Troja” and “Ilios,” describes at length his excavations of these cities and his discoveries of the Swastika on many objects. His reports are grouped under titles of the various cities, first, second, third, etc., up to the seventh city, counting always from the bottom, the first being deepest and oldest. The same system will be here pursued. The first and second cities were 45 to 52 feet (13 to 16 meters) deep; the third, 23 to 33 feet (7 to 10 meters) deep; the fourth city, 13 to 17.6 feet (4 to 5½ meters) deep; the fifth city, 7 to 13 feet (2 to 4 meters) deep; the sixth was the Lydian city of Troy, and the seventh city, the Greek Ilium, approached the surface.
First and Second Cities.—But few whorls were found in the first and second cities[139] and none of these bore the Swastika mark, while thousands were found in the third, fourth, and fifth cities, many of which bore the Swastika mark. Those of the first city, if unornamented, have a uniform lustrous black color and are the shape of a cone ([fig. 55]) or of two cones joined at the base (figs. [52] and [71]). Both kinds were found at 33 feet and deeper. Others from the same city were ornamented by incised lines rubbed in with white chalk, in which case they were flat.[140] In the second city the whorls were smaller than in the first. They were all of a black color and their incised ornamentation was practically the same as those from the upper cities.[141]
Zmigrodzki congratulated himself on having discovered among Schliemann’s finds what he believed to be the oldest representation of the Swastika of which we had reliable knowledge. It was a fragment of a vase ([fig. 42]) of the lustrous black pottery peculiar to the whorls of the first and second cities. But Zmigrodzki was compelled to recede, which he did regretfully, when Schliemann, in a later edition, inserted the footnote (p. 350) saying, that while he had found this (with a companion piece) at a great depth in his excavations, and had attributed them to the first city, yet, on subsequent examination, he had become convinced that they belonged to the third city.