The Swastika, the Earliest Known Symbol, and Its Migration / With Observations on the Migration of Certain Industries in Prehistoric Times

by Thomas Wilson

Fig. 161.
WOODEN BUTTON, CLASP,
OR FIBULA COVERED WITH
PLATES OF GOLD.
Ogee Swastika, tetraskelion
in center. Schliemann,
“Mycenæ,” fig. 385.

Swastika in panels.—Professor Goodyear, in another place,[176] argues in a manner which tacitly admits the foregoing proposition, where, in his endeavor to establish the true home of the Swastika to be in the Greek geometric style, he says we should seek it where it appears in “the largest dimension” and in “the most prominent way.” In verification of this declaration, he says that in this style the Swastika systematically appears in panels exclusively assigned to it. But he gives only two illustrations of the Swastika in panels. These have been copied, and are shown in figs. [140] and [142]. The author has added other specimens, [figs. 141 to 148], from Dennis’s “Etruria,” from Waring’s “Ceramic Art,” and from Cesnola and Ohnefalsch-Richter. It might be too much to say that these are the only Swastikas in Greece appearing in panels, but it is certain that the great majority of them do not thus appear. Therefore, Professor Goodyear’s theory is not sustained, for no one will pretend that four specimens found in panels will form a rule for the great number which did not thus appear. This argument of Professor Goodyear is destructive of his other proposition that the Swastika sign originated by evolution from the meander or Greek fret, for we have seen that the latter was always used in a band and never in panels. Although the Swastika and the Greek fret have a certain similarity of appearance in that they consist of straight lines bent at right angles, and this continued many times, yet the similarity is more apparent than real; for an analysis of the motifs of both show them to have been essentially different in their use, and so in their foundation and origin.

Fig. 162.
DETAIL OF GREEK VASE WITH FIGURE OF GOOSE,
HONEYSUCKLE (ANTHEMION), AND SPIRAL SWASTIKA.
Thera. “Monumenti Inedite,” LXV, p. 2, and
Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 46, fig. 7.

Fig. 163. DETAIL OF GREEK VASE. Sphinx with spiral scrolls, and two meander Swastikas (right). Melos. Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1887, XII, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 34, fig. 8.		Fig. 164. DETAIL OF GREEK VASE. Ibex, scroll, and meander Swastika (right). Melos. Böhlau, Jahrbuch, 1887, XII, p. 121, and Goodyear, “Grammar of the Lotus,” pl. 39, fig. 2.