Figure 72.
As to the image of the Minotaurus on the obverse of the Berlin coin: to any one familiar with the widespread system of figuring the state under the form of a human being or of a quadruped, and of symbolizing its ruler as its head, the image appears intelligible as that of the quadruplicate state. The circumstance that the head is that of a bull seems to indicate that, like the Egyptians, the Cretans applied the title “bull” to their king; thence perhaps the fable that the island was at one time governed by the monster [pg 459] Minotaurus who claimed as annual tribute, from conquered tribes, seven youths and maidens. It is striking how perfectly the geometrical figures on the reverse of both coins, which I hold to represent territorial divisions, seem to form the complement to the image of the state represented in semi-human and semi-animal form. Interesting variants of the same design appear on two coins of the same period in the British Museum collection. One of these, from Syracuse, exhibits a swastika, in the centre of which is a human head—a sign which I should interpret as the image of a state and its single central ruler. A coin from Corinth displays a plain swastika only, which suffices to indicate, however, that its state organization was on the familiar plan.
In connection with the swastika and five-dot group it is interesting to examine some ancient Egyptian seals exhibiting crosses with four dots or strokes (fig. [72], 3-5), and to compare these with Rhodian specimens (10-13). On vases found by Schliemann on the site of Troy (8 and 9), we find, in one case a swastika and in the other a cross and four dots in a circle forming the nave. It is interesting to compare the Athenian nos. 6 and 7, one being a swastika and the other a cross in a lozenge.[122] An extremely curious instance of an entire decoration of a building consisting of crosses and five-dot groups, is furnished by the cenotaph erected by a late king in honor of Midas, king of Phrygia (fig. [72], 2), which, curiously enough, offers much resemblance to the geometrical style of stucco decorations of the ruins of Mitla, Mexico.[123] The presence of the swastika on coins assigned to about B.C. 700 and its use in Greece, where plain cross-symbols had previously been employed, naturally leads to the inquiry as to the oldest-dated swastikas which have hitherto been found in Greece and Egypt.
In his important work on the subject already referred to, Prof. Thomas Wilson (op. cit. pp. 806 and 833), cites the opinions of Prof. Max Müller and Count Goblet d'Alviella as agreeing with that of Waring, who states that “the swastika is sought for in vain in Babylonia, Assyria and Phœnicia,” and “had no foothold in Egypt.” The same authority says that: “the only sign approaching the fylfot in Egyptian hieroglyphics ... is not very similar to our fylfot ... and forms one of the hieroglyphs of Isis” [pg 460] (Ceramic Art in Remote Ages, p. 82). On the other hand, Professor Goodyear says (Grammar of the Lotus, p. 356): “The earliest dated swastikas, hitherto found in Egypt, occur on the foreign Cyprian and Carian [?] pottery fragments of the time of the twelfth dynasty [B.C. 2466-2266] discovered by Mr. Flinders Petrie in 1889. In the Third Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund, Prof. Flinders Petrie published illustrations of Greek vases showing unmistakable swastikas which, though found at Naukratis in Egypt, are not Egyptian, but Greek.”
The only other examples of the swastika in Egypt cited by Prof. Thomas Wilson are those woven on Coptic grave cloths made of linen and reproduced in “Die Gräber- und Textilfunde von Achmim-Panopolis by R. Forrer.” These grave cloths pertained to the Christian Greeks who migrated from their country during the first centuries of our era and settled in Upper Egypt, in Coptos and the surrounding cities. I am able to add another instance of the employment of the swastika in Egypt, which, although of Coptic origin, attaches itself to ancient Egypt.
I have already pointed out that, in Lepsius' Book of the Dead, the foremost of the gods of the four quarters, represented in mummy form, exhibited a cross on his right shoulder. During a recent visit to the Berlin Museum, my attention was arrested by seeing a swastika painted in precisely the same position, on the right shoulder of the stucco mummy case of a man, from Hermopolis, dated from the second century after Christ (Catalogue No. 11649). This remarkable coincidence seems to furnish conclusive evidence that, long before the introduction of Greek culture and Christian influence, the plain cross was employed by the ancient Egyptians in precisely the same way as, subsequently, the swastika by the Copts. To some of my readers the question will perhaps suggest itself whether some early Christian sects and, amongst them, communities of Greek Copts, did not interpret the mission of Christ literally, as an attempt to reëstablish an earthly “kingdom of heaven” on the ancient plan, the knowledge of which had been preserved at Heliopolis, by the sages and philosophers of Egypt and the large Hebrew colony established there.
Returning to the swastika: From the account given by Prof. Thomas Wilson (op. cit., 810) of Schliemann's observations on the swastikas he discovered, during his excavations on the site of Troy, we learn that, whereas the swastika occurs on thousands of whorls [pg 461] found in the third, fourth and fifth cities, but few whorls were found in the first and second cities, which were the deepest and oldest and none of these bore the swastika mark. These observations, added to the appearance of the swastika in Egypt at a comparatively late period, appear to prove that, whereas the cross-symbol was known in remotest antiquity in Asia Minor and Egypt and expressed the same meaning as the swastika, i. e. Polaris and circumpolar rotation and the quadruplicate organization of the Cosmos suggested by these natural phenomena, it was only the form or shape of the cross which underwent a change at a certain period. The earliest-dated specimens of this new form, given to a more ancient symbol, occur on the pottery fragments found in Egypt by Prof. Flinders Petrie. The presence of the swastika, on the whorls found in the ruins of the third city built on the site of Troy, also indicates that its adoption occurred at a fixed date and marked a new departure.
Referring back to page [21], where I show that the observations which led to the adoption of the swastika as a symbol could not possibly have been made until after Ursa Major had become circumpolar, about B.C. 4000, I point out that the oldest swastikas which have hitherto been found corroborate this view, since they are all posterior to the time when Ursa Major became circumpolar. Long anterior to its adoption, however, the primordial set of ideas, suggested to the human mind by the observation of natural phenomena, had reached an advanced stage of development, and had been worked out, applied to the regulation of human life and symbolized, in various ways, in widely separated countries.