Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race - Knowledge Rush

60 Myths and Legends of the Celtic Race[77]and navetas of Minorca were known to me I had formed theopinion that what I have so frequently spoken of as the ‘wedgeshape’observable so universally in the ground-plans of dolmenswas due to an original conception of a ship. From sepulchraltumuli in Scandinavia we know actual vessels have on severaloccasions been disinterred. In cemeteries of the Iron Age, inthe same country, as well as on the more southern Baltic coasts,the ship was a recognised form of sepulchral enclosure.” 49 IfMr. Borlase's view is correct, we have here a very strongcorroboration of the symbolic intention which I attribute to thesolar ship-carvings of the Megalithic People.The Ship Symbol in BabyloniaThe ship symbol, it may be remarked, can be traced to about4000 B.C. in Babylonia, where every deity had his own specialship (that of the god Sin was called the Ship of Light), his imagebeing carried in procession on a litter formed like a ship. Thisis thought by Jastrow 50 to have originated at a time when thesacred cities of Babylonia were situated on the Persian Gulf, andwhen religious processions were often carried out by water.The Symbol of the FeetYet there is reason to think that some of these symbolswere earlier than any known mythology, and were, so to say,mythologised differently by different peoples, who got hold ofthem from this now unknown source. A remarkable instance isthat of the symbol of the Two Feet. In Egypt the Feet of Osirisformed one of the portions into which his body was cut up, inthe well-known myth. They were a symbol of possession orof visitation. “I have come upon earth,” says the “Book of theDead” (ch. xvii.), “and with my two feet have taken possession,I am Tmu.” Now this symbol of the feet or footprint is verywidespread. It is found in India, as the print of the foot of49 “Dolmens of Ireland,” pp. 701-704.50 “The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria.”