Themis, a study of the social origins of Greek ... - Warburg Institute

xi] Symbolism of the Swastika 525
And here in Greek art representations a curious point may be
noticed. The actual wheel, whether solid or spoked, does not
appear in Greek symbolism till late. But what we may callthe
spokes of the wheel and the indication of its going are represented
very early in the ornament known as the Swastika 1 . The
tika has been variously interpreted as a ' croix gammee '
Swas-
and as a
reduced simplified kind of wheel. It is really not quite either ; it
is a symbol combining motion and direction. It is the four points
of the compass in motion.
To the Greeks it undoubtedly stood at one time for the Sun.
On coins of Thrace we find Mesembria thus written MEZpy,
Mid-Sun or Mid-Day-town 2 . But on other coins we may with
equal probability conjecture that the swastika, or rather triskeles,
represents the Moon. In Fig. 149 we have two Syraeusan coins.
Fig. 149.
The three winged legs indicate swift motion. In the coin to the
right the rudimentary body, or belly, from which the legs spread
has become a human face, a Gorgoneion which symbolizes rather
Moon than Sun 3 .
The origin of the Swastika is still much disputed. It is found
at Hissarlik in the remains of the Second City; it abounds on
geometric ware and on the archaic pottery of Cyprus, Rhodes, and
Athens. The name we give it is of course Sanskrit :
swastika
is
from sn, well, and asti, it is. When the direction of the croix
1 The literature of the ritual wheel and the Swastika is immense. See especially
W. Simpson, The Buddhist Praying Wheel, 1896, in which the results of most of
the earlier literature are collected. Also Goblet d'Alviella, La Migration des
Symboles, 1891 ; and M. Goblet d'Alviella's recent work, Croyances, Rites,
Institutions, 1911, vol. i. chapter 1, Moulins a prieres, Roues magiques et circumambulations.
On p. 80 of the same book is given a very full bibliography of
the literature of the Swastika and the cross.
2 See Prof. Percy Gardner's 'Ares as a Sun-God,' and 'Solar Symbols,' in
Num. Chron. N.S. vol. xx. p. 12.
3 For the triskeles and tetraskeles on coins see Mr Anson's Numismata Graeca,
part'iv. Religion, PI. xv.—xix. The triskeles occurs with special frequency on the
coins of Lycia, land of sun-worship.