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thirteenth century B.C. It appears on a vase of the second city of Troy,1 on the early pottery of Mycenae,2 on a gem from Cyprus, and on a vase from Cyprus. It is not uncommon among the objects found at European Lake Dwellings.5 It is figured on some of the earliest coins of India and Ceylon, it occurs among Chinese characters, and it is to be seen in the carvings of Uxmal in Yucatan. Thus it is certain that it had some other signification than a mere decorative one, and also that it was not simply a diagram used for playing a game like Nerenchi.

In Egyptian drawings a plain square represents an enclosure or a house, as in the ideograph of a hawk standing in a square'the House of Horus.' In Dr. Sayce's Elementary Grammar, second edition, its meaning in Accadian and Assyrian characters is stated to be to bind, gathering, enclosing.' Col. Conder says of the 'Hittite' character which represents it, 'it clearly signifies an enclosure. In Chinese characters the plain square also means an enclosure.' Its function in the design is therefore to house or to enclose, and thus to protect, the cross placed inside it; and apparently it is not an essential part of the figure.

The early meaning of the upright cross is less obvious. According to Professor Maspero a double cross, consisting of a vertical one and a diagonal one, enclosed in a circle, originally represented a map of the sky. When the circle was omitted the interlaced crosses came to symbolise planets or stars, and as the greater Gods had astral powers, eventually any god; and this emblem accordingly accompanies the names of all gods in the earliest Chaldean inscriptions, and in a simplified shape the names of all Assyrian gods.

But this is a compound design, composed of three symbols,

1 Schliemann. Troy, p. 50.

2 Schliemann. Mycenae, Plate 10, Fig. 47.

3 Cesnola. Salaminia, Plate 15, Fig. 51.

4 Wilson. The Swastika, p. 841.

5 Munro. The Lake Dwellings of Europe, pp. 72, 173, 175.

• The Hittites and their Language, p. 227.

7 The Dawn of Civilization, p. 726.

8 King. Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, p. 109.

each of which, when considered separately, must have had its own meaning in primitive times. It is not probable that the upright cross was obtained by a dissection of the complex sky symbol into its three components, the circle, and the vertical and oblique crosses; but rather that the symbol which represented the sky was formed by the union of these three ancient simple forms, with only one of which we are at present concerned.

To ascertain the early meaning of the upright cross we must go back, as in the case of the square, to its use in the first alphabets.

In Egyptian hieroglyphics the cross formed of two upright lines connected at the ends, with one central cross-bar, signifies 'to be in,' or 'to dwell in.' 1

In Accadian and Assyrian, according to Dr. Sayce's Grammar, a vertical cross made with two wedges has several meanings, some of which are to dwell, to take; oracle, heap, family, offspring, liver, white, high.' The upright cross also forms part of an ideogram used for fire, which is interpreted Cross wood'; but possibly-as the remarks which follow show-may mean ' auspicious' wood. The upright cross of two upright lines and one transverse bar-representing the Egyptian form-when combined with the four wedges which compose the character for 'good, great, multitude, propitious,' means 'wind, breath, brightness, heaven, rain, Rammānu (the Air-god), sky, earth.' The whole of these are terms which in the East and in Africa, even at the present day, would be thought to be very auspicious, there being in them nothing to indicate loss or deficiency, or defect, but, on the contrary, the opposites.

The upright cross inside a square is also an auspicious expression. As the word lu it means 'flocks, sheep'; as udu,' sheep, lamb, gazelle,' that is, animals suitable for offering to the gods. As dib its meaning is 'tablet, to cross, to seize, to hold.' These are also auspicious, as indicating success, gain, and a slab on which a god or king may be depicted

1 Dr. Budge. Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

The sound khi which means 'good' in Accadian is represented in 'Hittite' inscriptions by a vertical cross.1

In Chinese writing the upright cross occurs as the chief part of the character for rice 2; and the vertical cross in the square forms an important part of the characters meaning happiness,' and therefore must have been thought to be very auspicious. The whole design, according to Doolittle, is much used as an emblem of good luck.3

In dealing with magical ideas it is an invariable rule that whatever is auspicious is protective. It is an omen of good and good-luck, and as such it necessarily excludes whatever is evil and unlucky. As all unlucky acts or states areaccording to primitive ideas-due to the injurious influence of evil spirits it follows that all auspicious acts and things and terms have guardian powers against such influences. It is manifest, therefore, that at the time when the earliest alphabets were being invented the Cross, having auspicious significations, was a protecting emblem.*

As an example we may take the Accadian ideograph for 'tomb,' which is formed of the character for corpse,' enclosed in an oblong-the coffin or grave-in which, at the head of the body, is placed an upright cross formed of two wedgesapparently, as the idea of 'tomb' is complete without it, depicted there with the belief that it will guard the body from demoniacal interference. This seems to be evidence that the upright cross actually had a protective signification at so early a date as, say, 5000 B.C.

In India, also, it was employed in a similar manner. General Maisey remarked in Sanchi and its Remains (p. 12, foot-note), 'Many of the relic-chambers opened at Sanchi, and other places, were Swastika-shaped in plan, as also were the funeral chambers found in some of the kistvaens of Southern India;

1 Col. Conder. The Hittites and their Language, p. 254.

2 The Atharva Veda calls Rice and Barley, the two healing, immortal children of Heaven.'

3 Social Life of the Chinese, Hood's revision, 1868, p. 569. 4 A cross of reeds is employed by the Bushmen of South Africa, and is placed upon the body as a remedial agent in cases of extreme sickness (Stow. The Races of South Africa, p. 120).

and in the centre of a Sthūpa (dāgaba] lately opened in the Madras Presidency this form of cross was found, marked in masonry, at the central place of deposit for relics.' I have already mentioned that Mr. Bell examined a dāgaba at Anurādhapura in which the relic-chamber was in the form of an even cross.' Whatever may be thought of the Accadian ideograph, there can be no doubt that in these instances the function of the cross was to protect the relics, which were human remains, from interference by evil-disposed spirits.

The function of the upright cross in the square or circle which constantly appears among the amulets and ornaments of the Neolithic and later Lake Dwellings, and American Mound Builders, was probably similar. As an auspicious symbol it would be thought to defend its wearer from evil.

Although it may have had a very simple foundation, it is not easy in these days to comprehend the primitive reasoning according to which the upright cross came to acquire its peculiarly propitious character. An illustration of the early belief in its defensive properties occurs in the Atharva Veda, iii, 12 (Bloomfield's translation), in which on the erection of a dwelling it is the Cross Beam of the house, and not, as might be expected, the central post on which the roof rests, that is prayed to guard the building, in these words: “Do thou, O Cross Beam, according to regulation ascend the post; do thou, mightily ruling, hold off the enemies." Until the beam is in position the Cross is not present; as the member which completes the protecting emblem it is therefore more important as the defender of the house than the post which supported the roof. The enemies' would be chiefly or entirely spiritual foes, of course.

The upright Cross is also carved as an emblem carried by a guardian deity, probably Ayiyanar, the Guardian Forest God, on a pillar at the Jētavana dāgaba at Anuradhapura (Fig. No. 37), and it is the common emblem of the Egyptian gods.

For an elucidation of this belief in the power of the Cross it appears to be necessary to consider the diagram as a symbolical pictograph of a simple idea which would appeal to

the mind of early man. The cross may be described either as four equidistant straight lines radiating from a central point, or, as in the example just given, one straight line laid at a right angle across another straight line. The latter is the simpler and therefore probably earlier notion of it, and also the one that the most obviously aids a solution of the difficulty which appears to me not to overstrain probabilities, although I expressly bring it forward as a tentative explanation.

Although the upright cross forms part of the characters which represent fire, it does not appear that the sacred fire of the Assyrians was obtained by means of the transverse friction described in the chapter on the Modern Vaeddas. The statue of the Fire-god of Assyria, Gibil, shows him holding an upright twirling-stick which he is turning with his hands, like the Vaeddas. In India, also, the sacred fire is obtained with the twirling-stick and not by cross friction.

Thus although some part of the auspicious character of the upright cross is probably due to its being a representation of the two sticks used in primitive times for causing fire by transverse friction, the various meanings to express which this symbol is employed seem to show that some other additional interpretation must be found for it.

Remembering that in Egyptian and Assyrian drawings an oblong with ripples marked on it represents a pool of water, or if open at the ends, a river; and that in Accadian, a horizontal oblong with two wedges inside it, one behind the other, pointing to the right, signifies running water, I suggest that it is within the bounds of possibility that, as one meaning of the Cross, one bar originally symbolised a river, and afterwards any other obstruction in a person's path, while the transverse bar typified a successful crossing of it. It will be noticed that in Accadian and Assyrian' to cross' is actually one of the meanings of the upright cross in the square. The Cross might thus eventually come to typify success in overcoming obstacles in general. s all obstacles or dangers were, and are still by many persons, believed to be due to the unfavourable actions of evil spirits, the Cross would in

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