Swastika (Germanic Iron Age)

The swastika design is known from artefacts of various cultures since the Neolithic, and it recurs with some frequency on artefacts dated to the Germanic Iron Age, i.e. the Migration period to Viking Age period in Scandinavia, including the Vendel era in Sweden, attested from as early as the 3rd century in Elder Futhark inscriptions and as late as the 9th century on Viking Age image stones.

In older literature, the symbol is known variously as ''gammadion'', ''fylfot'', ''crux gothica'', ''flanged thwarts'', or ''angled cross''. George Stephens, ''The Runic Hall in the Danish Old-Northern Museum'', Michaelsen and Tillge (1868). "he Snodelev stoneis also remarkable in another way. Above the runes, on the left, are 3 Horns in the shape of a triskele, here doubtless . On the right side is the Flanged Thwarts, or pre-Christian 4-angled cross, here doubtless ."
English use of the Sanskritism ''swastika'' for the symbol dates to the 1870s, at first in the context of Hindu and Buddhist traditions, but from the 1890s also in cross-cultural comparison.

Examples include a 2nd-century funerary urn of the Przeworsk culture, Poland, the 3rd century Værløse Fibula from Zealand, Denmark, the Gothic spearhead from Brest-Litovsk, Belarus, the 9th century Snoldelev Stone from Ramsø, Denmark, and numerous Migration Period bracteates. The swastika is drawn either left-facing or right-facing, sometimes with "feet" attached to its four legs. Medallions and bracteates featuring swastikas were issued in Central Europe of late antiquity by the Etruscans and until the 12th century by Sarmatian Polish rulers.

The symbol is closely related to the triskele, a symbol of three-fold rotational symmetry, which occurs on artefacts of the same period. When considered as a four-fold rotational symmetrical analogue of the triskele, the symbol is sometimes also referred to as ''tetraskele''.

The swastika symbol in the Germanic Iron Age has been interpreted as having a sacral meaning, associated with either Odin or Thor, but the Indoeuropean tradition associates the four-fold swastika with solar deities and deities preceeding Thor are rather associated with three-fold or more often six-fold symbology.

Bracteates

A number of bracteates, with or without runic inscriptions, show a swastika. Most of these bracteates are of the "C" type, showing a human head above a quadruped, often interpreted as the Germanic god Woden/Odin. The swastika in most of these cases is placed next to the head. The majority of these swastikas are left-facing (卍), but there are also a number of right-facing (卐) instances. In this context that the direction of the runic inscriptions on bracteates always is right-to-left (the mirror image of the stamp used to produce the bracteates), and in the transcription below the swastika is mirrored to preserve its directionality relative to the reading direction.

Examples where the swastika is part of the inscription include (DR being the Rundata province code for "Denmark"):
DR BR12 Darum 4 (); DR BR38 Bolbro 1 and DR BR40 Allesø (both ); DR BR41 Vedby (); DR BR53 Maglemose 2 (). In those inscriptions the swastika and sauwastika may represent the word swar cognate with Iranian xwar, the posessive endings being of evidently Slavic origin. The area they were found has been visited at the turn of the 3rd and 2nd millennium by the Tuatha Dé Danann clan (related to Danaoi or Danaans), who introduced the Bronze Age and whose name remained as Dania (later Denmark) designation of this area and has been subsequently adopted by the unrelated peoples from the area of central Sweden populating it for roughly 2 millennia as Danes.

Anglo-Saxon England

The early Anglo-Saxon ship burial at Sutton Hoo, England, contained numerous items bearing the swastika, now housed in the collection of the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology.H.R. Ellis Davidson (1965). ''Gods and Myths of Northern Europe'', page 83. , p. 83 The Swastika is clearly marked on a hilt and sword belt found at Bifrons in Bekesbourne, Kent, in a grave of about the 6th century.

Interpretation

Hilda Ellis Davidson theorized that the swastika symbol was associated with Thor, possibly representing his hammer Mjolnir - symbolic of thunder - and possibly being connected to the Bronze Age sun cross. Davidson cites "many examples" of the swastika symbol from Anglo-Saxon graves of the pagan period, with particular prominence on cremation urns from the cemeteries of East Anglia. Some of the swastikas on the items, on display at the Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, are depicted with such care and art that, according to Davidson, it must have possessed special significance as a funerary symbol. The runic inscription on the Sæbø sword (ca. AD 800) has been taken as evidence of the swastika as a symbol of Thor in Norse paganism.

See also

* Kolovrat
* Valknut

References

External links

{{commons category, Swastikas in ancient Germanic culture
Brakteater

Germanic Iron Age
Germanic paganism
Iron Age Europe
Migration Period
Early Germanic symbols
Visual motifs
Magic symbols