l66 ROMAN PAVEMENTS AND INTRECCl. 



There was a Serapeum at York, as disclosed by an inscription 



DEO SANCTO / SERAPI / TEMPLVM A SO / LO FECIT CL HIERONY / 

 MIANVS LEG / LEG VI. VIC.* 



Tacitus observes that the worship of Isis was established 

 among the Alamanni, f and coins stamped with the effigies of 

 Isis, Horus, Osiris and Anubis have been found in Britain, and 

 some of them were struck in London. 



It is clear that there was a wide stream of religious influence 

 flowing from Egypt to this country. Thanks to papyrus rolls, 

 we are acquainted with the beliefs that attached to the solar 

 cult on the Nile, and with the doctrines that concerned the 

 passage of the soul through the horrors and dangers of the 

 underworld, protected by Ra and guided by him through the 

 Gates of the Hours. To these religious conceptions, that filled 

 the minds of devout men in the centre and source of civilization 

 for thousands of years before the Christian Era, we must fre- 

 quently refer. 



Rightly to consider mosaics like this of Dorchester, it is 

 necessary to proceed from the well-known to the less known, 

 and so to the unknown. Perhaps the most easily recognised 

 symbol in the world is the fylfot, otherwise termed swastika, 

 gammadion, and tetraskele. Opinions have differed as to its 

 realistic signficance. It has been called a fire-drill, lightning, a 

 pledge of blessedness or good fortune, the spiral sweep of the 

 stars, the axial rotation of sun or moon, the four winds of 

 heaven. But all these ideas are included in one sufficient ex- 

 pression : the fylfot is a symbol of divine energy. 



Its normal curvilinear form is shown in Illustration I., fig. 2, 

 taken from the pavement of Newton St. Loe, near Bath. Pre- 

 cisely similar swastikas are found on mosaics at Caerwent, 

 Silchester, Wroxeter, and Lincoln. 



Its normal rectilinear form is shown in Illustration II., figs, i 

 and 2, taken from Roman Altars on Hadrian's Wall, where it is 

 Carved in apposition with the lunar crescent and the solar disc. 



* Wright, Celt, Roman, and Saxon, p. 329. f Gcrmania, ix* 



