206 



SECRETS OF EARTH AND SEA 



start with a clearly recognizable figure of a man many 

 such, an inch or two high, occur on some parts of the 

 cave-walls and then we have all sorts of simplifications 

 and deviations from the more naturalistic initial design, 

 as shown by the rest of the series, ending in a T a 



primitive symbol 

 often arrived at by 

 savage decorative 

 artists in various 



A // // parts of the world 



by reducing and 

 grammatizing the 

 human figure. The 

 letters of many 

 alphabets have 

 been simplified in 

 this way from or- 

 iginal picture -like 

 signs or picto- 

 graphs. 



The drawings 

 FIG. 52. Simplification (grammatizing) of lettered A, B and C 



decorative design. A, a stork walking. 



Fig. C2 represent 



B, a stag. C, a stork with wings spread for accura tel y figures 



"" * 



flying resulting when fully "grammatized" 

 in a curvilinear swastika. A, B, and C, 

 from spindle-whorls found at Hissarlik. 



scratched on the 

 clay "spindle- 



Z>, conventional representation of three whorls" (before 

 flying birds. , grammatized human figure , , . N , 



from the walls of caverns in Cantabria. baking), SO abun- 



dant in the remains 



of the ancient cities on the hill of Hissarlik (Troy), 

 found by Schliemann (see Figs. 42 and 53). These 

 heavy, bun-like spindle-whorls have retained their use 

 and shape since Neolithic times (they are found in 

 the Swiss lake-dwellings) to the present day. Similar 

 whorls were made of modern porcelain, variously de- 



