564 ^HE UNITY OF THE HUMAN SPECIES. 



It appears from the researches made during late years tliat the origin 

 even of the Swastika sign appears to be contested. Thus we read in 

 the work of Count Goblet d'Alviella,^ one of those who has best studied 

 the question : 



" The croix gramm<5e (Swastika) appears from prehistoric times among 

 the peoples originating in the valley of the Danube, who have respec- 

 tively colonized the Troad and the north of Italy. It extends with the 

 products of this antique culture, on one side, among the Greeks, Etrus- 

 cans, Latins, Gauls, Germans, British, and Scandinavians; on the 

 otiier side, to Asia Minor, Persia, the Indies, and to China and Japan." 



Such is also the opinion of M. Salomon Eeinach.^ According to him 

 the sign of the Swastika already represented in the city of Hissarlik, 

 prior, according to all probabilities, to the thirteenth century B. C, did 

 not penetrate the Indies until after that period.^ He continues that 

 one does not find the symbol in Egypt,* nor in Phoenicia, nor Assyria; 

 while, on the other hand, it is frequent in northern Italy, in the valley 

 of the Danube, in Thrace, in Greece, and on the western shores of Asia 

 Minor. Thence comes his conclusions that we should seek in Europe 

 for its origin.^ 



I do not i)retend to contradict this, but the first discovery of the 

 Swastika on the hill of Hissarlik determines that this was not its idace 

 of origin. Whence came this mysterious sign which we see at Troy! 

 To what rite does it belong? Where did it originate? These are ques 

 tions we would like to have answered. In the present state of our 

 knowledge, the question is insoluble. One point excites my interest, 

 that is the long persistence of the Swastika and its rapid diffusion 

 throughout such different regions. I see in this an important argument 



recent publications were those of Michael Zmigrodzki, Zur Geschiohte der Swas- 

 tika, Brunswick, 1890, and Thomas Wilson, The Swastika, Washington, 1896, Eminent 

 savants in all countries have been occupied with the question of its origin and 

 signification, hut it appears, nevertheless, that it is not yet entirely cleared, for 

 Dr. Brinton writes : ''It is easy to read into barbaric scratches the thoughts of later 

 times, and wo must acknowledge that something more than the figure itself is needed 

 to proAi-e its symbolic sense." 



' La migration des Symboles. Revue des deuxMondes, May 12, 1889. 



■^Le mirage oriental, L'Anthropologie, 1895. 



^M. Reinach afterwards recognized that the Swastika mentioned by Goblet d'Al- 

 viella on certain ingots of silver in the form of dominoes, serving as money, and 

 also those with inscriptions in honor of Apoka, belonged to the third century B. C. 

 L'Anthropologie, 1894, page 248. 



'' Flinders Petrie has found at Naukratis certain vases ornamented with the Swas- 

 tika (Third Memoir Egyptian Exploration Fund), but this pottery appears to have 

 been imported from Caria or from Cyprus. Stuffs ornamented with the same sign 

 have also been discovered at Panopolis, Upi>er Egypt, but these have been attributed 

 to Greek workmen who were numerous at Coptos, a neighboring village where Cler- 

 mont Ganneau has recently discovered a Greek inscription. Acad, des Inscriptions, 

 March 5, 1897 (Forrer, Die Griiber und Textilfunde von Achmim Panopolis). 



5 "As for India, everything induces the belief that the Swastika was there intro- 

 duced from Greece, from the Caucasus, or from Asia Minor, by routes as yet 

 unknown." Goblet d'Alviella, La migration des symboles, page 107. 



