Page:The International Folk-Lore Congress of the World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, July, 1893.djvu/435

Rh our ancient swords, and the swords of another form are made with the ornamental swastika, as Figs. 45-46. The first quarter of the moon is the symbol of life, the last quarter, or the waning moon, the symbol of death, together it is a synthesis.

It may be of other forms. Fig. 47. If we join the corners we have Fig. 48, a symbol well known in the Middle Ages. It may be also formed otherwise. Fig. 49. The sun in its course of the day ascends, reaches its zenith, and descends. It was symbolized with three points, forming a triangle, apex upwards, Figs. 50-51.

These three points were sometimes designed with three objects forming with their extreme ends the triangles, and such a figure was named trignetrum.

The one most used was formed of three human legs. Fig. 53. Consequently it is to be noted that the triangle, apex upwards, symbolizes the principle of destruction only when it is placed in opposition with another, apex downwards.

The three branches that we usually see on the tops of trees mark also the angle of the sun. If we would make these branches upright we would have the cross named Patriarchal. Fig. 52. Very similar to the cross of Jerusalem, but solely different in their origin. If we exclude from our chart all of the objects that have been mentioned to the present moment, we have only some dozens that are designed also because they are a transition from one form to another—or they present a distinguishable specialty. If we will review our chart in the chronological direction it is necessary to note, that the objects from India, Persia and Asia Minor are most important, because they date back to the highest antiquity; especially those from the excavations of Schliemann.

The objects that are found in the buried city, reaching from twenty-one feet to thirty in depth, date at least 1,500 to 2,000 years B. C. The symbols that we find on those objects prove to us that the population of this city has believed in a Supreme Being, good, humane, giving life to all on the earth and immortality to the human soul. The same is true of Asia Minor. I wish to call your attention to the figures on two vases of lamiros, where you can see very clearly the symbolic signification of angles, apex upwards or downwards. The warrior who is mortally wounded, or is about to