Marker of Death a Note on the Swastika in Attic Geometric Art

BABESCH 88 (2013), 1-12. doi: 10.2143/BAB.88.0.2987072

Marker of Death A Note on the Swastika in Attic Geometric Art

Jeffrey M. Hurwit

Abstract

The swastika is a venerable motif found in the arts of diverse peoples, cultures, and periods, with a symbolism that is, overall, benign. In the vase-painting of Geometric Greece, however, it is usually regarded as mere ‘fill- ing ornament’ with no symbolic value. There have been two exceptions: one theory is that it is a solar sign, another that it is an ‘ideogram of motion’. There is, in all likelihood, no single, overarching symbolism for the motif in Geometric art. Still, on a series of Geometric vases (such as the Hirschfeld Krater, Athens NM 990), patterns emerge that suggest another explanation: the swastika can be a marker of violence and death.

In the lower pictorial zone of the Hirschfeld Paint - a neat stack of zigzags and a vertical row of still er’s great krater in Athens,1 characteristically beak- more dots. Above, in the handle zone, there is a faced warriors carrying radically incurved Dipylon two-tiered, asymmetrical, but quintessential ek - shields drive teams of characteristically trumpet- phora.2 In the lower tier, on either side of the fu- muzzled horses left to right around the vase (fig. 1). nerary wagon, there are files of mourners (mostly Horizontal rows of dots stretch between the heads female, some male, some taller than others), all of the men and their horses. Also in the field are neatly separated by more stacks of zigzags and dot-rosettes - they hover below the heads of each rows of dots. In the higher tier there are, at upper team, in a careful allotment of one per chariot - and left and right, panels of concentric circles filled an occasional small bird perches above a vertical with star rosettes. To the left of the bier itself there column of dots. Beneath each team of horses are are three adult males, one of whom touchingly

Fig. 1. Athens NM 990. LG I krater by the Hirschfeld Painter, detail (photo J. Hurwit).

1 holds a child by the hand (the child himself seems from more modern geometric vase-painters are to touch the bier); a box of five female mourners cautionary and instructive: according to one early appears at the far right. The corpse himself lies 20th-century study, some Pueblo artists knew that atop a four-legged bier, his fringed, checkered they had to paint certain motifs on their pots with- shroud suspended above him. There are zigzags out knowing why - tradition is powerful but mean - and birds below the couch and a bigger bird ing can be lost - while others concocted explana- (along with a few dot-rosettes) beneath the team; tions just to please inquiring archaeological minds.9 a curving row of dots mimics both the curves of Before the Nazis ruined it for everyone,10 the the horses and the frame of the wagon. And to the swastika was, of course, an ancient and venerable right of the corpse and couch, in a difficult area motif that was found in the arts and crafts of made irregular by the high arcs of the horses’ many peoples, cultures, and periods. Like its rec- necks but that might still have accommodated a tilinear relatives the battlement and meander - it, few more mourners,3 there are yet more zigzags, too, is nothing but right angles - it is a motif that dots, a bird, a dot-rosette, and, above all, three large is particularly natural and suited to the arts of hatched swastikas. They are the only swastikas weaving and basketry.11 It is this ease of produc- on the vase (as it is preserved), and their cluster- tion and reproduction - not the dissemination or ing just here, at the head of the corpse and no - diffusion of the motif from any single Ursprung, where else, seems significant. It is as if the swas- not the symbolic manifestation of some collective tikas have been substituted for mourners, as if the unconscious shared by all peoples everywhere - three adult mourners immediately to the left of that explains its appearance in distant and dis- the bier and the three great swastikas immedi- parate materials, places and times. It is found in ately to the right of it are visually equivalent. But the art of the Indus River Valley at least as early in any case the particularly close juxtaposition of as the mid-3rd millennium and, much later, in the the only corpse on the vase and the only swasti - ground plan of Sunga period burial mounds (stu- kas on the vase is not likely to be random or pas).12 Schliemann (who ominously cites the sym- meaningless. bol’s supposedly Aryan origins, concluding that Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar, and some- the Trojans themselves were Aryans) found swas - times Greek Geometric filling ornaments are just tikas by the hundreds incised on Early Bronze filling ornaments. But sometimes they are not Age terracotta spindle whorls from Hissarlik.13 and, as John Boardman has advised, ‘we surely Swastikas are painted on Neolithic pottery from dismiss too much as mere “filling”‘ and ‘where China or woven into rank insignia from the Qing special patterns recur in special places we must Dynasty (18th century CE),14 and they are found think again.’4 Boardman himself has convincingly on the floors of Susa A bowls from 4th-millennium argued that multiple zigzags in Argive pottery Mesopotamia.15 Swastikas (manji) adorn Japanese can represent water or the sea. Triangular motifs, porcelain and the bases of bronze Japanese Bud - when found in purely abstract panels or bands, dhas,16 and they are found on the toes and soles are just triangular motifs, but when they rise from of East Asian ‘Buddha footprints’ or on the chest the baseline in representations of warriors march- and palms of the Buddha himself.17 Swastikas are ing or animals grazing or birds perching, they embroidered into 6th-century BCE Hallstatt gar- acquire the character of landscape elements.5 So, ments from southwest Germany.18 Native Ameri - too, it has sometimes been assumed that the wide cans - the Pueblo and Navajo of the American variety of circles in Geometric art, including the Southwest, for example, or the Sac of Kansas - Attic ‘Dipylon wheel’ (a circle with interior cross), once painted them on pottery, wove them into represent the disk of the sun and that the birds baskets and blankets, incorporated them into sand frequently attending them are symbols of the paintings, and strung them on ceremonial beaded heavens,6 while fish (especially Argive fish) have garters.19 A single great swastika occupies the been considered ‘determinatives’ of Poseidon.7 center of a black-and-white mosaic floor in the Now, we are probably wrong to seek complete late Roman/early Byzantine synagogue at Ein- consistency in or universal explanations for such Gedi on the west shore of the Dead Sea (which is signs and symbols. A motif may not in every case ironic only in hindsight).20 Swastikas decorate the mean the same thing, not even on the same vase: mosaic of the entrance court of the Byzantine Late Geometric representation and ornament are Museum in Athens; they adorn (often below he- more subtle and flexible - and the Late Geometric raldic sphinxes) the bronze railings of Neo-Clas - temperament less doctrinaire - than has often sical Athenian mansions (including Schliemann’s been thought.8 At the same time, lessons learned own, the Iliou Melathron - now the Numismatic

2 Fig. 3. Agora P 4784. LG I Horse pyxis (photo J. Hurwit).

icans, the sign meant ‘luck’; in Navajo myth it is the mythic whirling log of happiness, a sign of healing, or a symbol of the four winds.23 The swas - tika had been, then, an overwhelmingly good, be - nign thing before the rise of the Third Reich. But we are here interested in the swastika as a common motif in the vase-painting of Geometric Greece (900-700 BCE),24 where it is usually regar- Fig. 2. Athens NM 18062. LG I amphora by the ded as a mere filling ornament with no symbolic Hirschfeld Painter (photo J. Hurwit). value whatsoever: like other filling ornaments, it is thought to be there simply to take up otherwise Museum); and one decorates the brick entrance empty space, to assuage some primal horror vacui. to McMorran House, the home of the president of The motif is most often drawn with single solid the University of Oregon (built in 1925). lines, and such ‘linear swastikas’ are always found Attempts at interpreting the motif universally floating freely in the field around or beside ani- or assigning to it some single, overarching sym- mals or human figures (fig. 2). There are also dou- bolism common to all cultures everywhere at all ble-walled hatched and cross-hatched swastikas times are not likely to succeed. But although the (figs 1, 3) and, rarely, swastikas filled with dots swastika means many things, its symbolism and (fig. 4), and these motifs are usually (though not associations are, overall, remarkably auspicious always) found in panels that are arranged in or- and consistently positive. The swastika - the word namental friezes or that are suspended singly in itself derives from the Sanskrit sv (‘good’) and asti the black-glazed field (‘metopal’ or ‘boxed’ swas - (‘to be’), hence sv-asti (‘well-being’) - is in the tikas). There are also swastikas with extra hooks Vedic tradition a solar sign or a sacred sign for or limbs on their arms. Sometimes there are zig - good fortune. In Sumerian art it might also sym- zags or double-axes or solid dots or dotted circles bolize the sun or fertility.21 It symbolizes Vishnu’s within the arms of the swastika (fig. 3).25 And the solar disk for Hindus. In ancient China it could swastika can ‘face’ either right (that is, its arms symbolize the four directions of the world and, seem to revolve in a clockwise direction) or left later, could be used in place of the Chinese char- (seemingly revolving counterclockwise): both kinds acter wan, meaning ‘ten thousand’ or ‘infinity’. can appear in neighboring panels on the same For Buddhists it is a sign of benediction, good for- vase or in the same field (figs 2, 5).26 tune, and prosperity, as well as a symbol for the It was in the 1930s that Anna Roes, focusing on Buddha’s heart and mind.22 For Sac Native Amer - Argive pottery, first proposed that the Geometric

3 sizing that they are the only abstract motifs in the scene - eleven (eight right-facing, three left-facing) are apparently scattered haphazardly among fish and men, where they suggest the turmoil of the catastrophe, while nine are neatly arranged be - tween the ship’s stanchions. In Brunnsåker’s re - construction, five right-facing swastikas are more or less balanced by four left-facing swastikas that together suggest two cresting or rolling waves crashing over the center of the vessel (fig. 5).29 Elaborating upon Brunnsåker’s reading of the motif, G. Ahlberg fairly concludes that the swas - tika is an ‘ideogram of motion’, a sign that en- hances the energy of the scenes in which it is found, its own direction often complementing or reiterating the direction of, say, turning wheels or parading or grazing animals or marching war- riors.30 Swastikas revolve clockwise between the spokes of the wheels of the wagon in the ekphora on the Dipylon Master’s Athens 803, for example (fig. 6).31 Swastikas are the only abstract signs in the field of an LG IIa oinochoe in Boston where (in one interpretation) farmers and hounds chase a fox, and although the swastikas here face right while the hunt charges to the left, the signs sup- ply counterpoint, and thus still enhance the dynamism of the scene.32 Swastikas (facing right) alternate with deer grazing (to the right) around the interior of a skyphos from the Kerameikos, and both are there to lead our eye around the cir- cle, submitting themselves to the geometrical im - perative of vase-shape.33 On the bottom of a plate from the Agora (it might have been hung, bottom up, on a wall when not in use), four left-facing swastikas set between the petals of a quatrefoil similarly suggest circular movement.34 And the Fig. 4. Athens NM 18123. EG I amphora number of scenes where swastikas punctuate files (photo J. Hurwit). of soldiers, possibly functioning as motion- or direction-enhancers, is large. To cite just a few Greek swastika is (like most other Geometric examples: in one zone of a fragmentary krater by motifs) a solar symbol or sun standard - for her, the Dipylon Workshop in the Louvre, swastikas it was adopted from and had essentially the same fill the interstices between marching warriors and meaning as the motif in the Vedic/Iranian tradi- archers;35 on the Hirschfeld Painter’s amphora in tion.27 Roes, however, asserted this claim without Athens swastikas appear both above and below constructing an argument for it, and P. Courbin stacks of chevrons between Dipylon warriors rejected the solar symbolism for swastikas (and marching to the right (fig. 2);36 on the Hirschfeld the symbolic interpretation of most other orna- Workshop’s spouted krater in Copenhagen right- ments) out of hand; for him, they are just filler facing swastikas frame the helmeted heads of after all.28 warriors facing left;37 and on the LG IIb Benaki More useful is S. Brunnsåker’s hypothesis that Painter’s name-vase, left-facing swastikas hover the swastika contributes to the dynamism of many beside the heads of each of the rightward pro- Late Geometric scenes by connoting movement: cessing warriors on the body of the vase, and so it is not just filler, it is integral to composition. For almost seem like musical notations rhythmically example, of the twenty swastikas found in the pacing the otherwise leaden parade.38 Swastikas ‘Pithecusan Shipwreck’ - and it is worth empha- activate scenes of dancing, too. Two of them ap-

4 Fig. 5. Ischia Sp. 1/1 (the ‘Pithecusan Shipwreck’). LG II (after Brunnsåker 1962, 171, fig. 7).

Fig. 6. Athens 803 (detail). LGIa amphora by the Dipylon Master (photo J. Hurwit). pear between a leaping male dancer and a line of another Heraion fragment.39 And on a large fin de female ones holding hands and branches on an siècle pithos krater from Trachones swastikas hover Argive fragment from the Heraion (though an - beside dancers in two panels in the handle zone other appears within the reserved body of a bird (they are found again, if more sparingly, between just to the left of the leaper); three more swastikas marching and chariot-borne warriors in the mili- float beside similar male and female dancers on tary frieze below).40 In these cases and many more,

5 sword-wielding horse tamers: the horse (and men) are at the center now, the swastikas functioning as their frame.43 Linear swastikas are drawn at the feet of the three horses standing on the lid of a LG I pyxis in the Agora, while fine metopal hatched swastikas appear around the pyxis itself (fig. 3).44 And on the Trachones pithos krater swastikas plentifully revolve above and below muscular, dynamic horses (one of them is prancing, with its hoof off the ground) on the shoulder.45 The dynamic quality of the swastika - its spin- ning, whirligig nature - is, I think, undeniable, but it is possible to accept the motif as an ‘ideogram of motion’ without insisting that motion or energy is its only connotation. For the theory that swastikas Fig. 7. Athens NM 18045. EG I amphora (detail) are simply or purely ideograms of motion cannot (photo J. Hurwit). account for them all - no one theory can - and in - consistencies (it should come as no surprise) are not the motif seems to supply or accentuate a sense unknown. For example, swastikas may appropri- of motion. It is an abstract tool enhancing a rep- ately spin in the wheels of the wagon on Athens resentation of figures in action or imbued with 803 (fig. 6), but double-axes are found between potential energy.41 the spokes of the chariot wheels on Louvre A This might partly explain the common and 517.46 Did, then, the Dipylon Master consider the enduring association between the swastika and double-axe an ideogram of motion, too? Five swas - the horse, an association forged virtually as soon tikas mark five deer on an LG I bowl in Athens as Attic Geometric vase-painting itself begins: on from the Dipylon Workshop, but the deer are the neck of the very early Early Geometric I am - reclining and still, and the swastikas (facing left) phora in Athens first published by J.L. Benson here probably imply not any (potential) motion in (fig. 7).42 Unlike their very few Protogeometric the deer but mimic their posture of turning their predecessors, which appear isolated on amphorae, heads back upon themselves to the left: they are standing coyly off-center, these horses are part of the abstract doublets of organic forms at rest.47 a true composition - a ‘framed picture’, in Ben- And on another high-rimmed bowl by the same son’s words - heraldically flanking a great hatched workshop in Munich, double-axes replace swasti - swastika. Moreover, unlike the curvaceous and kas above the reclining deer: it is as if the two jointless Protogeometric horse, these animals are motifs were interchangeable and, if so, the motion- rigid and articulated, broken down into their com- symbolism of the swastikas is diluted.48 ponent parts like a geometric motif (horizontal Since Athens 18045 (fig. 7), where swastika and bodies, segmented legs, curved but tilted necks). horse evidently appear together for the first time, These horses are as angular and as rectilinear as is a funerary vase - a cremation urn once wrapped horses can be, and so are fitting company for the with a ‘killed’ iron spearpoint or sword - one huge rectilinear abstraction between them (the might reasonably ask whether the power of the diagonal hatchings within the swastika not only swastika resides at times in its capacity to sym- mirror the angles of their legs but also the strokes bolize or connote death. Here it is itself framed by of their manes, thus enhancing the formal inte- animals who are not only symbolic of the weal - gration of animal and symbol). Now, these horses thy, equestrian status of the dead whose remains are not going anywhere: their job is to frame, not the vase contained but also of the rituals associ- to trot. But, like the seated Achilles in the formu- ated with burial (above all, the ekphora). That is, laic language of Homer (cf. Iliad 9.606), horses are the iconography of the horse here and elsewhere swift-footed even when they are standing still. in Geometric art may be as much funerary as it is And later formal associations between horse and aristocratic.49 But here the swastika is central and swastika are so common that the supposition of so has both formal and symbolic priority. The a symbolic link is virtually inevitable. To cite a horses acknowledge that priority: it is not the few examples: on a MG II mug from the Keramei - abstract motif that seems to comment upon the kos with an image that seems almost the formal nature of the horse, it is the horse that seems to inverse of Athens 18045, two swastikas flank two acknowledge the iconic power of the swastika

6 Fig. 8. Basel Gs61 (detail). LG I. Courtesy Antikenmuseum Basel und Sammlung Ludwig, a loan from a private collection (photo Andreas F. Voegelin).

(with their slanted front legs they almost seem to for example, marching warriors (cf. fig. 2) stamps stiffen and recoil from it). The iconic nature of the the parade as funerary as much as military, is not motif is also suggested by such vases as another to do very much. Almost all Attic Geometric vases EG I amphora in Athens with a simple band of are funerary, and so funerary symbolism could be hatching on the belly and a single panel with a similarly proposed for virtually all the abstract and dotted swastika on the neck (fig. 4), and a MG II natural motifs that decorate them.52 Still, among neck-amphora in Tübingen, where a single reser - the many swastikas splattered over Geometric ved panel with a hatched swastika is suspended pictorial fields or carefully integrated into Geomet- centrally between smaller panels with star rosettes ric images, certain patterns emerge that suggest on the black-glazed shoulder: the metopal swas - connotations of violence or death after all. And tika hangs like a tapestry.50 And on the horse the connotations remain strong even after the pyxis from the Agora (fig. 3), the alternation of transition to Protoattic around 700. metopal swastikas with ‘triglyphs’ whose central On a LG I amphora in Basel, for example, five elements are checkerboards resembling the funer- males approach the central bier from the left and ary shrouds of so many protheseis and ekphorai five women approach it from the right (fig. 8).53 (including the Hirschfeld Painter’s, fig. 1) is not There are the usual rows of dots, the requisite ver- likely to be coincidental.51 Again, the horses on tical stacks of zigzags between mourners, and the the lids of such pyxides in general may connote usual birds (perched on hatched triangles) and death as well as aristocratic status: they are the dotted lozenges beneath the couch. But the filling conveyors of corpses on funerary wagons, and ornament is tight, austere, and restrained, and they power the chariots driven by circling war- there is only one really ‘loose’ motif to be found riors paying homage to the dead. Admittedly, to hovering in the field: a swastika ringed by dots suggest that the swastika’s close association with set literally at the foot of the corpse, as if it were the horse is fundamentally a funerary one, to de- sharing the bier with the dead.54 The association clare the motif a symbol of death on Attic Geo - between this motif - the only swastika in the scene metric vases, to suggest that its presence among, and on the vase - and the subject of death seems

7 Fig. 9. Montage of fragment in New Haven (Yale 1981.61.271) joining Louvre A 519. Dipylon Workshop. LG I. Courtesy Yale Art Gallery and Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY. powerful. It is also strong on the Hirschfeld Work - may now be seen not just as ideograms of motion shop’s monumental LG I krater in New York.55 - though they are surely that - but also as icons of There are no swastikas in the prothesis or any- violence and death. Other motifs might have sug- where else on the front of the vase (which is packed gested the chaos of the disaster as well as the with various ‘fillers’), but two metopal swastikas swastika - dot-rosettes and double-axes, say, ran- appear in a corresponding position (that is, exact - domly strewn everywhere, would have sufficed ly in the center of the handle zone) on the back of to make the visual point. But no other motifs are the vase, and two more are boxed in farther to the there. It is significant that the painter of the ship- right. The scene of mourning on the front and the wreck severely limited himself to this one abstract swastikas on the back seem somehow comple- ‘filling ornament’ when he had the full range to mentary. draw from, and it is significant, too, that two swas - Linear swastikas hover over five corpses piled tikas (one the largest on the vase, with dots be - up beside the ship on Louvre A 527, as well as tween its arms) are found just above and below over a great Dipylon warrior and the ship itself. the point at which the largest, most ferocious fish There are rosettes in the field, too, but the swas - bites off the head of an unfortunate seaman, as if tikas lined up at the top of the scene do not seem drawing our attention to it. If the motif on one indiscriminately chosen or deployed.56 So, too, on level suggests the turbulence of the sea, could it a famously ambiguous LG II sherd from the Agora not on another suggest the violence of a sea-borne where, in just one of several possible interpreta- death itself? tions, a warrior (Neoptolemos?) is about to hurl We find a similar use of swastikas to frame the a child (Astyanax?) to his death as a distraught point of violent death on the Dipylon Workshop’s woman and man (Trojans?) look on, at least four fragmentary battle krater in Paris (fig. 9).58 Double- swastikas (along with an assortment of other axes are the dominant ‘filling ornaments’ on the motifs) fill the field.57 In this light the swastikas vase and, joined by hatched lozenges, crosses, ro - scattered over the Pithecusan Shipwreck (fig. 5) settes, and zigzags, their scattering, helter-skelter,

8 over the surface suggests and enhances the tur- the Vulture Workshop (or Würzburg Group), three moil of battle. In the lower zone, a few swastikas swastikas appear beside three female mourners.64 appear among a file of Dipylon warriors, some of On the neck of a tall, early 7th-century amphora in whom lift their feet off the ground(line) as if march- Eleusis, linear swastikas surround a great aquatic ing on the double (here is the swastika as a plau- bird, and an association between waterfowl and sible ideogram of motion again). In the upper zone swastikas, seen as early as the Hirschfeld krater’s corpses are piled up on the left: hovering above ekphora (fig. 1), is possibly maintained.65 On a two of the dead are two great spoked circles that Middle Protoattic sherd from the Agora a centaur resemble the wheels of Dipylon chariots or wagons is possibly shown attacking an animal, and a swas- (cf. fig. 6); again, such ‘Dipylon wheels’ have some- tika spins nearby.66 Six swastikas appear in the times been interpreted as beneficent solar sym- crowded scene of the Potnia Theron on a well- bols,59 though we may wonder at the relevance of known Boeotian pithos in Athens (ca 680); besides such symbolism here. At all events, archers and the long-armed goddess herself, the scene is full infantry duel to the right, and then a footsoldier of roaring lions and the parts of an animal that has grabs a much larger Dipylon warrior by the crest been butchered or torn apart, and so the swasti- of his helmet and yanks him down from (appar- kas may imply the elemental violence inherent in ently) his chariot. The footsoldier raises his sword; the natural world.67 On the neck of a tall late 7th- the coup de grace is about to fall. Hovering above century ‘Melian’ amphora in Athens, two war- the head of the doomed ‘Dipylon giant’ there is a riors battle over a suit of armor, and at least one swastika. And, if we assume (along with Villard swastika appeared between them.68 In the scene and Davison) that a sherd in New Haven joins the of the blinding of Polyphemos on the neck of the fragments in Paris just here (fig. 9),60 another swas - great Protoattic amphora in Eleusis, a hooked tika appears just below the upper left tip of his swastika hovers just beside the open mouth of the shield, so that the unfortunate warrior being drag- screaming Cyclops, another sign of bloody violence ged to his death (he is about to fall upon a lifeless (though, it is true, Polyphemos does not die and soldier below) would have seemed to have been two swastikas also appear beside Odysseus’s com - bracketed above and below by the motif. In the panions).69 And it may not be entirely coincidental upper zone of Louvre A 519 (as the scene is pre- that hooked swastikas appear (along with other served), in a field littered with ‘fill’ of all kinds, motifs) on the peplos of the mid-6th century kore the swastika notably appears in association with that stood over the tomb of young Phrasikleia.70 the Dipylon giant - a victim who is also distin- But to return to the Hirschfeld Painter’s ekphora guished by his great reserved eye (the heads of and its constellation of corpse, horses, and swas- everyone else in the zone are in solid silhouette) tikas (fig. 1), our choices are these: (1) the swas - - and only him.61 The episode has a close parallel tikas here are just meaningless filling ornaments, in an unnumbered fragment in Athens, where despite the fact that the Hirschfeld Painter has not another huge Dipylon warrior with a reserved used them as filler anywhere else on the vase eye, dragged down by a warrior at left, collapses (their presence here and only here must mean upon another warrior crumpled below him; a something); or (2) they are ideograms of motion, swastika appears below the edge of his shield, though it would seem less appropriate for the close to the head of the other corpse.62 On these swastikas to connote the speed of the animals two works the juxtaposition of swastikas and drawing the wagon than it would to comment warriors who are dead or about to die seems to upon the status of the corpse - the dead man, not be telling us something. the horses, is focus here; or, more likely, (3) they The deathly, funerary or violent connotations are markers of death itself. The swastika is not of the swastika endure during and after the tran- always a marker of death in Geometric art, and it sition from Geometric to Protoattic and other certainly is not a requisite one: many funeral and Orientalizing styles. On the neck panel of a tran- battle scenes lack them entirely. There are also, to sitional amphora in London, for example, a lion be sure, inconsistencies in its use. Still, it is possi- claws a recumbent deer under the watchful eye ble to extract from the swastika’s many and var- of a passing bird: the scene is not a particularly ied appearances in Geometric art patterns that convincing representation of the savagery found suggest something beyond a function as mere in the animal world, but the only filling ornament filler or even as a symbol of movement. Swastikas in the sparse scene is a single swastika hovering that mark funerary processions (fig. 2) or that spin over the doomed grass-eater.63 On the neck of a in scenes of mayhem (fig. 5) or that bracket points roughly contemporary amphora in New York by of violent death (fig. 9) or that cluster beside the

9 head of a corpse (and only there) on a huge vase appears on East Asian maps to mark the locations of where plenty of room could have been found for Buddhist temples. For a 12/13th-century Korean paint- more of them (fig. 1) cannot simply be neutral ing of Amitabha Buddha with a swastika on his chest, see Shogakkan 1997-2001, 246, pl. 178. ‘filler’. It is not speed or energy that the juxtapo- 18 Barber 1991, 189 and fig. 7.3. sition of corpse, horses, and swastikas on the 19 Aigner 2000, reproduces an assortment of Navajo textiles Hirschfeld Krater communicates. It is the finality with swastikas from the late 19th and early 20th centuries of an aristocratic death. The swastika here and (when Anglo traders encouraged Navajo artisans to elsewhere is an intimation of mortality. incorporate the pattern into their designs). After the symbol’s desecration by the Nazis, a number of Native American tribes (including the Navajo) agreed to banish NOTES the symbol from their basketry and weaving; see Heller 2000, 2 (citing The New York Times of February 29, 1940). 1 Athens NM 990. Coldstream 2008, 41 (no 1); Schweitzer 20 Heller 2000, 37. 1971, 45, pl. 40; Davison 1961, 36-37, fig. 25. 21 For Parrot 1961, 62, the symbol probably relates ‘to a I thank Richard Lariviere for our discussions of the solar cult and to notions of fertility, since all ancient reli- swastika and the Sanskrit roots of the word. gions were obsessed with such themes’. 2 Admittedly, it may be quintessential only because ek- 22 McArthur 2002, 129. phora scenes are so rare, and the Hirschfeld Painter’s is 23 Wilson 1894, 895-902; Aigner 2000, 8. the most complete example. There are only three doc- 24 Swastikas, of course, appear in other genres beside pot- umentable ekphorai in all: all are Attic, all are monu- tery - for example, on the catchplates of late 8th-century mental, and all are by either the Dipylon Master or the bow fibulae. See Schweitzer 1971, 212-214, figs 123-125. Hirschfeld Painter (and so LG I). See Ahlberg 1971b, 25 Davison 1961, 19; Coldstream 2008, 397. 220-221; Coldstream 1977, 122, who suggests that ekpho- 26 A distinction is sometimes made between the swastika ra scenes may have been reserved for only the most (with its right-facing or clockwise direction) and the élite families. sauvastika (left-facing, counterclockwise); see, for ex - 3 Two, perhaps three, mourners the size of those beneath ample, Schliemann 1880, 346-349; McArthur 2002, 129. the concentric circles at the far left would fit. But the two symbols are not (as sometimes thought) 4 Boardman 1983, 16. symbolic opposites; see Burnouf 1925. In Greek Geo- 5 As in, for example, the ekphora on Athens 803 (fig. 6), or metric art, so far as I can determine, the two types are the prothesis on Basel Gs61 (fig. 8), or in the circular used interchangeably and often asymmetrically. For parade of riders and Dipylon warriors on a LG II cup in example, in the handle zone of the LG I belly-handled Los Angeles; Langdon 1993, 64-66 (no 10). amphora Athens NM 805 (Coldstream 2008, 34 (n. 2), 6 Roes 1933, passim; Brann 1962, 13. 37), there is a frieze with three metopal swastikas: the 7 Schweitzer 1971, 62-63. two on the left revolve to the right, the one on the right 8 Himmelmann-Wildschütz 1968, argues that Geometric revolves to the left. ‘ornament’ can be purely decorative, symbolic, or even 27 Roes 1933 and 1953. representational. Cf. Boardman 1983, 16. 28 Courbin 1966, 475-83 (esp. 476). 9 Guthe 1925, 85-88; cited in Brann 1962, 13. 29 Ischia Sp. 1/1. See Brunnsåker 1962, 186 (‘It is not en- 10 In the words of the American social comedian Jon tirely correct to speak of them as mere filling orna- Stewart, Earth (The Book): A Visitor’s Guide to the Human ments, for the swastika has a strong whirl-like effect Race (New York 2010) 99. The Nazis adopted the that cannot escape influencing the composition’) and swastika as their symbol in 1920. 199 (‘Thus our painter, though not able actually to rep- 11 The textile origin of many Geometric motifs is gener- resent the waves, found a way of symbolizing their ally accepted: see Boardman 2001, 19. At all events, the effect’) (italics his). But if the swastikas were meant to relationship between the swastika and the meander is represent waves crashing over the capsized ship, it is especially and obviously intimate, as the juxtaposition odd they appear below the deck rather than above the of swastikas in the Hirschfeld Painter’s ekphora and the upturned keel (where five fish swim instead). hooked meander frieze around the rim of the krater just 30 Ahlberg 1971b, 141-142, 233. above illustrates. However, one motif is self-contained 31 Ahlberg 1971b, 142. Also noted by Brunnsåker 1961, and discrete, and so can easily be inserted into pictor- 199 n. 1. The preserved swastikas all face right, thus en - ial fields, while the other motif is continuous and (so hancing the left to right direction of the cart; the one far as I know) never appears as ‘filler’ within an image left-facing swastika in Ahlberg’s fig. 53 (front wheel) is (it fills bands and panels instead). The structural simi- a restoration, now removed. larities between the swastika and the meander do not, 32 MFA 25.42. Ahlberg 1971b, 142 and figs 56a-b; Schweit - then, assure a similarity in function or meaning. zer 1971, 48, and pl. 61; Coldstream 2008, 76-77 (the Hunt 12 Rowland 1977, 79. Group, no 2). Swastikas are scattered more thickly among 13 Schliemann 1880, 345-354. Schliemann also publishes a what look like leaping deer and hares on a Boeotian jug lead female ‘idol’ with a swastika engraved within her in Hamburg; see Schweitzer 1971, pls 99, 100. public triangle (337-338). Cf. Schliemann 1875, 25, 101-106. 33 Kerameikos 1319. Schweitzer 1971, 52 and pl. 67. 14 Thorp 1988, 83, pl. 23 (no 5). 34 Agora P7083. See Papadopoulos 2007, 124 (no 46). 15 Parrot 1961, 62 and fig. 80d. 35 Louvre A 527 (and A 535). Coldstream 2008, 30 (no 8); 16 Wilson 1894, 799. Ahlberg 1971b, 142; Davison 1961, fig. 13a-c; Villard 17 Snellgrove 1978, 415-416, pl. 32; Seckel 1989, 158 (and 1954, pls 2-3. Ahlberg 1971b, 142, notes that ‘swastikas fig. 26), 169. The swastika on the Buddha’s footprints are represented in the ship scene below the warrior is a sign of good fortune or benediction, putatively left frieze, above the corpses lying in a “pile” and above the in the ground as the Buddha walked. The symbol also ship and the Dipylon warrior at the prow. In this case

10 the swastikas evidently indicate a motion of the corpses et al. 2008, 306 (no 23)). floating in the sea or the motion of the sea itself.’ Cf. 52 So, for example, Vermeule 1979, 18, suggests that birds the similar pattern of swastikas regularly punctuating in some early funerary images (painted or modeled) a file of Dipylon warriors alternating with archers on could be ‘soul-birds’. Louvre A 530 (by a ‘close associate’ of the Dipylon 53 Basel Gs 61. Latacz et al. 2008, 302 (no 19). Master), the sign regularly appearing low in the field 54 I wonder whether the roles of the swastika as an after every two figures; Coldstream 2008, 31 (no 12); ideogram of motion and as a marker of death cannot Ahlberg 1971b, fig. 62c. somehow be reconciled: could the spinning swastika be 36 Athens NM 18062. Coldstream 2008, 42 (no 6). Davison an indicator of active transitioning from the world of 1961, 38-39, fig. 28. The swastikas at the top of the the living to the realm of the dead? chevron stacks revolve left, those at the bottom revolve 55 Metropolitan Museum 14.130.14. Mertens 2010, 52-57 right, and so the effect (if the motif is read solely as an (no 6); Coldstream 2008, 42 (no 13). indicator of motion) is to cancel each other out. 56 Schweitzer 1971, pl. 38; Ahlberg 1971a, 31-33 (B6), figs 37 Copenhagen 726. Coldstream 2008, 42 (no 7); Davison 36-37. 1961, 36 and fig. 27a-b. In the central panel on the back 57 Agora P 10201. Brann 1962, 66 (no 311) and pl. 18. The of the vase, a single swastika hovers beside a bird fragmentary scene has also been reconstructed as a which in turn floats above a reclining deer. musical celebration or dance, in which case the swas- 38 Benaki Museum 7675. Coldstream 2008, 81-82 (no 2); tikas might be there to enhance the vitality of the per- Boardman 1998, fig. 68; Davison 1961, 48-49 and fig. 50. formance; see Fittschen 1969, 23-26 (A 12) and fig. 11; 39 Courbin 1966, pl. 147 (GR 2b); also Roes 1933, 13-14, also Biers 1996, 111 and fig. 5.1. and fig 3. 58 Louvre A 519. See Villard 1954, 6-7, pl. 5 (nos 7-9). 40 Geroulanos 1973, pls 37-41. Coldstream 2008, 31 (no 17); Hurwit 1993, 14-16; 41 We might note that when in Archaic art sculptors and Ahlberg 1971a, 15-17 (A5), figs 6-8; Davison 1961, 29. vase-painters adopt a convention for depicting figures 59 Above, n. 6. (like Gorgons and Nikai) in rapid movement (flying or 60 Yale 1981.61.271. Villard was the first to join (on paper) running), they choose a schema with arms and knees the Yale fragment and Louvre A 519; see CVA (Louvre bent almost at right angles; see Hurwit 1985, 18, 177- Fasc. 11), 6, fig. 2; cf. Davison 1961, figs 12a-b. But 178, and figs 4, 5. This so-called Knielauf formula does Villard’s and Davison’s drawings of the Yale fragment not exactly correspond to the design of a swastika: arms differ in their representation of the tip of the shield, and legs bend in opposite directions, for example, and with Villard’s restoring two lines (indicating the upper so the limbs do not seem to ‘revolve’ in the same direc- border of the shield) that do not appear in Davison’s or tion as the arms of a swastika do. But the whirligig and that are now obvious on the fragment itself. The V- right-angled nature of the formula is similarly expres- stroke visible at the upper right edge of the Yale frag- sive of motion. ment (just to the right of the swastika), Davison sug- 42 Athens 18045 (provenience unknown). Benson 1970, 26- gests, is part of the lower left tip of the Dipylon shield. 27, 37-39, pls IV-V; Coldstream 2008, 13 and pl. Ik. A But if the placement of the Yale fragment here is cor- similar composition appears on a fragmentary cup rect, that is unlikely. from the Agora (Agora P 1654; see Benson 1970, pl. IX, 61 Reserving the eye in corpses is a characteristic of the 2.), though there the swastika may have been metopal. ‘associate’ of the Dipylon Master who painted Louvre Athens 18045 may mark the first appearance of both A 519; see Coldstream 2008, 38-39. motifs in Early Geometric Attic vase-painting. 62 See Ahlberg 1971a, 17-18 (A6) and fig. 9. 43 Kerameikos 2159. Coldstream 2008, 26-28; Benson 1970, 63 BM 1936.10-17.1. Rombos 1988, 312-313, pl. 29a; Schweit - 44-48, pl. X (no 3). zer 1971, pl. 45; Davison 1961, 49 and fig. 55. On the other 44 Agora P4784. Coldstream 2008, 48, pl. 10k; Papadopou - side of the vase, however, virtually the same scene of los 2007, 125 and fig. 120F; Camp 1986, 32 and fig. 18; lion and deer lacks a swastika (there appears to be Simon 1981, 35-36, pl. 10; Coldstream 1977, 115, fig. 34e. another bird in its place); see Himmelmann 1998, fig. 11. 45 Geroulanos 1973, pl. 38. On both sides swastikas appear beneath grazing ani- 46 Coldstream 2008, 30 (no 4). Ahlberg 1971b, fig. 4. Cf. mals on the shoulder and among chariots on the body, the double axes set between the spokes of the single and the funerary function of the vase is suggested by the wheel - it is attached to no chariot or wagon - on the plastic snakes on the handles. Dipylon fragment Agora P 7024; Papadopoulos 2007, There is perhaps a distant echo of the lion-deer com- 120 (no 44). position with swastika on a ‘Chalkidian’ amphora in 47 Athens 866 (Dipylon Workshop). Coldstream 2008, 33 the Goulandris Museum attributed to the Phineus (no. 44); Davison 1961, 33 (no 4) and fig. 20. The pos- Painter (N.P. Goulandris Collection 1107, ca 530-520), ture of turning back upon itself also makes the deer a where a panther-like feline paws a grazing deer and a doublet for the meander pattern. swastika spins in the space between them. 48 Munich 6402. Coldstream 2008, 33 (no 42); Davison 64 Metropolitan Museum 10.210.8. Coldstream 2008, 206; 1961, 33 (no 3), fig. 19. Boardman 2001, fig. 17; Davison 1961, 53 and fig. 69a-b; 49 See, for example, Langdon 1993, 109. Schweitzer 1971, 34, 47, 49-50, and pl. 50. Swastikas also 50 Tübingen 1245. Coldstream 2008, 25 n. 6; Schweitzer appear in the shoulder panel below, where two lions are 1971, 32, 78, and pl. 19. heraldically posed. 51 The juxtaposition between metopal swastika and 65 Eleusis 935, ca 700-675. The association recalls the swas - triglyph-checkerboard is often found elsewhere; for tika set into the body of a bird on the Argive fragment example, on horse pyxides in Missouri (Langdon 1993, with dancers; above, n. 39. 107-108, no 29) and Athens (NM 17972) or on the high- 66 Agora P 23774. Brann 1962, 84 (no 471), pl. 28. rimmed bowls Kerameikos 345 (Boardman 1998, fig. 57; 67 Athens NM 5893. Boardman 1998, fig. 102 (where the Schweitzer 1971, pl. 22) and Mannheim Cg 125 (Latacz vase is called Late Geometric); Simon 1981, 42-43, pls

11 16-17. On the bottom of an earlier Boeotian product (a metrischen Stils im Bereich des Gutes Trachones bei LG pyxis in Heidelberg), two swastikas appear beside Athen, AM 88, 1-54. a scorpion flanked by hares; Boardman 1998, fig. 97. Guthe, C.E. 1925, Pueblo Pottery Making, New Haven. And on a LG Boeotian ‘doll’ in Paris (Louvre CA 623), Heller, S. 2000, The Swastika: Symbol beyond Redemption, swastikas are found on the figure’s neck while dancers New York. link hands on the bell-shaped skirt below. If the func- Himmelmann-Wildschütz, N. 1968, Über einige gegenständ- tion of such terracottas was funerary, the dancers are liche Bedeutungsmöglichkeiten des frühgriechischen Orna - probably mourners, and the association between swas - ments, Wiesbaden. tika and death is once again clear; Coldstream 1977, 202 Himmelmann, N. 1998, Reading Greek Art, Princeton. and fig. 65f. Hurwit, J.M. 1993, Art, Poetry, and the Polis in the Age of 68 Athens NM 3961. Boardman 2001, fig. 36; Boardman Homer, in Langdon 1993, 14-42. 1998, fig. 250; Simon 1981, 46-47, pl. 23 (dated ca 650-30). Hurwit, J.M. 1985, The Art and Culture of Early Greece, 1100- On the body of the vase, with the epiphany of Apollo, 480 B.C., Ithaca. a large hooked swastika appears below the belly of the Karakasi, K. 2003, Archaic Korai, Los Angeles. dead (or is it just stunned?) stag that Artemis carries by Kraiker, W./K. Kübler, 1939, Kerameikos I. Die Nekropolen the antlers. Other linear swastikas are also found in the des 12. bis 10. Jahrhunderts, Berlin. field. Langdon, S. (ed.) 1993, From Pasture to Polis. Art in the Age 69 Boardman 2001, fig. 34.1; Hurwit 1985, fig. 73. of Homer, Columbia/London. 70 Karakasi 2003, 121-124, pls 235-237. To my knowledge, Latacz, J. et al. 2008, Homer. Der Mythos von Troia in canonical, discrete swastikas do not appear painted or Dichtung und Kunst, Munich. incised on the garments of the votive korai from the McArthur, M. 2002, Reading Buddhist Art. An Illustrated Acropolis, although four-armed patterns appear on Guide to Buddhist Signs and Symbols, London. Acropolis 680 (Karakasi 2003, pl. 248) and swastika-like Mertens, J.R. 2010, How to Read Greek Vases, New York. motifs with curved instead of right-angled arms (‘ogees’, Papadopoulos, J.K. 2007, The Athenian Agora from the they have been called in other contexts; cf. Aigner 2000, End of the Bronze Age through the Protoattic Period, 6) appear on Acropolis 671 and 682 (Karakasi 2003, pls in J.K. Papadopoulos (ed.), The Art of Antiquity. Piet de 258, 252), while swastikas of a sort are naturally pro- Jong and the Athenian Agora, Athens. 93-154. duced by the interlocking meander patterns found on Parrot, A. 1961, Sumer. the Dawn of Art, New York. many korai as well (see Karakasi 2003, pls 238b, 258). Roes, A. 1933, Greek Geometric Art. Its Symbolism and its Origin, Haarlem/London. Roes, A. 1953, Fragments de poterie géométrique trouvés BIBLIOGRAPHY sur les Citadelles d’Argos, BCH 77, 90-104. Rombos, T. 1988, The Iconography of Attic Late Geometric II Ahlberg, G. 1971a, Fighting on Land and Sea in Greek Pottery, Jonsered. Geometric Art, Stockholm. Rowland, B. 1977, The Art and Architecture of India. Ahlberg, G. 1971b, Prothesis and Ekphora in Greek Geometric Buddhist, Hindu, Jain, Harmondsworth/New York. Art, Goteborg. Schliemann, H. 1875, Troy and its Remains (Arno Reprint, Ahlberg-Cornell, G. 1992, Myth and Epos in Early Greek Art. 1976), New York. Representation and Interpretation, Jonsered. Schliemann, H. 1880, Ilios. The City and Country of the Aigner, D.J. 2000, The Swastika Symbol in Navajo Textiles, Trojans, London. Laguna Beach, CA. Schweitzer, B. 1971, Greek Geometric Art, London. Barber, E.J.W. 1991, Prehistoric Textiles, Princeton. Seckel, D. 1989, Buddhist Art of East Asia, Bellingham, WA. Benson, J. 1970, Horse, Bird, and Man, Amherst. Shogakkan, S. 1997-2001, Sekai Bijutsu Daizenshu. Toyo hen Biers, W.R. 19962, The Archaeology of Greece: An Introduction, (New History of World Art, vol. 10), Tokyo. Ithaca/London. Simon, E. 1981, Die griechischen Vasen, Munich. Boardman, J. 2001, The History of Greek Vases, London. Snellgrove, D.L. 1978, The Image of the Buddha, Paris/ Boardman. J. 1983, Symbol and Story in Geometric Art, in Tokyo. W.G. Moon (ed.), Ancient Greek Iconography and Art, Thorp. R.L. 1988, Son of Heaven. Imperial Arts of China, Madison, 15-36. Seattle. Boardman, J. 1998, Early Greek Vase Painting, London. Vermeule, E. 1979, Aspects of Death in Early Greek Art and Brann, E. 1962, Late Geometric and Protoattic Pottery. Poetry, Berkeley. Athenian Agora VIII, Princeton. Villard, F. 1954, Corpus Vasorum Antiquorum. Louvre Fasc. Brunnsåker, S. 1962, The Pithecusan Shipwreck, OpRom 4, 11, Paris. 165-242. Wilson, T. 1894, The Swastika. The Earliest Known Symbol, Burnouf, E. 1925, Le lotus de la bonne loi, Paris. and its Migrations, Washington. Camp, J.M. 1986, The Athenian Agora, London. PHILIP H. KNIGHT PROFESSOR Coldstream, J.N. 1977, Geometric Greece, London. DEPARTMENT OF THE HISTORY OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE Coldstream, J.N. 2008, Greek Geometric Pottery. A Survey of Ten Local Styles and their Chronology, updated 2nd edi- UNIVERSITY OF OREGON tion, Bristol. EUGENE, OREGON USA 97403 Courbin, P. 1966, La céramique géometrique de l’Argolide, [email protected] Paris. Davison, J.M. 1961, Attic Geometric Workshops (Yale Classical Studies XVI), New Haven. Fittschen, K. 1969, Untersuchungen zum Beginn der Sagen - darstellungen bei den Griechen, Berlin. Geroulanos, J.M. 1973, Grabsitten des ausgehenden geo-

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