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The spiral was found on many
Dolmans and gravesites. Its true meaning is not known for sure, but
many of these symbols were found as far as Ireland and France. It is
believed to represent the travel from the inner life to the outer
soul or higher spirit forms; the concept of growth, expansion, and
cosmic energy, depending on the culture in which it is used. To the
ancient inhabitants of Ireland, the spiral was used to represent
their sun. |
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A basic element in
Western ideography, the clockwise spiral (starting from the middle)
is strongly associated with water, power,
independent movement, and migrations of tribes. The
sign's association with water may rather focus recurring rainy
seasons, than water in general.
Well in accordance with the law of the polarity of meanings of
elementary graphs
also often seems to denote the sun. But maybe not the
ordinary sun, but the eclipsed sun. See the entry
below.
As stated in the entry of
the basic graphic elements the dot and the spiral were
used by man already 24,000 years ago. But thereafter the first
instances of
are found carved in rock faces not more than about 5,000 years ago.
Be that as it may, one finds
on discos from Crete from around 2000 B.C., and as an old symbol
for potential power in Tibet. It also appears among rock
carvings in Utah. |
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A more circular and
closer drawn version of the above entry sign
is
seen on many neolithic rock carvings. Until recently the meaning of
this ideogram eluded researchers, but things have now changed. On
rock carvings in Scandinavia one often finds signs which look like a
strange type of boats or sleighs with short vertical lines on them.
They have hitherto been interpreted as representing people. Together
with them a lot of small, round signs, and the ideogram
,
can be seen. Why would people, thousands of years ago, hire rock
carvers to work for long hours with the carving of these, seemingly
rather meaningless pictures of ships or sleighs together with small,
round signs and
,
in hard rock, as if they were messages important enough for
posterity to be made to last thousands of years? Why did neolithic
men think these pictures should be conveyed over eons to posterity?
A breakthrough in the understandning of these strange ideograms
seems to have been made in 1991. An archaeologist got the idea that
the small, round signs on those rock carvings could be signs for
stars in the sky. He fed the structures of some of the rock carvings
into a computer and had the computer to compare them with
representations of the constantly changing structure of the
constellations of the brightests stars of the sky, century for
century for some thousands of years. What he found was that the rock
carvings were documentations of the configurations of the visible
planets and the brightest of the fixed stars at times of total solar
eclipses.
Thus the sign
might mean the eclipsed sun. |
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Another idea states that the
loosely wound anti-clockwise spiral represent the large summer sun
and the tightly wound, clockwise spiral their shrinking winter sun.
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A variation of the
preceding entry sign
consists in fact of two interconnected
,
that is spirals with clockwise rotation (from the center
seen).
,
made up not by lines but by rows of dots, has been found engraved on
an amulett of mammoth tooth which is 24,000 years old, and thus must
have been engraved by Cro-Magnon mammoth hunters. The sign
,
often used to denote the sun, is at the center of the amulet,
with two
on each side of it.
During the Bronze Age
was an often used graphic structure for decorations of artefacts of
all types. In ancient Greece it was common on vases and amphoras,
and often signified water or the sea.
An older variation on the same theme is
 ,
found on rock engravings from the Bronze Age in Scania, Sweden. This
variation, however, is much more graphically sophisticated, as you
will soon realize if you try to draw it.
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Another theory: a double spiral is
used to represent the equinoxes, when day and night are of equal
length.
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This sign structure is
uncommon because it is closed. Since it is very difficult to draw,
it probably had magical significance. It is often found on vessels
and representations from the Bronze Age. This instance is found on a
rock carving from Scania, Sweden. See
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This structure is called
the spiral of life and was found in the remnants of an old
temple from the Bronze Age in Ireland. The sign is drawn in one
single line without beginning or end.
Compare with
 ,
an old Celtic sign that was also used in pre-Columbian America, and
in Greece and neighboring countries in antiquity. See
The triple spiral denotes the Threefold Goddess. The circle, spiral
and wheel are all powerful symbols representing the cycle of life,
death and rebirth, including the seasons of the year. |
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The ancient structure
has been found both in pre-Columbian America and in Bronze Age
Europe. In Europe it is especially associated with the Celtic
tribes.
These symbols are called triskele or triskelion.
The Triskele is used to symbolize the cycles of life with in the
three fold, or three spheres of influnce in the material world.
The three spheres (Land, Sea and Sky) represents the three aspects
of the material world that are contained in every object. Each
aspect ever flowing outward and always returning to the point from
which it started. |
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This symbol is also used
to symbolize the Druidic Threefold Sister Goddess: Fotla/Eiru/Banba.
Ireland, or Erin, is named after Eriu. It also symbolizes the Wiccan
Threefold Mother Goddess: Maiden/Mother/Crone.
The Triskele was a representation of the importance of the number
three.
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Frank Waters, an
anthropologist who has studied the Hopi Indians and their culture,
writes that the mirror image of the preceding entry sign was used by
the Hopis in Arizona. Its spectrum of meaning seems to have been
centred around the concept of several returns or
homecomings.
Waters has interpreted
as tribal migration, cyclical in nature, by a people
consisting of a few large tribes or clans. |
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