Sun cross

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The sun cross, a cross inside a circle, is one of the oldest and most widespread of symbols. The Neolithic symbol combining cross and circle is the simplest conceivable representation of the union of opposed polarities in the Western world. Crossed circles scratched on stones have been recovered from Paleolithic cave sites in the Pyrenees. At the most famous megalithic site in Scotland, Callanish, crossing avenues of standing stones extend from a circle. Scratched into stone or painted on pottery, as on that of the Samara culture, the crossed-circle symbol appears in such diverse areas as the Pyrenees in Old Europe, the Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and the cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the Indus River valley. It may be compared to the yin-yang symbol of the Eastern world.

In the prehistoric religion of Bronze Age Europe, crosses in circles appear frequently on artifacts identified as cult items, for example the "miniature standard" with an amber inlay that shows a cross shape when held against the light, dating to the Nordic Bronze Age, kept in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.^[1] The Bronze Age symbol has also been connected with the spoked chariot wheel, which at the time was four-spoked (compare the Linear B ideogram 243 "wheel" 𐃏), a technological innovation that reached Europe in the mid 2nd millennium BC, and which in the context of the Sun chariot may also have had a "solar" connotation.

"wheel pendants", dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, found in Zürich, kept in the Swiss National Museum. Variants include a six-spoked wheel, a central empty circle, and a second circle with twelve spokes surrounding the four-spoked one.

ornamental pins, found in Switzerland, dating to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, their circular heads are incised with crosses.

1 Contemporary tribal cultures
2 Modern symbolism
- 2.1 Neopaganism
- 2.2 United States Conference of Catholic Bishops
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

[edit] Contemporary tribal cultures

[edit] Modern symbolism

A Caddo solar cross, to Southeastern Native Americans a symbol of both the sun and fire.

Solstices and equinoxes

The sun cross proper most commonly represents the sun, and the four quadrants the four seasonal cycles of the year. In astronomy, a similar astronomical symbol is used to represent the Earth while the symbol for the Sun is a circle with a central dot.

[edit] Neopaganism

Along with other ancestral symbols, the sun cross is also used as a symbol by Pagans as an attempt at reconstruction of ancient Germanic and Slavic pre-Christian religion and culture.

[edit] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops uses the sun cross as an emblem for their organization [[1]]

[edit] See also

[edit] References

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