Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied SymbolsInman, Thomas
Religion
Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism: With an Essay on Baal Worship, on the Assyrian Sacred "Grove," and Other Allied Symbols
Inman, Thomas
Christian art and symbolism; Symbolism
Col. Forbes Leslie's Early Races of Scotland. In plate 49 it is
associated with a serpent, apparently the cobra. The design is spoken
of as "the spectacle ornament," and it is very commonly associated with
another figure closely resembling the letter Z. It is very natural for
the inquirer to associate the twin circles with the sun and earth, or
the sun common amongst the sculptured stones in Scotland. Four varieties
may be seen in plate 48 of sun and moon. On one Scottish monument the
circles represent wheels, and they probably indicate the solar chariot.
As yet I have only been able to meet with the Z and "spectacle ornament"
once out of Scotland; it is figured on apparently a Gnostic gem (The
Gnostics and their Remains, by C. W. King, London, 1864, plate ii., fig.
5). In that we see in a serpent cartouche two Z figures, each having
the down stroke crossed by a horizontal line, both ends terminating in
a circle; besides them is a six-rayed star, each ray terminating in a
circle, precisely resembling the star in Plate in., Fig. 8, supra. I can
offer no satisfactory explanation of the emblem.
Figures 85, 86, represent a Yorkshire and an Indian stone circle. The
first is copied from Descriptions of Cairns, Cromlechs, Kistvaens, and
other Celtic, Druidical, or Scythian Monuments in the Dekkan, by Col.
Meadows Taylor, Transactions of the Royal Irish Academy, vol. xxiv.
The mound exists at Twizell, Yorkshire, and the centre of the circle
indicates an ancient tomb, very similar to those found by Taylor in the
Dekkan; this contained only one single urn, but many of the Indian
ones contained, besides the skeleton of the great man buried therein,
skeletons of other individuals who had been slaughtered over his tomb,
and buried above the kistvaen containing his bones; in one instance two
bodies and three heads were found in the principal grave, and twenty
other skeletons above and beside it. A perusal of this very interesting
paper will well repay the study bestowed upon it. Figure 86 is copied
from Forbes Leslie's book mentioned above, plate 59. It represents a
modern stone circle in the Dekkan, of very recent construction. The
dots upon the stones represent dabs of red paint, which again represent
blood. The circles are similar to some which have been found in
Palestine, and give evidence of the presence of the same religious ideas
existing in ancient England and Hindostan, as well as in modern India.
The name of the god worshipped in these recent shrines is Vetal, or
Betal. It is worth mentioning, in passing, that there is a celebrated
monolith in Scotland called the Newton Stone, on which are inscribed,
evidently with a graving tool, an inscription in the Ogham, and another
in some ancient Aryan character (see Moore's Ancient Pillar Stones of
Scotland).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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