Archaic England : $b an essay in deciphering prehistory from megalithic monuments, earthworks, customs, coins, place-names, and faerie superstitionsBayley, Harold
History
Archaic England : $b an essay in deciphering prehistory from megalithic monuments, earthworks, customs, coins, place-names, and faerie superstitions
Bayley, Harold
Archaeology; England -- Antiquities
The wheatear or spica, or _buck_-wheat was a frequent emblem on our
British coins, and to account for this it has been suggested that the
British did a considerable export trade in corn; but unfortunately for
this theory the _spica_ figures frequently upon the coins of Spain and
Gaul. As a symbol the buckwheat typified plenty, but in addition to the
wheatear proper there appear kindred objects which have been surmised to
be, perhaps, fishbones, perhaps fern-leaves. There is no doubt that
these mysterious objects are variants of the so-called "_ded_" amulet,
which in Egypt was the symbol of the backbone of the God of Life. This
amulet, of which the hieroglyph has been rendered variously as _ded_,
_didu_, _tet_, and _tat_, has an ancestry of amazing antiquity, and
according to Mackenzie, "in Paleolithic times, at least 20,000 years
ago, the spine of the fish was laid on the corpse when it was entombed,
just as the 'ded,' amulet, which was the symbol of the backbone of
Osiris, was laid on the neck of the Egyptian mummy".[279] Frequently
this "ded" emblem took the form of a column or pillar, which symbolised
the eternal support and stability of the universe. On the summit of Fig.
85 is a bug, _cock_roach, or _cock_chafer: in Etruria as in Egypt the
bug amulet or _scarabeus_ was as popular as the Eye of Horus.
[Illustration: FIGS. 78 to 84.--British. Nos. 1 to 8 from _Ancient
British Coins_ (Evans, J.). No. 4 from _A New
Description of England and Wales_ (Anon., 1724).
No. 5 from _English Coins and Tokens_ (Jewitt & Head).]
[Illustration: FIG. 85.--From _The Correspondences of Egypt_
(Odhner, C. T.).]
In Fig. 68 the spectral Eye was supported by Thoth, whose name varies
into Thot, Taut, and numerous intermediate forms, which equate it with
_ded_ or _dad_: similarly it will be found that practically every
place-name constituted from Tot or Tat varies into Dot or Dad, _e.g._,
Llan_dud_no, where is found the cradle of St. _Tud_no. Sometimes the
Egyptians represented two or more pillars termed _deddu_, and this word
is traceable in Trinidad, an island which, on account of its three great
peaks, was named after _trinidad_, the Spanish for trinity. But
_trinidad_ is evidently a very old Iberian word, for its British form
was _drindod_, as in the place-name Llandrindod or "Holy Enclosure of
the Trinity". The three great mounts on Trinidad, and the three famous
medicinal springs at Llandrindod Wells render it probable that the site
of Llan_drindod_ was originally a pagan dedication to the _trine teat_,
or _triune dad_.
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