Editing Swastika (section)

====Rediscovery by Heinrich Schliemann====

At [[Troy]] near the [[Dardanelles]], [[Heinrich Schliemann]]'s 1871–1875 [[archaeological excavations]] discovered objects decorated with swastikas.<ref name="Schliemann 1875">{{Cite book |last=Schliemann |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/39020025953681-troyanditsremai |title=Troy and Its Remains; A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries Made on the Site of Ilium, and in the Trojan Plain |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]] |year=1875 |editor-last=Smith |editor-first=Philip |location=London |language=English |author-link=Heinrich Schliemann}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=101–105}}<ref name="Boxer-2000" /><ref name="Heller-2000" />{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Quinn-1994" />{{Rp|page=31}} Hearing of this, the director of the [[French School at Athens]], [[Émile-Louis Burnouf]], wrote to Schliemann in 1872, stating "the Swastika should be regarded as a sign of the [[Aryan race]]". Burnouf told Schliemann that "It should also be noted that the Jews have completely rejected it".<ref name="Gere-2006">{{Cite book |last=Gere |first=Cathy |url=http://archive.org/details/tombofagamemnon0000gere |title=The Tomb of Agamemnon |publisher=[[Harvard University Press]] |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-674-02170-9 |location=Cambridge, Massachusetts}}</ref>{{Rp|page=89}} Accordingly, Schliemann believed the Trojans to have been Aryans: "The primitive Trojans, therefore, belonged to the Aryan race, which is further sufficiently proved by the symbols on the round terra-cottas".<ref name="Schliemann 1875"/>{{Rp|page=157}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=90}} Schliemann accepted Burnouf's interpretation.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=89}}
{{Blockquote|text=This winter, I have read in Athens many excellent works of celebrated scholars on Indian antiquities, especially [[Adalbert Kuhn]], {{lang|de|Die Herakunft des Feuers}}; [[Max Müller]]'s ''Essays''; [[Émile Burnouf]], {{lang|fr|La Science des Religions}} and {{lang|fr|Essai sur le Vêda}}; as well as several works by [[Eugène Burnouf]]; and I now perceive that these crosses upon the Trojan terra-cottas are of the highest importance to archæology.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875"/>{{Rp|page=101}}}}

Schliemann believed that use of swastikas spread widely across Eurasia.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Allen |first=Charles |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yE7fEAAAQBAJ |title=Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth |publisher=Hachette India |year=2023 |isbn=978-93-5731-266-0 |language=en |author-link=Charles Allen (writer)}}</ref>

{{Blockquote|text=... I am now able to prove that ... the 卍, which I find in Émile Burnouf's Sanscrit lexicon, under the name of "''suastika''," and with the meaning {{lang|grc|εὖ ἐστι}}, or as the sign of good wishes, were already regarded, thousands of years before Christ, as religious symbols of the very greatest importance among the early progenitors of the Aryan races in [[Bactria]] and in the villages of the [[Oxus]], at a time when [[Germans]], Indians, [[Pelasgians]], [[Celts]], [[Persians]], [[Slavonians]] and [[Iranian peoples|Iranians]] still formed one nation and spoke one language.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875" />{{Rp|page=|pages=101–102}}}}

Schliemann established a link between the swastika and Germany. He connected objects he excavated at Troy to objects bearing swastikas found in Germany near [[Königswalde]] on the [[Oder]].<ref name="Boxer-2000">{{Cite news |last=Boxer |first=Sarah |date=2000-06-29 |title=One of the World's Great Symbols Strives for a Comeback |at="Think Tank" section |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/library/arts/072900tank-swastika.html |access-date=2023-11-25}}</ref><ref name="Heller-2000">{{Cite book |last=Heller |first=Steven |url=http://archive.org/details/swastikasymbolbe0000hell |title=The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? |date=2000 |publisher=[[Allworth Press]] |isbn=978-1-58115-041-4 |location=New York}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Quinn-1994">{{Cite book |last=Quinn |first=Malcolm |url=http://archive.org/details/swastikaconstruc0000quin |title=The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=1994 |isbn=978-0-415-10095-3 |location=London, New York}}</ref>{{Rp|page=31}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=90}}
[[File:Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 3.1871, Taf. VI (cropped).png|thumb|[[Lithograph]] of [[potsherds]] found at Bishop's Island ({{Langx|de|link=no|Bischofsinsel}}) near [[Königswalde]] and published in ''{{Ill|Zeitschrift für Ethnologie|de}}'' in 1871. Schliemann believed the motif on the potsherd in figure 1 to be a swastika.]]
{{Blockquote|text=For I recognise at the first glance the "suastika" upon one of those three pot bottoms, which were discovered on Bishop's Island near Königswalde on the right bank of the Oder, and have given rise to very many learned discussions, while no one recognised the mark as that exceedingly significant religious symbol of our remote ancestors.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Troy and Its Remains''|source=1875<ref name="Schliemann 1875" />{{Rp|page=102}}}}

[[Sarah Boxer]], in an article in 2000 in ''[[The New York Times]]'', described this as a "fateful link".<ref name="Boxer-2000" /> According to [[Steven Heller (design writer)|Steven Heller]], "Schliemann presumed that the swastika was a religious symbol of his German ancestors which linked ancient [[Teutons]], [[Homeric]] Greeks and [[Vedic India]]".<ref name="Heller-2000" />{{Rp|page=31}} According to Bernard Mees, "Of all of the pre-runic symbols, the swastika has always been the most popular among scholars" and "The origin of swastika studies must be traced to the excitement generated by the archaeological finds of Heinrich Schliemann at Troy".{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=57}}

After his excavations at Troy, Schliemann began digging at [[Mycenae]]. According to Cathy Gere, "Having burdened the swastika symbol with such cultural, religious and racial significance in ''Troy and Its Remains'', it was incumbent on Schliemann to find the symbol repeated at Mycenae, but its occurrence turned out to be disappointingly infrequent".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Gere writes that "He did his best with what he had":<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}}

{{Blockquote|text=The cross with the marks of four nails may often be seen; as well as the 卍, which is usually also represented with four points indicating the four nails, thus ࿘. These signs cannot but represent the ''suastika'', formed by two pieces of wood, which were laid across and fixed with four nails, and in the joint of which the holy fire was produced by friction by a third piece of wood. But both the cross and the 卍 occur for the most part only on the vases with geometrical patterns.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Mycenæ''|source=1878<ref name="Schliemann 1878">{{Cite book |last=Schliemann |first=Henry |url=https://archive.org/details/mycenaenarrativ00schl |title=Mycenæ: A Narrative of Researches and Discoveries at Mycenæ and Tiryns |publisher=[[John Murray (publishing house)|John Murray]]|year=1878 |location=London |language=English |author-link=Heinrich Schliemann}}</ref>{{Rp|page=|pages=66–68}}}}

Gere points out that although Schliemann wrote that the motif "may often be seen", his 1878 book ''Mycenæ'' did not have illustrations of any examples.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Schliemann described "a small and thick terra-cotta disk" on which "are engraved a number of 卍's, the sign which occurs so frequently in the ruins of Troy", but as Gere notes, he did not publish an illustration.<ref name="Schliemann 1878" />{{Rp|page=77}}<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}}
[[File:Gold roundels from Grave Circle A, Grave III 01.jpg|thumb|Gold ''[[repoussé]]'' roundel from grave III of [[Grave Circle A, Mycenae|Grave Circle A]], whose central motif Schliemann thought "derived" from the swastika.<ref name="Schliemann 1878"/>{{Rp|page=|pages=165–166}}]]
Among the [[gold grave goods at Grave Circles A and B]] was a ''[[repoussé]]'' roundel in grave III of [[Grave Circle A, Mycenae|Grave Circle A]], the ornamentation of which Schliemann thought was "derived" from the swastika:
{{Blockquote|text=The curious ornamentation in the centre, which so often recurs here, seems to me to be derived from the ࿘, the more so as the points which are thought to be the marks of the nails, are seldom missing; the artist has only added two more arms and curved all of them.|author=Heinrich Schliemann|title=''Mycenæ''|source=1878<ref name="Schliemann 1878" />{{Rp|page=|pages=165–166}}}}

According to Gere, this motif is "completely dissimilar" to the swastika, and that Schliemann was "straining desperately after the same connection".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}} Nevertheless, the [[Mycenaean Greeks]] and the [[Trojan people]] both came to be identified as representatives of the Aryan race: "Despite the difficulties with linking the symbolism of Troy and Mycenae, the common Aryan roots of the two peoples became something of a truism".<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|page=91}}

The house Schliemann had had built in [[Panepistimiou Street]] in Athens by 1880, [[Iliou Melathron]], is decorated with swastika symbols and motifs in numerous places, including the ironwork railing and gates, the window bars, the ceiling fresco of the entrance hall, and the entire floor of one room.<ref name="Gere-2006" />{{Rp|pages=117–123}}

Following Schliemann, academic studies on the swastika were published by {{Ill|Ludvig Müller (numismatist)|lt=Ludvig Müller|da|Ludvig Müller (numismatiker)}}, [[Michał Żmigrodzki]], [[Eugène Goblet d'Alviella]], [[Thomas Wilson (anthropologist)|Thomas Wilson]], [[Oscar Montelius]] and [[Joseph Déchelette]].{{sfnp|Mees|2008|pp=57}}