Triskelion

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File:Triple-Spiral-Symbol.svg
Neolithic triple-spiral symbol

A triskelion or triskeles is an ancient motif consisting either of a triple spiral exhibiting rotational symmetry or of other patterns in triplicate that emanate from a common center. The spiral design can be based on interlocking Archimedean spirals, or represent three bent human limbs. It occurs in artefacts of the European Neolithic and Bronze Ages with continuation into the Iron Age, especially in the context of the La Tène culture[1] and of related Celtic traditions. The actual triskeles symbol of three human legs is found especially in Greek antiquity, beginning in archaic pottery and continued in coinage of Classical Greece.

In the Hellenistic period, the symbol became associated with the island of Sicily, appearing on coins minted under Dionysius I of Syracuse beginning in c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters". BCE.[2] It later appears in heraldry, and, other than in the flag of Sicily, came into use in the arms and flags of the Isle of Man (known in the Manx language as Script error: No such module "Lang". Template:Gloss).[3]

Greek Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) means Template:Gloss[4] from Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".), Template:Gloss[5] and Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".), Template:Gloss.[6] While the Greek adjective Script error: No such module "Lang". Template:Gloss (e.g. of a table) is ancient, use of the term for the symbol is modern, introduced in 1835 by Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes as French Script error: No such module "Lang".,[7] and adopted in the spelling triskeles following Otto Olshausen (1886).[8] The form triskelion (as it were Greek Script error: No such module "Lang".[9]) is a diminutive which entered English usage in numismatics in the late-19th century.[10][11] The form consisting of three human legs (as opposed to the triple spiral) has also been called a "triquetra of legs", also triskelos or triskel.[12]

Use in European antiquity

Neolithic to Iron Age

File:Celtic spiral.jpg
5,000 year-old triskelion on an orthostat at Newgrange

The triple spiral symbol, or three-spiral volute, appears in many early cultures: the first appeared in Malta (4400–3600 BCE); the second in the astronomical calendar of the megalithic tomb of Newgrange in Ireland built around 3200 BCE;[13] as well as on Mycenaean vessels. The Neolithic-era symbol of three conjoined spirals may have had triple significance similar to the imagery that lies behind the triskelion.[14] It is carved into the rock of a stone lozenge near the main entrance of the prehistoric Newgrange monument in what is now County Meath, Ireland.[13] It also appears on a 1st-century BCE dolmen tomb in Rathkenny in County Meath.[15]

There is also an example of a triskele on a stone fragment discovered in Gloucestershire, England, that, as of 2023, is held by the British Museum and thought to date from between the Neolithic period and the Bronze Age.[16]

The triskelion was a motif in the art of the Iron Age Celtic La Tène culture.[1]

Classical Antiquity

File:001-syracuse-Triskeles.jpg
Silver Drachma from Sicily, minted during the reign of Agathocles (361–289 BCE), Greek tyrant of Syracuse (317–289 BCE) and king of Sicily (304–289 BCE). Inscription: Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) Laureate head of the youthful Ares to left; behind, Palladion. Reverse: Triskeles of three human legs with winged feet; at the center, Gorgoneion

The triskeles proper, composed of three human legs, is younger than the triple spiral found in decorations on Greek pottery, especially as a design shown on Hoplite shields and later Greek and Anatolian coinage. An early example is found on the Shield of Achilles in an Attic hydria of the late-6th century BCE.[17] It is found on coinage in Lycia and on staters of Pamphylia (at Aspendos in 370–333 BCE) and Pisidia. The meaning of the Greek triskeles is not recorded directly. The Duke of Luynes, in his 1835 study, noted the co-occurrence of the symbol with the eagle, the cockerel, the head of Medusa, Perseus, three crescent moons, three ears of corn, and three grains of corn.Script error: No such module "Unsubst". From this, he reconstructed a feminine divine triad that he identified with the triple goddess Hecate.[7][18]

The triskeles was adopted as emblem by the rulers of Syracuse. It is possible that this usage is related with the Greek name of the island of Sicily, Script error: No such module "Lang". (Script error: No such module "lang".) Template:Gloss.[19] The Sicilian triskeles is shown with the head of Medusa at the center.[20] The ancient symbol has been re-introduced in modern flags of Sicily since 1848. The oldest find of a triskeles in Sicily is a vase dated to the late-7th century BCE of which researchers speculated a Minoan-Mycenaean origin (and for which no proof has been given).[21]

Roman period and Late Antiquity

Late examples of the triple spiral symbols are found in Iron Age Europe, carved in rock in Castro Culture settlements in Galicia, Asturias, and Northern Portugal. The symbol took on new meaning to Irish Celtic Christians before the 5th century CE as a symbol of the Trinity.Script error: No such module "Unsubst".

Medieval use

The triple spiral design is found as a decorative element in Gothic architecture. The three legs (triskeles) symbol is rarely found as a charge in late medieval heraldry, notably as the arms of the King of Mann (Armorial Wijnbergen, c. Template:TrimScript error: No such module "Check for unknown parameters".), and as canting arms in the city seal of the Bavarian city of Füssen (dated 1317).

Modern usage

The town of Dukla in Poland has used three hunting bugles arranged in triskelion shape as its symbol since the 16th century.[22][23]

The triskeles was included in the design of the Army Gold Medal awarded to British Army majors and above who had taken a key part in the Battle of Maida (1806).[24] An early flag of Sicily, proposed in 1848, included the Sicilian triskeles or "Trinacria symbol". Later versions of Sicilian flags have retained the emblem, including the one officially adopted in 2000. The flag of the Isle of Man (1932) shows a heraldic design of a triskeles of three armoured legs.

The flag and coat of arms of the Bavarian town of Füssen, Germany, contain a triskele,[25][26] as does the flag of the Russian autonomous region of Ust-Orda Buryat Okrug.[27]

In the Republic of Ireland the triskelion is displayed in hospitals and care centres to indicate that a patient is dying or has died.[28][29] It is based on the historical use of the triskele in Celtic Ireland and it is used as an alternative to religious imagery. In this context, the three spirals represent the cycle of birth, life and death.[29]

The spiral is used by some polytheistic reconstructionist or neopagan groups. As a "Celtic symbol", it is used primarily by groups with a Celtic cultural orientation and, less frequently, can also be found in use by various eclectic or syncretic traditions such as Neopaganism. The spiral triskele is one of the primary symbols of Celtic Reconstructionist Paganism, used to represent a variety of triplicities in cosmology and theology; it is also a favoured symbol due to its association with Manannán mac Lir, a sea god within Irish mythology.[30]

Other uses of triskelion-like emblems include the logo for the Trisquel Linux distribution and the seal of the United States Department of Transportation.[31]

In the 1960s television programme Star Trek, members of the crew are forced to fight to the death on a triskelion playing surface in the episode The Gamesters of Triskelion.

A specific version of the triskele comprising three sevens has been adopted by neo-Nazis. In South Africa the Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB), an Afrikaner nationalist, neo-Nazi organisation and political party (founded 1973), uses it as its symbol in place of a swastika.[32] The Blood & Honour neo-Nazi group also uses it.[33] The 27th SS Volunteer Division Langemarck's shoulder strap cipher was a triskele (though not involving sevens).[34] Use of the triskele can be a prosecutable offence under German law, depending on the context in which it is used.[34]

Occurrence in nature

The boric acid and triethylborane molecules are triskelion-shaped as seen in the images. The molecular point group of triskelion-shaped molecules is C3h.[35][36] The endocytic protein, clathrin, is triskelion-shaped, as well as the Ediacaran organism Tribrachidium.[37]

See also

References

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  1. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  2. ↑ Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus: a study in ancient religion, Volume 3, Part 2 (1940), p. 1074.
  3. ↑ Officially adopted in 1932, the flag of the Isle of Man derives from the arms of the King of Mann recorded in the 13th century.
  4. ↑ τρισκελής, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
  5. ↑ (τρι- Template:Webarchive, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library)
  6. ↑ (σκέλος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library)
  7. ↑ a b Honore-Theodoric-Paul-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes, Etudes numismatiques sur quelques types relatifs au culte d'Hecate (1835), 83f.
  8. ↑ Johannes Maringer, "Das Triskeles in der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Kunst", Anthropos 74.3/4 (1979), pp. 566-576
  9. ↑ Classical Greek does not have Script error: No such module "Lang"., but the form Script error: No such module "Lang". Template:Gloss is attested as the diminutive of Script error: No such module "Lang". Template:Gloss. The form Script error: No such module "Lang". does exist in Katharevousa, however, as the term for a small three-legged chair or table (and also of the "Rule of Three" in elementary arithmetic or generally of an analogy). Adamantios Korais, Atakta (Modern Greek Dictionary), vol. 5 (1835), p. 54.
  10. ↑ Barclay Vincent Head, A Guide to the Principal Gold and Silver Coins of the Ancients: From Circ. B.C. 700 to A.D. 1, British Museum. Department of Coins and Medals , The Trustees, 1881, pp. 23, 67f.
  11. ↑ English triskelion is recorded in 1880 (etymonline.com); the form triskele in English is occasionally found beginning in c. 1885 (e.g. in Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool 39, 1885, p. 220), presumably as a direct representation of the French form Script error: No such module "Lang"..
  12. ↑ Samuel Birch, Charles Thomas Newton, A Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum vol. 1 (1851), p. 61. Samuel Birch, History of Ancient Pottery vol. 1 (1858), p. 164. Birch's use of triskelos is informed by the Duc de Luynes' triskèle, and it continues to see some use alongside the better-formed triskeles into the 20th century in both English and German, e.g. in a 1932 lecture by C. G. Jung (lecture of 26 October, edited in The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1932. 1996, 43ff.).
  13. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  14. ↑ Anthony Murphy and Richard Moore, Island of the Setting Sun: In Search of Ireland's Ancient Astronomers, 2nd ed., Dublin: The Liffey Press, 2008, pp. 168–169
  15. ↑ Script error: No such module "Citation/CS1".
  16. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  17. ↑ Boston Museum of Fine Arts, illustrated in John Boardman, Jasper Griffin and Oswyn Murray, Greece and the Hellenistic World (Oxford History of the Classical World) vol. I (1988), p. 50.
  18. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  19. ↑ Liddell and Scott's Greek-English Lexicon (A Lexicon Abridged from), Oxford, 1944, p.27, Cassell's Latin Dictionary, Marchant, J.R.V, & Charles, Joseph F., (Eds.), Revised Edition, 1928
  20. ↑ Matthews, Jeff (2005) Symbols of Naples Template:Webarchive
  21. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  22. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  23. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  24. ↑ Charles Norton Elvin, A Dictionary of Heraldry (1889), p. 126.
  25. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  26. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  27. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  28. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  29. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  30. ↑ Bonewits, Isaac (2006) Bonewits's Essential Guide to Druidism. New York, Kensington Publishing Group Template:ISBN. p. 132: [Among Celtic Reconstructionists] "...Script error: No such module "Lang". (the great triple spiral) came into common use to refer to the three realms." Also p. 134: [On CRs] "Using Celtic symbols such as triskeles and spirals"
  31. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  32. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  33. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  34. ↑ a b Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  35. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".
  36. ↑ Template:Housecroft3rd
  37. ↑ Script error: No such module "citation/CS1".

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