The Swastika: The Earliest Known Symbol & its Migrations
Dispersion of the Swastika
Page 73
east end of Fains Island.
It was 10 feet in height and about 100 feet in circumference at the base.
In the bed of clay 4 feet beneath the surface were found the remains of
32 human skeletons; of these, only 17 skulls could be preserved. There
had been no regularity in placing the bodies.
The peculiar form of this Swastika is duplicated by a Runic Swastika in Sweden, cited by Ludwig Müller and by Count d'Alviella. (1)
The following objects were found in
the mound on Fains Island associated with the Swastika shell (fig. 237)
and described, and many of them figured: (2) A gorget of the same Fulgur shell with an engraved spider (figure
278); a pottery vase with a figure of a frog; three rude axes from
four to seven inches in length, or diorite and quartzite; a pierced tablet
of slate; a disk of translucent quartz 1 3/4 inches in diameter and three-quarters
of an inch in thickness; a mass of pottery,much of it in fragments, and
a number of bone implements, including needles and paddle-shaped objects.
The shell objects (in addition to the disks and 
gorgets
mentioned) were pins made from the columellæ of Fulgur (Busycon
percersum?) of the usual form and about four inches in length. There
were also found shell beads, cylindrical in form, an inch in length and
upward of an inch in diameter, with other beads of various sizes and shapes
made from marine shells, and natural specimens of Io spinosa, Unio
probatus.
The specimen represented in fig. 238 is a small shell from the Big Toco mound, Monroe County, Tenn., found by Mr. Emmert with skeleton No. 49 and is fig. 262, Twelfth Annual Report of the Bureau of Ethnology, 1890-91, page 383, although it is not described. This is a circular disk of Fulgur
ENDNOTES:
1. Proc. royal Danis Acad. Sci., 5th ser., III, p. 94, fig. a; "La Migration des Symboles," p. 50, fig. 16 [Back]
2. Third Ann. Rep. Bureau of Ethnology, 1881-82, p. 464 et seq., figs. 139-141. Back