Friday, September 26, 2008

Many Travels of the Swastika

We were talking about swastikas in class thanks to Claire's discussion of reading her girl-power Grandmother's diary (yay for swastika club?!).

Some people mentioned how swastikas were a symbol of peace and power. Here's another weird way a swastika came up in another culture.




This is a Roman encaustic (painted with wax) funerary mask. Some Romans down near Alexandria practiced mummification for a period. There are tons of these nice paintings, so one day I was scrolling through and spotted a swastika on the sleeve of the guy on the left.

Creepy? Kind of.

2 comments:

Nikkie said...

Hey Lauren,

That's really interesting. I think the meaning behind the swastika has something to do with how it's positioned. I think the Nazis changed it somehow when they took it.

Thanks for the link :)

Lauren Burke said...

Yeah, they reversed and tilted it on its point, so it's turning to the left... a sign of evil in many cultures. (According to a recent show on the History channel.)