associated especially with the tin mines worked by the ancient Phænicians.

["The boundary of each tin mine in Cornwall is marked by a long pole with a bush on the top of it. These on St. John's Day are crowned with flowers. It is usual at Penzance to light fires on this occasion and dance and sing around them.1

"Still to this age the hills around Mount's Bay are lighted at Midsummer eve with the bonfire, and still the descendants of the old Dunmonii wave the torch around their heads after the old, old rite." And similarly in Devon, etc., etc.]

The Stone Circles, which we have seen to be early Phoenician, also appear to have been especial sites of these Bel-Fire rites, and for the production of the sacred Fire." And we have seen that these rites were latterly held within a circle cut on the turf, which suggests that the Stone Circles were thus used as Sun temples. And we have found that the "Cup-mark" inscriptions on circles and their neighbourhood are prayers of the Sun-cult.

Altogether, the Phoenician origin and introduction of the Bel-Fire rites into Britain, as part of the old "Sunworship," thus appears to be clearly established.

The Sun-wise direction of walking around a sacred or venerated person or object in the direction of the hands of a clock or watch, in the direction of the Sun's apparent movement in northern latitudes, from east to west, is admittedly part of the "Sun-worship" ritual. It is inculcated in the old Aryan Vedic hymns and epics for respect and good luck and is called "The Right Way" or "Righthanded Way" (pra-) Daxina, the " Deasil" or "Right-hand Way" of the Scots, who call the opposite direction "Withersins "or" Contrary to the Sun," which is considered unlucky. This sun-wise direction is that in which the votaries are usually figured walking on the old Sumerian sacred seals in approaching the enthroned "Sun-god"; and it is the direction in which all Indo-Aryan votaries approached and passed

2 L.H.P., 15.

3 H.F.F., 44, etc., 347, etc.

H.F.F., 347. For Circles at Stennis, Merry Maidens, etc., L.S., 191, etc.; and D. MacRitchie, 7 estimony of 1radition.

'Or Dessil, in Gaelic Deesoil, Deisheal, J.S.D., 150. The root of these words is Da, "the right hand" in Sumerian.

SUN-WISE DIRECTION IN EARLY BRITAIN

283

Buddha, and in which Buddhists and Hindus still pass their sacred monuments, as opposed to the disrespectful and unlucky way of the devil-worshippers in the contrary direction. This Sun-wise direction and its solar meaning as "The Right Way" were commonly practised and wellrecognized formerly in England, as evidenced by Spenser in his Faery Queen, when he makes the false Duessa in her enmity to the Red Cross Knight and Fairy Queen emphasize her curse by walking round in the opposite direction :

"That say'd, her round about she from her turn'd,
She turn'd her contrary to the Sunne,

Thrice she her turn'd contrary, and return'd,
All contrary for she the Right did shunne."

It is still practised in Britain in masonic ritual and by superstitious country folk in walking round sacred stones and sacred walls supposed to possess lucky or curative magical virtues. It is the "lucky way" of passing wine at table. And it is the direction adopted by the Sumerians and all Aryans and Aryanized people for their writing, as opposed to the Semitic or Lunar style, in the reversed or retrograde left-handed direction.

This Sun-wise or "Right Way" was the direction in which the Fire was carried and the circumambulation made in the Bel-Fire ceremonies.

[Thus, in recording the practice of this "Dessil" in the Hebrides, Martin states "there was an antient custom to make a fiery circle about the houses, corn, cattle, etc., belonging to each particular family. A man carried fire in his right hand, and went round, and it was called Dessil from the right hand, which is called Dess." And he adds that Dessil is " proceeding sun-ways from East to West."]

Solar symbols in Ancient Britain are also especially profuse and widespread on the pre-Roman Briton coins, pre-Christian monuments and caves, although they have not hitherto been recognized as of solar import. On Early Briton coins the very numerous circles (often arranged in

'H.F.F., 175.

groups like cup-marks) sometimes concentric and rayed, along with wheels and crosses, spirals, crosses, spirals, single-horse sometimes with horseman, hawk or eagle, goose, winged disc, etc. (see Fig. 44), now disclosed to be purely solar symbols, have not hitherto been recognized as such, but are described by numismatists merely as "ring ornaments, annules, pellets or rosettes of pellets" and the rayed discs as "stars," and regarded apparently as being merely decorative devices, and without symbolic meaning. And the horse and horseman type, although invariably represented single, and not in competition nor with chariots, are fancied to be horse and chariot racing in Olympian games borrowed from Macedonian coinage, notwithstanding that the latter is devoid of the Briton associated solar symbols.

The circle symbol for the Sun's disc was early used by the Sumerians, as we have seen, in their cup-mark script, and it is one of the common ways of representing the Sun in the Sumerian and Hitto-Phoenician seals. In these seals the Sun is also represented by the dual and concentric circle, rayed circle, petalled and rosetted circles, spirals and swastikas, precisely as we find it figured in all these conventional ways in the Early British coins."

The equivalence and interchange of these various conventional ways of representing the Sun are well seen in the series of Briton coins here figured (Fig. 44).

It will be noticed that the Sun above the Sun-horse is figured as a simple disc or the dual Sun-disc (corresponding to cups") in b, rayed in a, rosetted as circles around a central one in c, as a wheel with 2 concentric circles and spirals in d, as circled disc with reversed or returning swastika feet and concentric circle with spirals in e, and as Sun-hawk with the dual Sun-disc in f. In g and i the upper Sun symbol is 8-petalled, rayed, and the horse tied to one of the Sun-discs and in i the horse is reversed with the "returning" Sun; whilst in h the single Sun-disc is borne by the Sun Eagle or Hawk with head duplicated to picture the "returning" Sun. In c, moreover, is seen the legend Aesv,

1

E.B.C., 46 and 58, etc., passim; and numismatic works generally. 2 See Sumerian and Hitto-Phoenician originals in D.C.O.; W.S.C., etc.

SUN SYMBOLS ON EARLY BRITON COINS 285

spelt in other mintages Asvp, etc.1 which significantly is the Vedic Sanskrit name for the Sun-horse, now found to be derived from the Sumerian word for "horse." No more

(After Evans)

Note varied forms of Sun's Disc above horse, as circle, rayed, wheel, spiral, swastika, winged Disc. Also Cross in a, Horse tied to Sun in g and i and the legend Aesu, the Vedic name for Sun-Horse. And in a the Sun-horse leaps over the Gate of Sunset, as in Hittite Seals, see Fig. 37.

complete evidence, therefore, could be forthcoming for the solar character and Hitto-Sumerian origin of these emblems

2

Asvp, Eciv, Eisw, see E.B.C., 385-6, 389, 410, and C.B.G., 1, lxxxix. Sumerian Ansu (or AS?)," a horse," Akkad Sisй, Br., 4986, and Pinches Signatures, 5, col. 3, where it means "ass."

E.B.C., Plates: a, Pl. 411; b, 5, 14; c, 15, 8; d, 14, 3; e, 14, I; f, 14, 6; g, E., 2; h-i, E., 4.

on the Ancient Briton coins. The interchangeability of the Sun's vehicle seen in the British coins, etc., as Horse (Asvin), Deer (or Goat), Goose, and Hawk or Falcon is voiced in the Vedas, and often in dual form :

"O Asvin (Horse) like a pair of Deer

Fly hither like Geese unto the mead we offer

With the fleetness of the Falcon."-R.V. 5, 78, 2-4.

The Deer, Goat and Goose, symbols associated with the Sun by Hitto-Sumerians and Phoenicians, and on Briton coins, etc., are seen in next chapter.

This solar character of these devices on the Early Briton coins is still further seen in the specimens in Fig. 67. p. 349. The Sun is borne on the shoulders of the Eagle or Hawk, which in the third transfixes with its claws the Serpent of the Waters or Death. In the second the winged horse is tied to the Sun and is passing over the 3 "cup-marks" of "Earth" (or Death). And on its obverse is the legend Tascia, the name of the Hitto-Sumerian archangel of the Sun, as we found in the cup-mark inscriptions in Britain and in the Hitto-Sumerian seals and amulets from Troy; and in the name of the Sun-temple in Jerusalem. It is a very common name on the Briton coins, as we shall This name "Tascia" thus connects the Briton coins and Cup-marks directly with the Hitto-Sumerian seals and the amulets of Troy.

see.

The Sun-Horse, figured so freely on the Briton coins, does not appear on Early Sumerian or Hittite seals, where its place is taken by the Sun-Hawk or Eagle. But it appears later and on Phoenician coins1 and on the Greco-Phoenician coins of Cilicia from about 500 B.C. (see Figs. later), and on archaic seals from Hittite Cappadocia. This horse is presumably the basis of Thor's horse (or Odinn's) of the Goths and Ancient Britons-on which Father Thor himself as Jupiter Tonans, The Thunderer, with his bolts, latterly rode, and he is so figured riding on early Briton monuments.

For the galloping horse on Phoenician coins of Carthage and Sicily, sometimes with Angel and Ear of Barley, see Duruy, Hist. Romaine, 1, 142, etc., and P.A.P., 1, 374.

2 C.M.C., Figs. 141, 148.