Talk:Swastika

Direction of movement, Vinča & modern use

"The investigators put forth the hypothesis that the swastika moved westward from the Indian subcontinent to Finland, Scandinavia, the Scottish Highlands and other parts of Europe."

This is backwards to the apparent dates of the inscriptions found e.g. it appears in Ukraine ~10,000bce, then Hungary/Romania/Bulgaria/Serbia ~3,000 to 6,000bce, then Iran ~5,000bce, then the Indian subcontinent ~3,000bce, indicating it was moving Eastward. The introduction of the article also suggests appropriation of the symbol from the East, despite the archaeological evidence suggesting the opposite.

The article should probably discuss the Vinča archeological finds more in the prehistory section. It's worth noting that archaeological surveys unearthed Vinča symbols around the end of the 1800s and start of the last century. It was in use as a flag emblem by the National Christian Union party, led by Alexandru Cuza, in Romania, in 1922. 14 years prior, Vinča archaeological finds had been made in Serbia. Evidence suggesting that it was selected as an emblem as a result of its presence in the archeological finds can be found in the article pertaining to Cuza himself; e.g. Cuza mentions the Swastika and "signs were found on our soil", an apparent reference to the Vinča archaeological finds. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.0.56.5016:40, 1 May 2024 (talk)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 February 2025

I would like to attach an image of a swastika pattern on tile flooring. Hearty005 (talk) 03:17, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Not done for now: feel free to upload it to Wikimedia as long as you follow WP:Image Use Policy. Then link to it here and reopen the request then Cannolis (talk) 05:50, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

As this article is already heavily overloaded with images, the test set out in policy MOS:IMAGEREL is especially relevant. So your image would have to be more appropriate to illustrate content in the article than an image already in use, which it would replace. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 11:54, 14 February 2025 (UTC)

Incorrect history

Wikipedia contingency give false history on the swastika a Sanskrit word and as a scholar in both Buddhism and German history let me tell you the Third Reich never used the word swastika 73.77.57.20 (talk) 20:06, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Yes, that's what the article already says. It was the East India Company or the British Raj that took the word into English from Sanskrit, at least 150 years ago. There is no false history: the Nazis, speaking in German, called it a hakencreuz. The anglophone countries, speaking in English, called it a swastika. This is the English language wikipedia, so we use the English word (and not the German word). See the Frequently Asked Questions at the top of the page. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:57, 8 March 2025 (UTC)

Froxmere's fylfot

@JMF Could you please outline why you have removed very obviously relevant material about Froxmere's swastika and its 19th-, 20th-, and 21st-century interpretations? The design is clearly a swastika, and the fact that it is called a "fylfot" has, as you know, important historical ramifications, whatever was actually meant by the term in the 15th century. The idea that it represents interlocking set squares is not a 19th-century idea, but one put forward by a 20th-century historian. The wisest fool in Christendom (talk) 19:33, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

Because, as the Fylfot article explains, it is not and never was, any kind of sign, sigil, or heraldic device. The whole theory was based on a misreading of fragment of manuscript that was just an instruction to the glazier to fill the foot of the pane of glass with the repeating Greek motif which, taken in isolation (which it never is), looks like a swastika. As Bradley (Clarendon Press) concludes "I am afraid this ludicrously simple explanation will not be altogether welcome to some archaeologists, who have been accustomed to regard the word as a venerable relic of Teutonic antiquity. But if my interpretation be correct, it only adds one more to the large number of instances in which technical terms of modern archaeology have been evolved out of misunderstanding". It is thus WP:UNDUE and WP:FRINGE in this over-length article. Froxmere is not a reliable source: WP:AGEMATTERS. 𝕁𝕄𝔽 (talk) 20:44, 19 March 2025 (UTC)

References