page_title: Cross
section_title: Pre-Christian
hierarchical_section_title: Cross / History / Pre-Christian
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Raedchenanhaenger, Zuerich, ca. 1550-1000 v. Chr. (Urnenfeldkultur) Schweiz. Landesmuseum. English: "Wheel pendants", dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, found in Zürich, kept in the Swiss National Museum. Basic "sunwheel" design (cross in circle); variants of this include a six-spoked wheel, a central empty circle, and a second circle with twelve spokes surrounding the four-spoked one.
context_page_description: A cross is a geometrical figure consisting of two intersecting lines or bars, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally.
  A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is also termed a saltire in heraldic terminology.
  Throughout centuries the cross in its various shapes and forms was a symbol of various beliefs. In pre-Christian times it was a pagan religious symbol throughout Europe and western Asia. In ancient times, the effigy of a man hanging on a cross was set up in the fields to protect the crops. The cross was even considered a male symbol of the phallic Tree of Life; thus it often appeared in conjunction with the female-genital circle or oval, to signify the sacred marriage, as in Egyptian amulet Nefer with male cross and female orb, considered as an amulet of blessedness, a charm of sexual harmony.
context_section_description: Due to the simplicity of the design (two intersecting lines), cross-shaped incisions make their appearance from deep prehistory; as petroglyphs in European cult caves, dating back to the beginning of the Upper Paleolithic, and throughout prehistory to the Iron Age.
  Also of prehistoric age are numerous variants of the simple cross mark, including the crux gammata with curving or angular lines, and the Egyptian crux ansata with a loop.
  Speculation has associated the cross symbol – even in the prehistoric period – with astronomical or cosmological symbology involving 
  "four elements" (Chevalier, 1997) or the cardinal points, or the unity of a vertical axis mundi or celestial pole with the horizontal world (Koch, 1955). Speculation of this kind became especially popular in the mid- to late-19th century in the context of comparative mythology seeking to tie Christian mythology to ancient cosmological myths. Influential works in this vein included 
  G. de Mortillet (1866), L. Müller (1865), W. W. Blake (1888), Ansault (1891), etc.
  In the European Bronze Age the cross symbol appeared to carry a religious meaning, perhaps as a symbol of consecration, especially pertaining to burial.
  The cross sign occurs trivially in tally marks, and develops into a number symbol independently in the Roman numerals (X "ten"), the Chinese rod numerals (十 "ten") and the Brahmi numerals ("four", whence the numeral 4).
  In the Phoenician alphabet and derived scripts, the cross symbol represented the phoneme /t/, i.e. the letter taw, which is the historical predecessor of Latin T. The letter name taw means "mark", presumably continuing the Egyptian hieroglyph  "two crossed sticks" (Gardiner Z9).
  According to W. E. Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, worshippers of Tammuz in Chaldea and thereabouts used the cross as symbol of that god.
caption: Bronze Age "wheel pendants" in the shape of the "sun cross" (Urnfield culture, 2nd millennium BC).
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