Triskelion

This article is about shapes with three-fold rotational symmetry. For other uses, see Triskelion (disambiguation).
Neolithic triple-spiral symbol
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A triskelion or triskeles is an ancient motif consisting either of a triple spiral exhibiting rotational symmetry or of other patterns in triplicate that emanate from a common center. The spiral design can be based on interlocking Archimedean spirals, or represent three bent human limbs. It occurs in artifacts of the European Neolithic and Bronze Ages with continuation into the Iron Age – especially in the context of the La Tène culture[1] and of related Celtic traditions. The actual triskeles symbol of three human legs is found especially in Greek antiquity, beginning in archaic pottery and continued in coinage of the classical period.

In the Hellenistic period, the symbol became associated with the island of Sicily, appearing on coins minted under Dionysius I of Syracuse beginning in c. 382 BCE.[2] It later appears in heraldry, and, other than in the flag of Sicily, came into use in the arms and flags of the Isle of Man (known in Manx as ny tree cassyn 'the three legs').[3]

Greek τρισκελής (triskelḗs) means 'three-legged'[4] from τρι- (tri-), 'three times'[5] and σκέλος (skelos), 'leg'.[6] While the Greek adjective τρισκελής 'three-legged' (e.g. of a table) is ancient, use of the term for the symbol is modern, introduced in 1835 by Honoré Théodoric d'Albert de Luynes as French triskèle,[7] and adopted in the spelling triskeles following Otto Olshausen (1886).[8] The form triskelion (as it were Greek τρισκέλιον[9]) is a diminutive which entered English usage in numismatics in the late-19th century.[10][11] The form consisting of three human legs (as opposed to the triple spiral) has also been called a "triquetra of legs", also triskelos or triskel.[12]

  1. ^ Harding, D.W. (2007). The Archaeology of Celtic Art. Taylor & Francis. p. 15.
  2. ^ Arthur Bernard Cook, Zeus: a study in ancient religion, Volume 3, Part 2 (1940), p. 1074.
  3. ^ Officially adopted in 1932, the flag of the Isle of Man derives from the arms of the King of Mann recorded in the 13th century.
  4. ^ τρισκελής, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library
  5. ^ (τρι- Archived 2012-10-04 at the Wayback Machine, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library)
  6. ^ (σκέλος, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, A Greek–English Lexicon, on Perseus Digital Library)
  7. ^ Honore-Theodoric-Paul-Joseph d'Albert de Luynes, Etudes numismatiques sur quelques types relatifs au culte d'Hecate (1835), 83f.
  8. ^ Johannes Maringer, "Das Triskeles in der vor- und frühgeschichtlichen Kunst", Anthropos 74.3/4 (1979), pp. 566-576
  9. ^ Classical Greek does not have *τρισκέλιον, but the form τρισκελίδιον 'small tripod' is attested as the diminutive of τρισκελίς 'three-pronged'. The form τρισκέλιον does exist in Katharevousa, however, as the term for a small three-legged chair or table (and also of the "Rule of Three" in elementary arithmetic or generally of an analogy). Adamantios Korais, Atakta (Modern Greek Dictionary), vol. 5 (1835), p. 54.
  10. ^ Barclay Vincent Head, A Guide to the Principal Gold and Silver Coins of the Ancients: From Circ. B.C. 700 to A.D. 1, British Museum. Department of Coins and Medals , The Trustees, 1881, pp. 23, 67f.
  11. ^ English triskelion is recorded in 1880 (etymonline.com); the form triskele in English is occasionally found beginning in c. 1885 (e.g. in Proceedings of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Liverpool 39, 1885, p. 220), presumably as a direct representation of the French form triskèle.
  12. ^ Samuel Birch, Charles Thomas Newton, A Catalogue of the Greek and Etruscan Vases in the British Museum vol. 1 (1851), p. 61. Samuel Birch, History of Ancient Pottery vol. 1 (1858), p. 164. Birch's use of triskelos is informed by the Duc de Luynes' triskèle, and it continues to see some use alongside the better-formed triskeles into the 20th century in both English and German, e.g. in a 1932 lecture by C. G. Jung (lecture of 26 October, edited in The Psychology of Kundalini Yoga: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1932. 1996, 43ff.).