Last week I published a conversation concerning the difference in meaning and function of the spiritual Swastika and the Nazi Hakenkreuz. In the days that followed I corresponded with David Carballal, a graphic designer and design curator who lives in Galicia, the province at the Northern tip of the Spanish peninsula. He offered the following contribution to the diaspora of the symbol in the form of prehistoric images carved into stone—and added more mystery to the origin and meaning(s) thereof. “I remembered this book on Galician Petroglyphs that shows a Swastika and several variations found here in Galicia,” he detailed. “The designs of the petroglyphs are repeated in infinite variations, as you know, but this one carved in a stone called ‘Portela da Laxe’ or ‘Laxe de Viascón’ is the only one they’ve found in Galicia so far. It is dated 2000–3000 BC.”
Called esvástica or cruz gamada, “these symbols are [made] by pre-Roman people, so their meanings and possible original names remain lost.” Yet the shape is the same as the familiar contemporary image:
Experts have written that other types of figures exist in Galicia’s rock art that express a specific personality and function: figurative motifs, such as deer, horses, weapons and humans are among the most frequently found, as well as circular geometric motifs in the so-called Atlantic Style Galician Rock Art. Historical evidence shows there were a variety of cross or Swastika shapes that defined different Galician regions, but definitive meaning has not been ascribed to them. Hitler, who claimed to have created the Nazi party emblem from whole cloth, was just one of many across millennia who declared the form of the Swastika their own.
Photo: Pablo Compostele