Sun cross - Definition and Overview

The sun cross or suncross is a traditional religious and neopagan symbol.

It is also known as the solar cross, sun wheel/sunwheel, Odin's cross, and wheel of Taranis.

Both sun cross and sun wheel are sometimes used to describe swastikas and Celtic crosses, which are cognate symbols.

Like the swastika, the sun cross has more recently been co-opted by neo-Nazi and White Power movements.

Design

Its simplest form of the sun cross is a cross inscribed within a circle. This form is often called Odin's cross in North-West Europe.

Several other forms are found:

1. With the arms of the cross extended beyond the perimeter of the circle. The symbol was adopted by Christians, who often extended the lower arm in the manner of a Christian cross, as what is now known as a Celtic cross.
2. With the circle broken on one side of each arm. This form most resembles a swastika and is sometimes called a sunwheel swastika. Like a swastika it can be either sunwise or widdershins – although sunwise (right-facing, as above) is more natural for a sun symbol.
3. With a solid disc.
4. With six or eight arms. An eight-armed sun cross is also called a wheel of the year.
5. With two or three concentric circles. This may not be a genuine sun cross; it's also known as a cross of Atlantis.

Origins

The Neolithic symbol combining cross and circle is the simplest conceivable representation of the union of opposed polarities in the western world. Crossed circles scratched on stones have been recovered from Paleolithic caves sites in the Pyrenees. At the most famous megalithic site in Scotland, Callanish, crossing avenues of standing stones extend from a circle.

Scratched into stone or painted on pottery, as on Samarra ware, the crossed-circle symbol appears from the Pyrenees in Old Europe, throughout Anatolia, Mesopotamia and the Iranian plateau to the cities of Mohenjo-daro and Harappa in the Indus River valley. It may be compared to the yin-yang symbol of the eastern world.

In pagan Europe, the crossed circle became the mark of the Norse god Odin.

Symbolism

The sun cross proper represents the sun and the seasonal cycles of the year.

At midsummer the people rolled burning suncrosses down hills, likely symbolic of the sun's orbit in the sky.

Modern political use

Since the 1960s – because of their association with Christianity, Westernness, and old Aryan traditions – the sun cross and the derived Celtic cross have been co-opted by neo-Nazi and White Power movements. See: the Celtic cross as a political symbol.

Related topis

• Celtic cross
• Swastika