over a large, upright eight-spoked wheel with a milled edge.^29 On certain early
coins from Latium and Campania we find the device of a six- or eight-spoked
wheel alternating with the solar disc or with the radiate head of the per-
sonified Sun.^30 Model wheels, whether ritually significant or for personal
ornament, are common in Romano-Celtic Europe, and some of them have
clearly solar decoration or are associated with lunar crescents.^31
Another very widespread artistic motif, especially in Iron Age Europe, is the
swastika. This seems to be a variant of the spoked wheel, giving a clearer
suggestion of rotary movement, and again its religious and specifically solar
significance is often contextually apparent.^32
The solar steed(s)The solar wheel must be travelling at some speed, as it traverses the whole
earth within a day. The idea that it is drawn by a horse became current at an
early date.
úd u ̄ eti prasavita ́ ̄ jána ̄na ̄m, | maha ̄n ketúr arn ́
̇
aváh
̇
Su ̄ ́riyasya,
sama ̄nám
̇cakrám pariya ̄vívr
̇tsan | yád Etas ́ó váhati dhu ̄rs
̇ú yuktáh
̇.
Up goes the arouser of peoples, the great waving banner of Su ̄rya,
to set rolling forward the common Wheel that Etas ́a conveys, yoked in harness.
(RV 7. 63. 2)Etas ́a ‘Swift’ is often mentioned as the steed who draws the sun or the Sun’s
wheel.^33 Dawn is said to bring with her the eye of the gods and to guide the
fair white horse (7. 77. 3).
Among the many rock carvings from Scandinavia, dating from between
1500 and 400 , are a number depicting a horse or a pair of horses pulling
a wheel or disc. One from Kalleby in Bohuslän, Sweden, shows a horse pulling
a large four-spoked wheel and hovering over a longship.^34 Another from
Balken in the same region shows a horse with a band running back from its
head to a disc that flies above its back. Further designs of a horse pulling the
sun, here represented by concentric and/or radiate circles, appear on several
(^29) David Stronach, Pasargadae (Oxford 1978), 178 f. and pl. 162a.
(^30) Pettazzoni (1956), 167; cf. 197 (Hallstatt culture), 240.
(^31) M. Green (1986), 46 f. Cf. the same author’s study, The Wheel as a Cult Symbol in the
Romano-Celtic World (Brussels 1984).
(^32) Cf. de Vries (1956), i. 139 f.; M. Green (1986), 55 f.; (1991), 46–8.
(^33) RV 1. 121. 13; 4. 17. 14; 5. 31. 11; 7. 66. 14; 8. 1. 11; 9. 63. 8; cf. 1. 61. 15; 4. 30. 6; 5. 81. 3;
Macdonell (1898), 149 f.; Hillebrandt (1927–9), ii. 161–4.
(^34) Glob (1974), 103, 151 fig. 61; M. Green (1991), 78, 79 fig. 61.
- Sun and Daughter 203