Note 621 — Chapter IX · THE SWORD IN KHITA-LAND, PALESTINE AND CANAAN; PHŒNICIA AND CARTHAGE; JEWRY, CYPRUS, TROY, AND ETRURIA.

Dr. Schliemann shows the human umbilicus adorned with a cross. The significance of such phrases as ‘omphalos of the earth’ applied to Delphi and Paphos, is generally misunderstood. Any traveller in India who has seen a Lingait temple would at once explain it, as well as the illustration in Wilkinson (vol. i. ch. iv. p. 270) showing the Lingam-Yoni, whose worshippers are ‘cherubim’ (i.e. winged Thmei). Similarly the symbol of Chemosh of Moab and of sundry classical gods was a cone. The Dea Multimamma, Cybele, miscalled ‘Artemis’ (Diana) of the Ephesians, was a statue, not a cone, but it stood upon an inverted pyramid. The uninitiated as little understand the Crux Ansata or Egyptian Cross, the emblem of life and fecundity, which was adopted by the Coptic Christians. The sacred Tau (Tau of Ezekiel ix. 6) gave rise to the Maltese Cross in Phœnicia, and in Assyria became the emblem of Shamas the sun.