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The sun cross, a cross inside a circle, is one of the oldest and most universal religious symbols, and a popular neopagan solar symbol. It is also known as the suncross, solar cross, sun wheel, sunwheel, sun disc

In neopaganism, the terms sun cross and sun wheel are sometimes also used to refer to swastikas, fylfots and Celtic crosses, understood as cognate symbols.

Contents 1 Prehistoric use 2 Contemporary tribal cultures 3 Modern symbolism 3.1 Neopaganism 4 See also 5 References 6 External links

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 cave 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 that of the Samara culture, the crossed-circle symbol appears in such diverse areas as the Pyrenees in Old Europe, the Anatolia, Mesopotamia, the Iranian plateau, and 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 the prehistoric religion of Bronze Age Europe, crosses in circles appear frequently on artefacts identified as cult items, for example the "miniature standard" with an amber inlay that shows a cross shape when held against the light, dating to the Nordic Bronze Age, kept in the National Museum of Denmark, Copenhagen.^[1] The Bronze Age symbol has also been connected with the spoked chariot wheel, which at the time was four-spoked (compare the Linear B ideogram 243 "wheel" 𐃏), a technological innovation that reached Europe in the mid 2nd millennium BC, and which in the context of the Sun chariot may also have had a "solar" connotation.

"wheel pendants", dating to the second half of the 2nd millennium BC, found in Zürich, kept in the Swiss National Museum. Variants include a six-spoked wheel, a central empty circle, and a second circle with twelve spokes surrounding the four-spoked one.

ornamental pins, found in Switzerland, dating to the first half of the 2nd millennium BC, their circular heads are incised with crosses.

A Caddo solar cross, to Southeastern Native Americans a symbol of both the sun and fire.

The sun cross proper most commonly represents the sun, and the four quadrants the four seasonal cycles of the year. In astronomy, a similar astronomical symbol is used to represent the Earth while the symbol for the Sun is a circle with a central dot.

Along with other ancestral symbols, the sun cross is also used as a symbol by Pagans as an attempt at reconstruction of ancient Germanic and Slavic pre-Christian religion and culture.

• Black Sun (occult symbol)
• Solar symbol
• Solar deity
• Celtic cross
• Swastika
• Christian cross
• Ankh
• Lauburu
• Labarum
• Medicine wheel
• Wheel of the Year
• Zierscheibe

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1. ^ entry at the Nebra sky disk exhibition site (landesmuseum-fuer-vorgeschichte-halle.de)

• Celtic Sun Cross Meanings and History.]
• Symbolism of sun cross (symbols.com)