Map of the Whorl

Voided Cross

(And Other Gammadions)
The voided cross is symbol of the Vironese faith. It is a form of a gammadion; worn by augurs. Actually, it is a practical tool used by augurs to maintain the Sacred Windows by which the nine gods of the Whorl communicated with humanity.

Gene Wolfe describes voided cross and gammadions as follows:

"A gammadion is any figure composed of gamma-shaped pieces. The most common gammadions are the swastika and the voided cross. (The swastika is ancient, by the way, and is found in both East Indian and American Indian art.) To make a voided cross, arrange four gammas, not touching, so that the points point toward a common centre."

Swastikas are indeed quite ancient as Wolfe says, and ubiquitous. They are common icon among all Indo-European races (Nordic, Persian, Indian, etc.). They were used in China and Japan, and by South, Central, and North American aboriginal people. All gammadions (the voided cross included) and other swastikas are considered traditional Sun symbols. Also a synonym for swastika is whorl. 


Fibula (technically,
also a gammadion)
Volute or
Ogee
Triskelion,
triskele, or 
Cross, circle, sun's rays (?), and the head's of four ivory-billed woodpeckers (?) arranged to form a Swastika.

Note that the way this voided cross is displayed, it is equivalent to the "Greek cross" --
a Christian symbol. 

The use of the "cross" as a Christian icon and an object of beauty dates only from the late third or early fourth centuries. Prior to that it had not been distanced from its connotations with torture and execution (consider the images evoked by the guillotine and electric chair).  The cross' transformation was probably in concurrence with the alleged discovery of the "true cross" and to Christianity's subsumption of sun worship imagery. 

This corresponds with Silk's dual association with Apollo and with Jesus.
Malachi 4:2 (considered by Jews and Christians to be a Messianic prophecy) does bring to mind the Sun disk of Thebes:

For behold, the day is coming, burning like an oven, and all the proud, yes, all who do wickedly will be stubble. And the day which

is coming shall burn them up,” says the Lord of hosts, “That will leave them neither root nor branch. But to you who fear My name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves. You shall trample the wicked, for they shall be ashes under the soles of your feet on the day that I do this,” says the Lord of hosts.

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