A new discovery shows that the ancient swastika was a tool used for 
braiding, spinning and twisting. http://rexcurry.net/swastika-braiding.html

References to additional historical support would be greatly appreciated.

Ancient pictorial evidence shows the swastika symbol on tools related to 
braiding, spinning and twisting. The symbol served as a visual instruction 
for the direction of spin, and also served as a visual cue for reaching and 
maintaining the optimum speed of spin while the symbol revolved. The 
swastika was also a crude effort at 3-dimensional art to show the mechanics 
of braiding, weaving and the creation of fabric or textiles. The squared 
swastika is also an easy artful design to hand-weave into fabric, as was 
done in history, and it is a design that lends itself to linking, chaining 
and other repetition. In another use, the swastika had individual yarns or 
strands threaded through the hooks of the swastika and the tool would be 
spun upon an axis (extending from the center) and used to twist and braid. 
Some ancient swastika symbols even have dots within each hook of the symbol 
in order to illustrate the tool's use. 
http://rexcurry.net/swastika-braid-hindu.jpg

The research helps to explain why the swastika is also known as the 
"hakenkreuz" or "hooked cross." The arms of the symbol really were "hooks" 
that held fibers. Crosses were also used as spinning and braiding tools 
before the hook innovation was added to the cross.

Similar principles apply to modern hair braid tools that hold four strands 
of hair in spinning hooks around a rotating center piece that uses an 
electric motor.


Many modern myths about swastikas are based on the false belief that Nazis 
called their symbol a "swastika." The National Socialist German Workers' 
Party called its symbol a "Hakenkreuz." The "swastika myth" continues to be 
repeated in efforts to cover-up new discoveries, including Dr. Curry's 
discovery that German National Socialists altered their symbol and sometimes 
used it as alphabetic symbolism, such as to represent overlapping "S" 
letters for their "socialism."

The Anthropologist Heinrich Schliemann helped to popularize the swastika 
when he wrote about finding the symbol in his excavations of the site of 
Homer's Troy on the shores of the Dardanelles from 1871 to 1875. Many of 
those examples of swastikas appeared on spinning whorls or drop spindles. 
Those and other examples of swastikas on spinning tools were also covered by 
Thomas Wilson in his book "Swastika the earliest known symbol and its 
migrations" published in 1894. The symbol became known in France, Germany, 
Britain, Scandinavia, China, Japan, India and the United States. Navajo 
blankets were woven with swastikas as artful designs.

The new discoveries explain those "migrations" or provide an independent 
basis for discovery, in that the swastika would have migrated with the art 
of spinning and braiding or would have been independently discovered through 
the development of those arts.

More information is at http://rexcurry.net/swastika-braiding.html