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The cross is a religious symbol with a Christianity character consisting of two intersecting lines, usually perpendicular to each other. The lines usually run vertically and horizontally. A cross of oblique lines, in the shape of the Latin letter X, is termed a saltire in heraldic terminology.
The cross has been widely officially taken as a official symbol of the Christian religion exclusively from an early period in that religion's history to present. Christianity: an introduction by Alister E. McGrath 2006 pages 321-323 Before then, it was used as a religious or cultural symbol throughout Europe, in West Asia and south Asia (the latter, in the form of the original Swastika); and in Ancient Egypt, where the Ankh was a hieroglyph that represented "life" and was used in the worship of the god Aten. It often appeared in conjunction with the female-genital circle or oval, to signify the sacred marriage, as in Egyptian amulet Nefer with male cross and female orb, considered as an amulet of blessedness, a charm of sexual harmony.
Latin crux referred to the gibbet where criminals were executed, a stake or pole, with or without , on which the condemned were impaled or hanged, but more particularly a cross or the pole of a carriage.Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary: crux The derived verb means "to put to death on the cross" or, more frequently, "to put to the rack, to torture, torment", especially in reference to mental troubles.Lewis and Short, A Latin Dictionary: crucio
In the Roman world, furca replaced crux as the name of some cross-like instruments for lethal and temporary punishment, ranging from a [[forked cross]] to a gibbet or [[gallows]].
The field of etymology is of no help in any effort to trace a supposed original meaning of crux.Gunnar Samuelsson, Crucifixion in Antiquity (Mohr Siebeck 2011), p. 203 A crux can be of various shapes: from a single beam used for impaling or suspending (crux simplex) to the various composite kinds of cross (crux compacta) made from more beams than one. The latter shapes include not only the traditional †-shaped cross (the crux immissa), but also the T-shaped cross (the crux commissa or tau cross), which the descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross indicate as the normal form in use at that time, and the X-shaped cross (the crux decussata or saltire).
The Greek equivalent of Latin crux "stake, gibbet" is , found in texts of four centuries or more before the gospels and always in the plural number to indicate a stake or pole. From the first century BC, it is used to indicate an instrument used in executions. The Greek word is used in descriptions in antiquity of the execution cross, which indicate that its normal shape was similar to the Greek letter tau (Τ).
Speculation has associated the cross symbol – even in the prehistoric period – with astronomical or cosmological symbology involving "four elements" (Chevalier, 1997) or the cardinal points, or the unity of a vertical axis mundi or celestial pole with the horizontal world (Koch, 1955). Speculation of this kind became especially popular in the mid- to late-19th century in the context of comparative mythology seeking to tie Christian mythology to ancient cosmological myths. Influential works in this vein included G. de Mortillet (1866),G. de Mortillet, "Le signe de la croix avant le christianisme", Paris, 1866 L. Müller (1865),L. Müller, "Ueber Sterne, Kreuze und Kränze als religiöse Symbole der alten Kulturvölker", Copenhagen, 1865 W. W. Blake (1888),W. W. Blake, "The Cross, Ancient and Modern" New York, 1888 Ansault (1891),Ansault, "Mémoire sur le culte de la croix avant Jésus-Christ", Paris, 1891. etc.
In the European Bronze Age the cross symbol appeared to carry a religious meaning, perhaps as a symbol of consecration, especially pertaining to burial."In the bronze age we meet in different parts of Europe a more accurate representation of the cross, as conceived in Christian art, and in this shape it was soon widely diffused. This more precise characterization coincides with a corresponding general change in customs and beliefs. The cross is now met with, in various forms, on many objects: fibulas, cinctures, earthenware fragments, and on the bottom of drinking vessels. De Mortillet is of opinion that such use of the sign was not merely ornamental, but rather a symbol of consecration, especially in the case of objects pertaining to burial. In the proto-Etruscan cemetery of Golasecca every tomb has a vase with a cross engraved on it. True crosses of more or less artistic design have been found in Tiryns, at Mycenæ, in Crete, and on a fibula from Vulci." O. Marucchi, "Archæology of the Cross and Crucifix", Catholic Encyclopedia (1908).
The cross sign occurs trivially in tally marks, and develops into a number symbol independently in the Roman numerals (X "ten"), the Chinese Counting rods (十 "ten") and the Brahmi numerals ("four", whence the numeral 4).
In the Phoenician alphabet and Semitic abjad, the cross symbol represented the phoneme /t/, i.e. the letter taw, which is the historical predecessor of Latin T. The letter name taw means "mark", presumably continuing the Egyptian hieroglyph "two crossed sticks" (Gardiner Z9).
While early Christians used the T-shape to represent the cross in writing and gesture, the use of the Greek cross and Latin cross, i.e. crosses with intersecting beams, appears in Christian art towards the end of Late Antiquity. An early example of the cruciform halo, used to identify Christ in paintings, is found in the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes mosaic of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, Ravenna (6th century). The Patriarchal cross, a Latin cross with an additional horizontal bar, first appears in the 10th century. A wide variation of cross symbols is introduced for the purposes of heraldry beginning in the age of the Crusades.William Wood Seymour, "The Cross in Heraldry", The Cross in Tradition, History, and Art (1898).
Egyptian hieroglyphs involving cross shapes include ankh "life", ndj "protect" and Nefer "good; pleasant, beautiful".
Sumerian cuneiform had a simple cross-shaped character, consisting of a horizontal and a vertical wedge (𒈦), read as maš "tax, yield, interest"; the superposition of two diagonal wedges results in a decussate cross (𒉽), read as pap "first, pre-eminent" (the superposition of these two types of crosses results in the eight-pointed star used as the sign for "sky" or "deity" (𒀭), DINGIR). The cuneiform script has other, more complex, cruciform characters, consisting of an arrangement of boxes or the fourfold arrangement of other characters, including the archaic cuneiform characters LAK-210, LAK-276, LAK-278, LAK-617 and the classical sign EZEN (𒂡).An example of a cruciform arrangement of a character that is itself cruciform is the ligature "EZEN x KASKAL squared", encoded by Unicode at U+120AD (𒂭).
Phoenician tāw is still cross-shaped in Paleo-Hebrew alphabet and in some Old Italic scripts (Raetic and Lepontic), and its descendant T becomes again cross-shaped in the Latin Lower case t. The plus sign (+) is derived from Latin t via a simplification of a ligature for et "and" (introduced by Johannes Widmann in the late 15th century).
The letter Aleph is cross-shaped in Aramaic script and paleo-Hebrew.
Egyptian hieroglyphs with cross-shapes include Gardiner Z9 – Z11 ("crossed sticks", "crossed planks").
Other, unrelated cross-shaped letters include Brahmi ka (predecessor of the Devanagari letter क) and Old Turkic (Orkhon) d² and Old Hungarian b, and Katakana ナ na and メ me.
The multiplication sign (×), often attributed to William Oughtred (who first used it in an appendix to the 1618 edition of John Napier's Descriptio) apparently had been in occasional use since the mid 16th century.Florian Cajori, A History of Mathematical Notations. Dover Books on Mathematics (1929), 251f.
Other typographical symbols resembling crosses include the dagger or obelus (†), the Chinese numerals (, Kangxi radical 24) and Roman numerals (X ten).
Unicode has a variety of cross symbols in the "Dingbat" block (U+2700–U+27BF):
The Miscellaneous Symbols block (U+2626 to U+262F) adds three specific Christian cross variants, viz. the Patriarchal cross (☦), Cross of Lorraine (☨) and Cross potent (☩, mistakenly labeled a "Cross of Jerusalem").
| +Crosses as emblems and symbols | ||
| Ankh | The ankh or crux ansata, an Egyptian hieroglyph representing "life". | |
| Basque cross | The Basque cross or lauburu. | |
| the Sun cross | The "sun cross" or "wheel cross" appears with some regularity in prehistoric European artefacts, usually interpreted as a solar symbol, perhaps representing the spoked wheel of the Sun chariot. | |
| Swastika | The swastika or crux gammata (in heraldry fylfot), historically used as a symbol in Buddhism, Jainism and Hinduism, and widely popular in the early 20th century as a symbol of good luck or prosperity before adopted as a symbol of Nazism in the 1920s and 30s. |
| Crossed keys | Symbol of the Papacy used in various emblems representing the keys to heaven. | |
| Crossed swords | The crossed swords symbol (⚔ at Unicode U+2694) is used to represent battlegrounds on maps. It is also used to show that person died in battle or that a war machine was lost in action. Two crossed swords also look like a Christian cross and the mixed symbolism has been used in military decorations. It is also a popular way to display swords on a wall often with a shield in the center | |
| Four-leaf clover | Used as a symbol for luck as well as a stand in for a cross in various works. | |
| Skull and crossbones | Traditionally used to mark Spanish cemeteries; the symbol evolved to represent death/danger, poison, and pirates. |
Crossing the index fingers of both hands represents and a charm against evil in European folklore. Other gestures involving more than one hand include the "cross my heart" movement associated with making a promise and the Tau shape of the referee's "time out" hand signal.
Crossed index fingers represent the number 10 () in Chinese number gestures.
| U+271A |
| U+2720 |
| U+2671 |
| U+2670 |
| U+2628 |
| U+2629 |
| U+271F |
| U+271E |
| U+271D |
| U+2020 |
| U+271B |
| U+2719 |
| U+2718 |
| U+271C |
| U+2716 |
| U+274C |
| U+2717 |
| U+2722 |
| U+2724 |
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