From its simplicity of form, the cross has been used both as a religious symbol and as an ornament, from the dawn of man's civilization. Various objects, dating from periods long anterior to the Christian era, have been found, marked with crosses of different designs, in almost every part of the old world. India, Syria, Persia and Egypt have all yielded numberless examples, while numerous instances, dating from the later Stone Age to Christian times, have been found in nearly every part of Europe. The use of the cross as a religious symbol in pre-Christian times, and among non-Christian peoples, may probably be regarded as almost universal, and in very many cases it was connected with some form of nature worship. Two of the forms of the pre-Christian cross which are perhaps most frequently met with are the tau cross, so named from its resemblance to the Greek capital letter [Tau], and the _svastika_ or _fylfot_[2] [svastika], also called "_Gammadion_" owing to its form being that of four Greek capital letters _gamma_ [Gamma] placed together. The tau cross is a common Egyptian device, and is indeed often called the Egyptian cross. The _svastika_ has a very wide range of distribution, and is found on all kinds of objects. It was used as a religious emblem in India and China at least ten centuries before the Christian era, and is met with on Buddhist coins and inscriptions from various parts of India. A fine sepulchral urn found at Shropham in Norfolk, and now in the British Museum, has three bands of cruciform ornaments round it. The two uppermost of these are plain circles, each of which contains a plain cross; the lowest band is formed of a series of squares, in each of which is a _svastika_. In the Vatican Museum there is an Etruscan fibula of gold which is marked with the _svastika_, but it is a device of such common occurrence on objects of pre-Christian origin, that it is hardly necessary to specify individual instances. The cross, as a device in different forms, and often enclosed in a circle, is of frequent occurrence on coins and medals of pre-Christian date in France and elsewhere. Indeed, objects marked with pre-Christian crosses are to be seen in every important museum.