Editing Solar symbol (section)

{{short description|Symbol representing the Sun}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2024}}
[[File:Ilion---metopa.jpg|thumb|[[Helios]] with a [[Radiant crown|radiate]] [[halo (religious iconography)|halo]] driving his [[solar chariot|chariot]] ([[Troy VIII|Ilion]], 4th{{nbs}}century{{nbs}}BC; [[Pergamon Museum]])]]<!-- Please do not replace this image with a national flag. Any such change will be reverted. -->
A '''solar symbol''' is a [[symbol]] representing the [[Sun]].
Common solar symbols include circles (with or without rays), crosses, and spirals.
In religious iconography, personifications of the Sun or solar attributes are often indicated by means of a [[halo (religious iconography)|halo]] or a [[radiate crown]].

When the systematic study of [[comparative mythology]] first became popular in the 19th century, scholarly opinion tended to over-interpret historical myths and iconography in terms of "solar symbolism".
This was especially the case with [[Max Müller]] and his followers beginning in the 1860s in the context of [[Indo-European studies]].<ref>{{cite book|author=C. Scott Littleton|title=The New Comparative Mythology: An Anthropological Assessment of the Theories of Georges Dumézil|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KuSy6xW99agC&pg=PA34|year=1973|publisher=University of California Press|isbn=978-0-520-02404-5|page=34}}. See also R. F. Littledale, "The Oxford Solar Myth, A Contribution to Comparative Mythology" in: '' Echoes from Kottabos'', London (1906), 279–290 for a satire on this effect.</ref> Many "solar symbols" claimed in the 19th century, such as the [[swastika]], [[triskele]], [[Sun cross]], etc. have tended to be interpreted more conservatively in scholarship since the later 20th century.<ref>notably ciriticized by [[Richard Chase (folklorist)|Richard Chase]], ''The Quest for Myth'' (1951); see also ''[[Astralkult]]'' for the more general tendency of over-interpretation of mythology in terms of [[astral mythology]].</ref>