The Sun and solar eclipses in traditional Romanian ornamental patterns

Various ornamental shapes, such as the wheel, the rhombus, the broken cross, and the radiant triangle, which can be seen on popular costumes, domestic objects as well as in architecture, represent solar symbols with a clear apotropaic function whose origins may be detected on the Neolithic clay plates from Jevdet Nasr (Iraq), Knosos (Greece) and Tartaria (Romania). In the North-East of Romania the occurrence of such motifs is extremely frequent especially in traditional architecture. The Triple-Rayed Sun intersected by two lateral arcs is a remarkable adornment of this kind that seems to suggest the representation of an eclipse.