Triskele
Also called triple spiral, triskelion
Neolithic spirals; later Celtic metal; civic triskelions are a cousin
Celtic symbolsTriskele meaning
A triskele is three spirals or legs sharing a center. Prehistoric examples, such as at Newgrange, are real. What they “meant” to their makers is not written down. Later Celtic and Sicilian uses are separate.
Three spirals that share a center and refuse to be still.
The name. Greek tri-skeles, three-legged. The word is younger than Newgrange.
Where it comes from
The triple spiral at Newgrange is Neolithic, around 3200 BCE, older than any people we should casually call Celtic. Later La Tène metalwork loves the same rotational three. The triskelion of three running legs — Sicily, the Isle of Man — is a cousin with a civic history. A spiral and a leg are not the same sign, even though both turn.
Celtic
Motion is the content
A triquetra can be contemplated as a lock. A triskele cannot. The eye keeps being thrown outward. Solar turning, triple sovereignty, the phases of a life — the glosses vary, and the stones do not come with captions. What the drawing itself insists on is rotation around a point you cannot quite rest in.
Celtic
Do not call the tomb Celtic
Newgrange was old when Celtic languages arrived in Ireland, if the usual account holds. The later tradition adopted a shape it did not invent. Adoption is a real kind of meaning. It is not authorship.
Near this
Sources
- Neolithic passage-tomb art, including Newgrange
- Later heraldic triskeles, such as the Isle of Man and Sicily
Named when the entry depends on a text, a date, or a standard. Catalog numbers are not invented.
Your margin
Private. It stays in this browser and never joins the canon.
symbol.wiki, edited as Sigilla. Last reviewed 2 October 2026. A reading of public tradition, not a ruling.