What Do You Know About Flags?

IF YOU were to stand in front of the United Nations building in New York city you would see 128 multicolored flags waving in the breeze. One is the UN flag, and the 127 other flags represent the member nations of this international body. Their presence in front of the UN indicates the important role flags play in this world.

When a national flag flies over a ship, a building or a piece of territory, it symbolizes the presence of the nation represented by it. At the time Great Britain possessed colonies all around the earth, her presence in these territories was represented by the colorful British flag known as the Union Jack. It showed that the territories belonged to Great Britain.

More recently astronauts implanted the United States flag on the moon, not to indicate territorial claims, but to show that this nation had succeeded in reaching the moon. So a flag has come to be a symbol of a nation, and its design often conveys a certain meaning. This no doubt is true of the flag of the nation of which you are a citizen.

Background of National Flags

Did you know that historical works trace national flags back to the standards used by armies of ancient peoples such as the Egyptians, Persians and Romans? This is noted by The Encyclopedia Americana in its edition of 1969: “Fighting men of ancient times rallied to banners and standards that were symbols having some relationship to the modern idea of flags.”

Going back as far as the ancient Egyptians in tracing the history of flags, The Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, observes on page 454 of volume 10:

“From their carvings and paintings, supplemented by ancient writers, it appears that several companies of the Egyptian army had their own particular standards. These were formed of such objects as, there is reason to believe, were associated in the minds of the men with feelings of awe and devotion. Sacred animals, boats, emblems or figures, a tablet bearing a king’s name, fan- and feather-shaped symbols, were raised on the end of a staff as standards, and the office of bearing them was looked upon as one of peculiar privilege and honour.”

About the ancient Persians, this same encyclopedia says in its edition of 1946, volume 9, page 343:

“The Persians bore an eagle fixed to the end of a lance, and the sun, as their divinity, was also represented upon their standards, which appear to have been formed of some kind of textile, and were guarded with the greatest jealousy by the bravest men of the army.”

Note what this encyclopedia observes regarding the Roman standards:

“The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples of Rome. It was not unusual for a general to order a standard to be cast into the ranks of the enemy, to add zeal to the onset of his soldiers by exciting them to recover what to them was perhaps the most sacred thing the earth possessed.”

Thus it can be seen that the forerunners to modern national flags often were religious in nature. The feeling that some people have toward their national flag today is no doubt a carry-over of the feeling manifested by these ancient peoples.

The religious background of modern-day national flags is clearly demonstrated by the Union Jack. It is a combination of three religious crosses​—the cross of St. George, the cross of St. Andrew and the cross of St. Patrick. These were the patron saints of England, Scotland and Ireland, and the uniting of these kingdoms into the kingdom of Great Britain is represented by the uniting of these three religious crosses on the flag.

Pointing out how a national flag is often handled with reverence, the book The Flags of the World by F. Edward Hulme makes the following interesting comparison on page three:

“The Roman standards were guarded with religious veneration in the temples of the metropolis and of the chief cities of the Empire, and modern practice has followed herein the ancient precedent. . . . At the presentation of colours to a regiment a solemn service of prayer and praise is held, and when these colours return in honour, shot-rent from victorious conflict, they are reverently placed in stately abbey, venerable cathedral, or parish church, never more to issue from the peace and rest of the home of God until by lapse of years they crumble into indistinguishable dust.”