Hilarri is the name given to disk-shaped funerary steles that are typical of the Basque Country. These funerary steles present a disc-shaped head facing the rising sun on a trapezoidal stand. They belong to an old tradition throughout all of the Western Mediterranean, which includes parts of Europe and North Africa, but today they are mainly found in the Basque Country.
an Occitan cross, similar to the former but with, for each arm, 2 concavities delimited by 3 tips.
They may be very simple or well worked. Sometimes, a diagonal secondary cross completes the figure. Each sector is decorated with various small decorative symbols such as stars, moons, potent crosses or rosettes. They may be different in each sector. Sometimes, depictions of tools point out the trade of the deceased, whose name is seldom mentioned. Stylized hands open upwards may also be found.
Rosettes
Many steles are decorated by single rosettes. In this case the order of symmetry is often 6. The most frequent figures are:
rosettes made up of 6 laurel leaves ;
rosettes with 8 to 36 petals radiating from a central spot;
stars as pentagram, hexagram or octogram ; sometimes an armed-cross is superimposed, arms being inserted between points;
one circular string making up 4 or 6 loops around a central spot or circle, or 2 of them doing 8 loops; these rosettes seem static but in fact, loops have a sense of rotation that can be figured or not.
Figures indicating a rotation
Some figures are designed to give an idea of rotation, generally clockwise, a sense which is often analyzed as positive. The most popular figures are :
the lauburu;
solar rosettes.
One Navarrese hilarri presents a kind of lauburu made of four walking legs. This motive cannot be considered as usual in the Basque Country.
Other symbols
Some more specific figures can be encountered as:
a figure that looks like a $ symbol, made up of 3 vertical lines, crossing 3 horizontal segments, linked to each other as a wide S; it could be a symbolic representation of weaving;
Christograms ;
some rare human representations can also be noticed; pentagrams could have been a stylization of human body.
They are all identified with Christ as the sun rising after Resurrection, evident also in Basque church symbols and the imagery of Loyola's Jesuit Order.
Many innovative ornamentations can be observed in modern hilarris. As an example, in Zuberoa, the traditional song "Orhiko txoria" has led to many representations of a bird flying towards this emblematic mountain. Others have seen connections to a prehistoric solar cult arriving with the Mauri or Jentillak and related to the Egyptian Horus, consort or manifestation of the Ishtar of Fertility among the desert and Sea People.
