Lábaro

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The Lábaro is a modern interpretation of an ancient military standard (called Cantabrum) of the Cantabri people from pre-Roman Iberum. It consists of a purple cloth on which there is what would be called in heraldry a "saltire voided throughout" made up of curved lines, with knobs at the end of each line.

Etymologically, the word comes from (p)lab- which means to speak in a number of Celtic languages, many of which have derivatives. For example, in Welsh llafar means "speech", "language", "voice". Ancient Cornish and Breton have lavar, "word", and ancient Irish has labrad: "language", "speech". In Latin, the lábaro became known as the Cantabrian Labarum^{[citation needed]}.

Looking for supporting to his racist theories, the Basque Sabino Arana invented another ethimology for Labaro in the XIX century. He proposed that Labaro came from the Basque words "Lau buru" meaning "four heads", lau "four" and buru "heads", "four ends" or "four summits". Even he designed a new triskelion with four knobs. That is quite forced since the real Lábaro has four open arcs and no heads. Also there are many archeological stones with the Lábaro symbol in Cantabria regium while no one in the Basque regium. There are also several triskelion in the Cantabria regium but only with five arms.

This type of standard and its variants were well distributed among the Celtic peoples, as is demonstrated by the triumphal arch of Orange, France. Its display is connected with the ancient Celtic symbol of the triskelion, and its religious symbolism is related to sun worship.

A Cantabri Estela in Barros, Spain from around the second century BC with a representation of a lábaro.

Through the Cantabrian Wars and the conquering of the Cantabri by the Romans in 19 AD, the Roman legions adopted from them the solar symbolism of the twin crosses and lunar symbols, probably by the incorporation of Cantabrian auxiliary troops, or for the mere pride of having conquered the fierce people after years of war.

Today, certain social and political groups in modern Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria advocate the use of this ancient standard instead of the current flag