Symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that conveys meaning, representing both abstract concepts and concrete objects. Symbols can be universally understood or specific to certain cultures, with their meanings potentially evolving over time. They serve vital functions in everyday life, such as road signs that guide drivers and symbols that indicate danger. The origins of symbols date back to early human history, with evidence of their use found in cave paintings from the Ice Age, suggesting they were integral to communication and expression. In ancient Mesopotamia, for instance, Sumerians utilized clay tokens as early forms of symbols for counting and storing economic information long before writing systems were developed. As societies advanced, these symbols transformed into more complex systems, leading to the emergence of pictograms and ideograms. Notably, hieroglyphs in ancient Egypt evolved from simple pictures to a sophisticated writing system that combined visual representation with phonetic sounds. Additionally, symbols hold significant cultural and religious importance, with icons like the cross and the Star of David serving as powerful representations of faith. The history of symbols underscores their enduring relevance across various contexts, from everyday life to profound cultural expressions.
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Subject Terms
Symbol
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that is understood to have a meaning. Symbols might represent abstract concepts, such as ideas or relationships, or concrete objects. The meaning of a symbol might be universal or might be limited to a culture. It might also change over time. The most useful symbols are immediately understood by the viewer. Some examples include road signs, with symbols to which a driver must react quickly; map symbols that show the location of restaurants, rest stops, and other attractions and accommodations; and symbols to indicate danger, such as the skull and crossbones indicating poison.
Background
Scientists believe humans began using symbols to represent ideas during the Ice Age. Thirty-two symbols have been found among multiple cave paintings all across Europe. These include spirals, hashtags, and serpentine shapes. They were created over a span of thirty thousand years, which suggests they traveled with the early humans as they expanded their range and had meaning to them. In one cave in Spain, the La Pasiega Inscription is a sequence of symbols in a line. This inscription, which is about sixteen thousand years old, suggests the person who drew the symbols was trying to convey a more complex message.
In Mesopotamia, or modern Iraq, people began to use the Sumerian symbol system. They used clay tokens as symbols for goods, indicating the people had extensive economies that needed to be tracked. People used these tokens to count, store, and share economic information before writing systems existed. The token shapes used about 7500 BCE included cones, cylinders, disks, ovoids, spheres, and tetrahedrons. One token represented one unit of a good or commodity; for example, one tetrahedron is one unit of work, possibly one person’s labor for one day. Some systems used two sizes of tokens to represent different quantities. By 3500 BCE, more complex tokens with dots and lines were in use. These marks probably indicated quantities. New tokens were shaped like animals, tools, and other items. The tokens themselves were important in accounting; however, over time, people began to press the tokens into wet clay as a means of recording the number stored in a vessel. This development occurred about 3100 BCE. The shapes retained their meaning as symbols of items. Very soon after, people stopped using impressions of the tokens and began drawing the shapes in wet clay tablets using a stylus. Later, these symbols came to mean sounds and words in a system called cuneiform. They could press these symbols into wet clay tablets to share, save, and communicate information.
In other parts of the world, symbols developed into writing in similar ways. Pictograms are pictures that are similar to what they represent; ideograms are pictures that represent ideas. For example, a pictogram of a circle with lines radiating from it represents the sun. As a society developed, that sun could become an ideogram representing a day, a time of day, or some other idea. Pictograms date to about 9000 BCE in many parts of the world, and remain in use in some non-literate cultures. Many modern literate cultures use pictograms as symbols. For example, a lightning bolt is a pictogram used as a symbol to warn of high voltage and the danger of electric shock. Many modern cultures use written characters that derived from pictograms.
Hieroglyphs are symbols developed in ancient Egypt about 3100 BCE. At first, they were simple pictures, such as the sun or a vulture, and represented these concrete objects. Over time, however, the Egyptians needed to convey more complex ideas. They developed a writing system based on the symbols of things that sounded like what they wanted to say. The images can mean either the items pictured—such as an owl—or a sound. Among the thousands of symbols they developed, most Egyptian scribes relied on a common set of twenty-four.
The letters used in modern English also have their roots in hieroglyphs, as well as Greek, Roman, Phoenician, and Semitic influences. The letter A, for example, dates to about 1800 BCE, at which time it was a horned animal’s head, which in Semitic meant “ox.” The shape is essentially the same, although upside down. The B, laid down with its flat side on top, resembles a house with windows, and the hieroglyph of 4,000 years ago that means “shelter.” H is based on the hieroglyph for “fence.”
Overview
Symbols have a long history in humanity. Even with the development of written language, many people remained uneducated for centuries. They often relied on symbols to find what they needed or provide goods and services. The red-and-white barber pole, for example, is an easily recognized symbol for a person who provides a haircut and shave. In earlier times, barbers also provided other services, such as blood letting, which was believed to provide health benefits. The symbol of the barber represents the red blood and white bandages associated with these services. An apothecary wishing to identify the services offered might hang up a sign with a mortar and pestle, tools of the trade used to grind herbs and other ingredients for medicine.
Many of the most powerful symbols are related to religion. The cross, for example, has been a symbol of Christianity for two thousand years. The six-pointed Star of David has been used as a symbol by Jewish people since the seventeenth century.
Events of the twentieth century demonstrate the power of symbols and the ways in which they can be used. Hindus, Buddhists, and Jains have used a Sanskrit symbol meaning “well-being” for thousands of years. This symbol, called the swastika, was commonly used in a peaceful context until the mid-twentieth century. It was used in advertising, and both the Boy Scouts and Girls’ Club of America used it as well. Some nineteenth-century German scholars had noticed similarities between German and Sanskrit, and created ideas about warriors from their beliefs of a shared ancestry. As the Nazis rose to power during the 1930s, they adopted the swastika as a symbol for Germans’ supposed pure and superior ancient lineage. Within a few years, this ancient symbol of harmony became a hated and feared symbol of suppression and murder. In the twenty-first century, the swastika continues to be associated with antisemitism and White supremacy.
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