Hellenic

Hellenic symbols and meanings

Herald’s staff, healer’s rod, and the axe from Crete.

28 marks in the lexicon. A symbol can sit in more than one tradition. The page says which use is which.

• PentagramFive lines in one stroke. The doctrines came later, and they disagree.
• CaduceusHermes’ staff: messages, trade, borders, and the road of the dead.
• Rod of AsclepiusOne serpent, one staff. The sign a hospital ought to mean.
• LabrysA blade that faces two ways, and a cult object that became a banner.
• FireHeat that rises, and the temper called choleric.
• AirHeat that does not scorch: blood, spring, thought.
• WaterWhat sinks, gathers, and is felt before it is argued.
• EarthWeight, melancholy, and the body that remains.
• PhoenixA bird that burns and is the same bird after.
• Golden ratioA cut where the whole stands to the larger part as that part stands to the smaller.
• PiHow many diameters fit around a circle. The letter came later, from a printer’s book.
• Evil eyeA look that harms, and a glass eye that looks back.
• ΑΩ
  Alpha and OmegaThe first Greek letter and the last, said of God and of Christ.
• Ω
  OmegaThe last letter of the Greek alphabet. Later, a unit of resistance.
• DeltaA triangle that is a letter. Change, in a mathematician’s hand.
• &
  AmpersandA tied-together “et.” The word ampersand is a schoolroom joke that stuck.
• AriesThe first slice of the sun’s year, drawn as a ram.
• TaurusA bull on the ecliptic, and a circle with horns in type.
• GeminiTwo pillars. The twins are the story. The mark is the abbreviation.
• CancerA crab, and the sign where the sun used to turn.
• LeoA lion on the ecliptic. The tail in the glyph is the identifier.
• VirgoA woman with a sheaf. The glyph is an M that learned to write.
• LibraScales, set where the year balances — and once the scorpion’s claws.
• ScorpioA scorpion. The glyph keeps the sting so you do not read it as Virgo.
• SagittariusAn arrow. The centaur is the story. The mark is the weapon.
• CapricornA goat and a fish sharing one body. The glyph keeps both.
• AquariusTwo waves. A person pouring is the picture. The mark kept the water.
• PiscesTwo fish tied by a cord. Not the Christian ichthys.