Welcome to the Topic thread called 'Symbols', here we share information and ask questions about symbols. Sending in links to websites containing information on symbols is greatly appreciated as well!

Remember to subscribe to this thread if you want to keep informed about the symbols we discuss here. If you're into symbols, there's a game in the Forum called 'Finding symbols', a great place to find an interesting print with (hidden) symbols.

If you're new to symbols, a portal to another dimension will open. You'll be able to see things that remain hidden for others. Symbols are a language only known by the people holding the keys.

Symbols are everywhere and we make use of them every day. Yet, when we try to explain symbols from a painting, we will never be able to know 100% sure if our interpretation is correct. On the other hand most of the time there's a lot of other information in the painting, coat of arm or coin for instance. This helps to get closer to a correct interpretation.

Common symbols

A heart pierced by an arrow representing the dual nature of love as both pleasurable and painful. Ostriches are often depicted in everyday scenes, symbolizing innocence, naivety, or obliviousness. Anchors are typically associated with hope, stability, and safety. Snakes are frequently used to represent temptation, evil, or transformation. Eyes can symbolize insight, wisdom, or surveillance. Winged figures (angel, demon) are  often used to convey concepts like protection, guidance, or chaos. A flame may represent passion, creativity, or destruction. Trees are commonly used to symbolize life, growth, or wisdom. Crosses are frequently employed to represent Christianity, sacrifice, or redemption. The hourglass is often used to signify the passage of time, mortality, or the fleeting nature of life.

Secret Societies

Throughout the centuries there have been so called Secret Societies moving in all layers of society, from the royal courts to any church or mosque and later in associations and foundations. These societies generally find their origins in places of power, after all the average Joe is far too busy feeding his family to even think about starting a Secret Society. These days we can think of many ways to covertly send information, although personal data privacy is under pressure.

In the past the ways of sending information over without being intercepted were limited. After all within many Secret Societies the participants spy on each other with each other's consent. So what did these Secret Society Mavericks do? They commissioned or changed paintings and sent them out. Painters lived at Europe's courts and either became insiders or got replaced so they didn't get to know too much. Albrecht Dürer, for instance lived at the court of Holy Roman Emperors Maximilian I and his successor Charles V.

Coins contained secret information as well, just as the Dollar bill does today. Symbols are in documents, etchings, bibles, books, crockery, papyrus, tombstones, church pews, stone, jewellery, wall coverings, carpets, cabinets and ceiling paintings. Understanding symbols makes a big difference when you visit a museum.

Welcome to Numismatics! This is where money talks, that is if you look at it instead of listening to that clinking clanking sound. If you want to know about history, looking into money is a way to unconvering things. Symbolism is of great importance when it is about money, it helps us to see more than meets the eye. So please investigate and show us what you found!

Numismatics is the study and collection of coins, paper money, tokens, and other related objects. It encompasses both the physical attributes of these payment media and their historical, cultural, political and economic context. Numismatics draws from various disciplines, including archaeology, history, economics and art, to provide a comprehensive understanding of payment media.

To start off this thread, let's have a look at an old coin.

Latin text

On the left page of the book in the picture it says in Latin: 

1 - Isidis Pharie coronamentum cum orbe patulo, et exuuijs Vulturis aut Accipioris ex anulari gemma
2 - Isidis Pharie imagines et coronamenta cum Loto ac Luna globo ex nummis Helema Iuliani Imperatoris Uxoris
3 - Diana Ephesia simulacrum cum murali ac turrita corona ex nummis Traiani, et M. Aurelij

It appears that there are some mistakes in the spelling. Latin doesn't have IJ or ij. 

In English

1 - The crown of Isis Pharia with a white orb, and the skin of the Vulture or Accipio from the annular gem
2 - Portraits and crowns of Isis Phare with the Lotus and the Moon globe from the coins of the Helmet of Julian the Emperor's Wife
3 - A statue of Diana of Ephesia with a mural and a turreted crown from the coins of Trajan and M. Aurelius

The coin: Greek and Latin blended together

There are some letters in Greek on the coin, it says: EθECιΩΝ ΔΙC ΝΕΩΚΟΡ ΠΡΩΑΣΙΑΣ, however there is no letter C in the Greek alphabet. So: ETHEKION ΔIK NEOKOR OF PROSIA. ΔIK of course should be DIC, it's a Latin verb for 'to speak' or 'to say'. Then I typed Πρωασιας 'proasias' substituting some capitals for small letters and: bingo!

The coin: ΠΡΩΑΣΙΑΣ

Welcome to this Forum Topic thread about 'Coats of arms'! If you have anything to share about COA, please share it here so your fellow INlighters can find what they are looking for.

Symbolism goes hand in hand with COA. When you research COA, you'll come to know about a lot of symbols - what they stand for and how they are still used today. 

The pictures below show two Holy Roman Emperors from the House of Habsburg from the 15th and 16th century AD. They're father and son.

What do we have to look for in COA?

Shield (Escutcheon): The central element of the coat of arms, featuring a geometric shape (e.g., square, circle, or triangle) divided into sections (quarters) with different colors, patterns, or symbols.
Crest: A decorative element placed above the helmet, often featuring a mythical creature, animal, or object.
Wreath or Torse: A circular or twisted band connecting the crest to the helmet.
Helmet: A representation of a knight’s helmet, which may be adorned with feathers, mantling, or other decorations.
Mantling: A flowing fabric or fur trim around the helmet, often depicted in a fanciful or heraldic style.
Supporters: Two figures (usually beasts, birds, or mythical creatures) holding up either side of the shield, typically found on civic or municipal coats of arms.
Motto: A phrase or slogan, often written in a ribbon or scroll, which may be changed at will and is not an integral part of the armorial achievement.
Orders: Awards or honors, such as royal orders or chivalric orders, which may be displayed at the base of the shield.

Are there any symbols in these COA's? Please explain in this thread, much appreciated!

This thread is dedicated to the Voynich Manuscript. If you want to contribute to this topic, please send a reply to this thread.

The Voynich Manuscript, also known as Cypher Manuscript, is believed to be a scientific or magical text in an unidentified language, in cipher, apparently based on Roman minuscule characters; the text is believed by some scholars to be the work of Roger Bacon since the themes of the illustrations seem to represent topics known to have interested Bacon. Numerous attempts to decipher the manuscript have failed. Although several scholars have claimed decipherments of the manuscript, for the most part the text remains an unsolved puzzle.

Almost every page contains botanical and scientific drawings, many full-page, of a provincial but lively character, in ink with washes in various shades of green, brown, yellow, blue and red.

From the library of Emperor Rudolph II of Germany. Johannes Marcus Marci of Cronland presented the book to Athanasius Kircher in 1666. Kircher was a German Jesuit scholar and polymath who published around 40 major works of comparative religion, geology, and medicine. The Cipher Manuscript was acquired by Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish book dealer who purchased it in 1912 from the Jesuit College at Frascati near Rome. It was later given to the Beinecke Library in 1969 by H. P. Kraus who had purchased it from the estate of Ethel Voynich. 

The complete Voynich Manuscript was uploaded to the Internet by Yale University.

So the Jesuit Order sold the manuscript to the Pole Voynich. Why would they want to sell this manuscript? No one has ever been able to make any sense of it. But it remains intriguing and a beautiful work of art. It looks like a scam to me, however: one can learn from everything, scams included. What do you think?

This flowering plant looks like a combination of a dandelion and a cornflower:

The leaves of this unknown species are reminiscent of a carnivorous plant:

This flower looks like a Tulip, apart from the leaf. A closer look shows that the flower itself exists of various flowers recognizable by their hearts, Tulips grow but one heart and from a bulb:

Welcome to the Forum topic 'The Rosetta Stone'! This is where we discuss the Rosetta Stone. If you have something to contribute, please leave a reply!

The Rosetta Stone was found on July 15, 1799, by a French officer during work on Fort St. Julien (now Quaitbay) near the town of Rosetta (now El Rashid), about 60 kilometers northeast of Alexandria, Egypt. The Rosetta Stone was likely composed by the priests of Memphis. It is believed to have been created around 196 BCE, during the Ptolemaic period.

The Rosetta Stone is a decree issued by Egyptian priests in 196 BCE, honoring Ptolemy V Epiphanes, a Greek pharaoh of Egypt. The inscriptions summarize the benefactions conferred by Ptolemy V and were written in the ninth year of his reign, commemorating his accession to the throne. The Greek text is a formal decree, while the hieroglyphic and demotic texts are translations of the Greek original. The stone is a bilingual text, written in three different scripts:
• in Egyptian using Egyptian hieroglyphs,
• in Egyptian using the demotic script (a cursive form of Egyptian hieroglyphics),
• in Koine Greek.

The hieroglyphic text contains six identical cartouches (oval figures enclosing hieroglyphs), which contain the names of Ptolemy V and his mother, Cleopatra I. The text describes the pharaoh’s benevolence and the priests’ gratitude for his favors.

The demotic text contains additional information about the decree, including priestly involvement and dates of the pharaoh’s reign.

Dimensions

The Rosetta Stone is a piece of black granite, broken into three pieces. It measures 3 feet 9 inches long and 2 feet 4.5 inches wide. 

Decipherment

The decree itself is a routine administrative document, detailing the privileges and tax exemptions granted to temple priests in Egypt. It is not fully translated in the sense that every single hieroglyphic symbol has been deciphered and translated into a modern language. However, the stone’s text has been largely deciphered and understood through the work of Jean-François Champollion. The Greek inscription on the stone was fully translated by 1803, and the hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts were gradually deciphered over the next several decades. Champollion’s breakthrough in 1822 marked a significant milestone in the decipherment of hieroglyphics. Champollion recognized that the cartouches (oval-shaped hieroglyphs) contained phonetic spellings of royal names, including Ptolemy. This breakthrough enabled him to crack the hieroglyphic code, ultimately leading to a deeper understanding of ancient Egyptian writing.

The Rosetta Stone’s significance lies in its role as a key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics which opened up a new era of Egyptology, allowing scholars to translate and understand thousands of years of ancient Egyptian texts and artifacts. Today, it remains one of the most famous and important objects in the British Museum, a testament to the power of linguistic and archaeological discovery.

This thread is dedicated to alphabets. When you can add to the collection, please leave a reply to this thread!

In school we learn to read and write and to learn what is presented to us. Language is essential in transferring information, especially if you want to get the details. When I saw Egyptian hieroglyphs as a child, I was very impressed. Nowadays I think: when you write with chisels, you don't choose complicated animals in your alphabet. If you like art, you often come across texts in unknown languages. Usually the museum doesn't bother to translate text on paintings. Leaving us to the joy of deciphering.

In the PDF below you'll find a book containing the alphabets that were used in the printing industry in the Netherlands in 1731. Among other alphabets you'll find: Arabic, Syriac, Samaranic, Ethiopian, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cursive, High and Low German.

Source gallica.bnf.fr / BnF