Historically,
astrological
Astrology is a range of divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celesti ...
and
astronomical symbol
Astronomical symbols are abstract pictorial symbols used to represent astronomical objects, theoretical constructs and observational events in Western culture, European astronomy. The earliest forms of these symbols appear in Greek papyrus tex ...
s have overlapped. Frequently used symbols include signs of the
zodiac
The zodiac is a belt-shaped region of the sky that extends approximately 8° north and south celestial latitude of the ecliptic – the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year. Within this zodiac ...
and
classical planet
A classical planet is an astronomical object that is visible to the naked eye and moves across the sky and its backdrop of fixed stars (the common stars which seem still in contrast to the planets), appearing as wandering stars. Visible to huma ...
s. These originate from medieval Byzantine codices. Their current form is a product of the European
Renaissance
The Renaissance ( , ) is a Periodization, period of history and a European cultural movement covering the 15th and 16th centuries. It marked the transition from the Middle Ages to modernity and was characterized by an effort to revive and sur ...
. Other symbols for
astrological aspect
In astrology, an aspect is an angle that Planets in astrology, planets make to each other in the horoscope; as well as to the Ascendant, Midheaven, descendant (astrology), Descendant, Imum coeli, Lower Midheaven, and other points of astrological ...
s are used in various astrological traditions.
History and origin
Symbols for the
classical planet
A classical planet is an astronomical object that is visible to the naked eye and moves across the sky and its backdrop of fixed stars (the common stars which seem still in contrast to the planets), appearing as wandering stars. Visible to huma ...
s, zodiac signs, aspects, lots, and the lunar nodes appear in the medieval Byzantine codices in which many ancient horoscopes were preserved.
In the original papyri of these Greek horoscopes, there was a circle with the glyph representing shine () for the Sun; and a crescent for the Moon.
[
]
Classical planets
The written symbols for Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn have been traced to forms found in late Classical Greek papyri.
[
] The symbols for Jupiter and Saturn are monograms of the initial letters of the corresponding Greek names, and the symbol for Mercury is a stylized
caduceus
The caduceus (☤; ; , ) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris (mythology), Iris, the messenger of Hera. The s ...
.
[ Annie S. D. Maunder finds antecedents of the planetary symbols in earlier sources, used to represent the gods associated with the classical planets. ''Bianchini's ]planisphere
In astronomy, a planisphere () is a star chart analog computing instrument in the form of two adjustable disks that rotate on a common pivot. It can be adjusted to display the visible stars for any time and date. It is an instrument to assist i ...
'', produced in the 2nd century,[
] shows Greek personifications of planetary gods charged with early versions of the planetary symbols: Mercury has a caduceus
The caduceus (☤; ; , ) is the staff carried by Hermes in Greek mythology and consequently by Hermes Trismegistus in Greco-Egyptian mythology. The same staff was borne by other heralds like Iris (mythology), Iris, the messenger of Hera. The s ...
; Venus has, attached to her necklace, a cord connected to another necklace; Mars, a spear; Jupiter, a staff; Saturn, a scythe; the Sun, a circlet with rays radiating from it; and the Moon, a headdress with a crescent attached.[
] A diagram in Johannes Kamateros' 12th-century ''Compendium of Astrology'' shows the Sun represented by the circle with a ray, Jupiter by the letter ''zeta'' (the initial of Zeus
Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus.
Zeus is the child ...
, Jupiter's counterpart in Greek mythology
Greek mythology is the body of myths originally told by the Ancient Greece, ancient Greeks, and a genre of ancient Greek folklore, today absorbed alongside Roman mythology into the broader designation of classical mythology. These stories conc ...
), Mars by a shield crossed by a spear, and the remaining classical planets by symbols resembling the modern ones, without the cross-mark seen in modern versions of the symbols.[
The modern sun symbol, pictured as a circle with a dot (), first appeared in the Renaissance.][ (The conventional symbols for the signs of the zodiac also develop in the Renaissance period as simplifications of the classical pictorial representations of the signs.)
The modern sun symbol resembles the Egyptian hieroglyph for "sun" – a circle that sometimes had a dot in the center, ().
Similar in appearance were several variants of the ancestral form of the modern Chinese logograph for "sun", which in the ]oracle bone script
Oracle bone script is the oldest attested form of written Chinese, dating to the late 2nd millennium BC. Inscriptions were made by carving characters into oracle bones, usually either the shoulder bones of oxen or the plastrons of turtl ...
and bronze script
Chinese bronze inscriptions, also referred to as bronze script or bronzeware script, comprise Chinese writing made in several styles on ritual bronzes mainly during the Late Shang dynasty () and Western Zhou dynasty (771 BC). Types of bron ...
were .
It is not known if the Egyptian and Chinese logographs have any connection to the European astrological symbol.
Major planets discovered in the modern era
Symbols for Uranus, Neptune and Pluto were created shortly after their discovery. For Uranus, two variant symbols are seen. One symbol, , invented by J. G. Köhler and refined by Bode, was intended to represent the newly discovered metal platinum
Platinum is a chemical element; it has Symbol (chemistry), symbol Pt and atomic number 78. It is a density, dense, malleable, ductility, ductile, highly unreactive, precious metal, precious, silverish-white transition metal. Its name origina ...
; since platinum, sometimes described as white gold was found by chemists mixed with iron, the symbol for platinum combines the alchemical symbols for iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe () and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's o ...
, ♂, and gold
Gold is a chemical element; it has chemical symbol Au (from Latin ) and atomic number 79. In its pure form, it is a brightness, bright, slightly orange-yellow, dense, soft, malleable, and ductile metal. Chemically, gold is a transition metal ...
, ☉.[
][
] An inverted version of that same symbol, was in use in the early 20th century.[
.
] Another symbol, , was suggested by Jérôme Lalande
Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (; 11 July 1732 – 4April 1807) was a French astronomer, freemason and writer. He is known for having estimated a precise value of the astronomical unit (the distance from the Earth to the Sun) using measu ...
in 1784. In a letter to William Herschel
Frederick William Herschel ( ; ; 15 November 1738 – 25 August 1822) was a German-British astronomer and composer. He frequently collaborated with his younger sister and fellow astronomer Caroline Herschel. Born in the Electorate of Hanover ...
, Lalande described it as "a globe surmounted by the first letter of your name" ().[
] After Neptune was discovered, the Bureau des Longitudes
__NOTOC__
The ''Bureau des Longitudes'' () is a French scientific institution, founded by decree of 25 June 1795 and charged with the improvement of nautical navigation, standardisation of time-keeping, geodesy and astronomical observation. Durin ...
proposed the name Neptune and the familiar trident for the planet's symbol, though at bottom may be either a cross or an orb .[
]
Pluto
Pluto (minor-planet designation: 134340 Pluto) is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a ring of Trans-Neptunian object, bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune. It is the ninth-largest and tenth-most-massive known object to directly orbit the Su ...
, like Uranus, has multiple symbols in use. One symbol, ♇, is a monogram
A monogram is a motif (visual arts), motif made by overlapping or combining two or more letters or other graphemes to form one symbol. Monograms are often made by combining the initials of an individual or a company, used as recognizable symbo ...
of the letters PL (which can be interpreted to stand for Pluto or for astronomer Percival Lowell
Percival Lowell (; March 13, 1855 – November 12, 1916) was an American businessman, author, mathematician, and astronomer who fueled speculation that there were canals on Mars, and furthered theories of a ninth planet within the Solar System ...
), was announced with the name of the new planet by the discoverers on May 1, 1930.[
] Another symbol, popularized in Paul Clancy's ''American Astrology'' magazine, is based on Pluto's bident
A bident is a two-pronged implement resembling a pitchfork. In Renaissance art, the bident is associated with the Greek god Pluto (mythology), Pluto.
Etymology
The word 'bident' was brought into the English language before 1871, and is derived f ...
: .[Unicode request L2/16-067R]
Astrological Plutos
/ref>
Asteroids
The astrological symbols for the first four objects discovered at the beginning of the 19th century — Ceres, Pallas
Pallas may refer to:
Astronomy
* 2 Pallas asteroid
** Pallas family, a group of asteroids that includes 2 Pallas
* Pallas (crater), a crater on Earth's moon
Mythology
* Pallas (Giant), a son of Uranus and Gaia, killed and flayed by Athena
* Pa ...
, Juno and Vesta — were created shortly after their discoveries. They were initially listed as planets, and half a century later came to be called asteroids, though such "minor planets" continued to be considered planets for perhaps another century. Shortly after Giuseppe Piazzi
Giuseppe Piazzi ( , ; 16 July 1746 – 22 July 1826) was an Italian Catholic Church, Catholic priest of the Theatines, Theatine order, mathematician, and astronomer. He established an observatory at Palermo, now the ''Palermo Astronomical Ob ...
's discovery of Ceres, a group of astronomers ratified the name, proposed by the discoverer, and chose the sickle as a symbol of the planet.[
] The symbol for Pallas, the spear of Pallas Athena, was invented by Baron Franz Xaver von Zach, and introduced in his ''Monatliche Correspondenz zur Beförderung der Erd- und Himmels-Kunde''.[
] Karl Ludwig Harding
Karl Ludwig Harding (29 September 1765 – 31 August 1834) was a German astronomer, who discovered 3 Juno, Juno, the third asteroid of the main-belt in 1804.
Life and career
Harding was born in Lauenburg. From 1786–1789, he was educated a ...
, who discovered and named Juno, assigned to it the symbol of a scepter topped with a star.[
]
The modern astrological form of the symbol for Vesta, ⚶, was created by Eleanor Bach,[
] who is credited with pioneering the use of the big four asteroids with the publication of her ''Ephemerides of the Asteroids'' in the early 1970s. The original form of the symbol for Vesta, , was created by German mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss
Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (; ; ; 30 April 177723 February 1855) was a German mathematician, astronomer, geodesist, and physicist, who contributed to many fields in mathematics and science. He was director of the Göttingen Observatory and ...
. Olbers, having previously discovered and named one new planet (as the asteroids were then classified), gave Gauss the honor of naming his newest discovery. Gauss decided to name the planet for the goddess Vesta, and also specified that the symbol should be the altar of the goddess with the sacred fire burning on it.[
][
]
Bach's variant is a simplification of 19th-century elaborations of Gauss's altar symbol.[
]
Centaurs
The symbol for the centaur Chiron
In Greek mythology, Chiron ( ; also Cheiron or Kheiron; ) was held to be the superlative centaur amongst his brethren since he was called the "wisest and justest of all the centaurs".
Biography
Chiron was notable throughout Greek mythology for ...
, ⚷, is both a key and a monogram of the letters O and K (for 'Object Kowal', a provisional name of the object, for discoverer Charles T. Kowal) was proposed by astrologer Al Morrison, who presented the symbol as "an inspiration shared amongst Al H. Morrison, Joelle K.D. Mahoney, and Marlene Bassoff."
A widely used convention for other centaurs
A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...
, proposed by Robert von Heeren in the 1990s, is to replace the K of the Chiron key glyph with the initial letter of the object: e.g. P or φ for Pholus and N for Nessus (, ).
Other trans-Neptunian objects
Symbols for other large trans-Neptunian objects have mostly been proposed on the Internet; some created by Denis Moskowitz have been used by NASA
and are used by the popular open-source astrological software Astrolog, as well as being used less consistently by commercial programs.
Miscellaneous orbital stations
The symbol for retrograde motion
Retrograde motion in astronomy is, in general, orbital or rotational motion of an object in the direction opposite the rotation of its primary, that is, the central object (right figure). It may also describe other motions such as precession ...
is , a capital 'R' with a tail stroke. An 'R' with a tail stroke was used to abbreviate many words beginning with the letter 'R'; in medical prescriptions, it abbreviated the word ''recipe'' (from the Latin imperative of ''recipere'' "to take"), and in missal
A missal is a liturgical book containing instructions and texts necessary for the celebration of Mass throughout the liturgical year. Versions differ across liturgical tradition, period, and purpose, with some missals intended to enable a priest ...
s, an R with a tail stroke marked the responses.[
]
Meanings of the symbols
Signs of the zodiac
Planets
Asteroids and other celestial bodies
Since the 1970s, some astrologers have used asteroids and other celestial bodies in their horoscopes. The symbol for the first-recognised centaur
A centaur ( ; ; ), occasionally hippocentaur, also called Ixionidae (), is a creature from Greek mythology with the upper body of a human and the lower body and legs of a horse that was said to live in the mountains of Thessaly. In one version o ...
, 2060 Chiron
2060 Chiron is a ringed small Solar System body in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs— ...
, was devised by Al H. Morrison soon after it had been discovered by Charles Kowal, and has become standard amongst astrologers. In the late 1990s, German astrologer Robert von Heeren created symbols for other centaurs based on the Chiron model, though only those for 5145 Pholus and 7066 Nessus are included in Unicode, and only that for Pholus in Astrolog. The following list is by no means exhaustive, but for bodies outside this list, there is often very little to no independent usage beyond the symbols' creators.[
The Hamburg School of Astrology, also called Uranian Astrology, is a sub-variety of western astrology.] It adds eight fictitious trans-Neptunian planets to the normal ones used by western astrologers:
Aspects
In astrology
Astrology is a range of Divination, divinatory practices, recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century, that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions ...
, an aspect is an angle
In Euclidean geometry, an angle can refer to a number of concepts relating to the intersection of two straight Line (geometry), lines at a Point (geometry), point. Formally, an angle is a figure lying in a Euclidean plane, plane formed by two R ...
the planets
A planet is a large, rounded astronomical body that is generally required to be in orbit around a star, stellar remnant, or brown dwarf, and is not one itself. The Solar System has eight planets by the most restrictive definition of the te ...
make to each other in the horoscope
A horoscope (or other commonly used names for the horoscope in English include natal chart, astrological chart, astro-chart, celestial map, sky-map, star-chart, cosmogram, vitasphere, radical chart, radix, chart wheel or simply chart) is an ast ...
, also to the ascendant, midheaven, descendant, lower midheaven, and other points of astrological interest. The following symbols are used to note aspect:
;Russian aspects
In addition to the aspect symbols above, some Russian astrologers use additional or unique aspect symbols:
Miscellaneous symbols
See also
* Alchemical symbols
Alchemical symbols were used to denote chemical elements and compounds, as well as alchemy, alchemical apparatus and processes, until the 18th century. Although notation was partly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists. Lüdy ...
* Aztec calendar
The Aztec or Mexica calendar is the calendar, calendrical system used by the Aztecs as well as other Pre-Columbian era, Pre-Columbian indigenous peoples of Mexico, peoples of central Mexico. It is one of the Mesoamerican calendars, sharing the bas ...
* Behenian fixed star
* Classical elements
The classical elements typically refer to earth, water, air, fire, and (later) aether which were proposed to explain the nature and complexity of all matter in terms of simpler substances. Ancient cultures in Greece, Angola, Tibet, India, ...
* Earthly Branches
The Earthly Branches (also called the Terrestrial Branches or the 12-cycle) are a system of twelve ordered symbols used throughout East Asia. They are indigenous to China, and are themselves Chinese characters, corresponding to words with no co ...
* Gender symbols
* Heavenly Stems
The ten Heavenly Stems (or Celestial Stems) are a system of ordinals indigenous to China and used throughout East Asia, first attested during the Shang dynasty as the names of the ten days of the week. They were also used in Shang-era ritual ...
* Maya calendar
The Maya calendar is a system of calendars used in Pre-Columbian era, pre-Columbian Mesoamerica and in many modern communities in the Guatemalan highlands, Veracruz, Oaxaca and Chiapas, Mexico.
The essentials of the Maya calendar are based upon ...
* '' Monas Hieroglyphica''
* Planet symbol
* Nakshatra
Nakshatra () is the term for Lunar mansion in Hindu astrology and Buddhist astrology. A nakshatra is one of 27 (sometimes also 28) sectors along the ecliptic. Their names are related to a prominent star or asterisms in or near the respective s ...
* Navagraha
The navagraha are nine heavenly bodies and deities that influence human life on Earth according to Hinduism and Hindu mythology. The term is derived from ''nava'' ( "nine") and ''graha'' ( "planet, seizing, laying hold of, holding"). The nine part ...
* Sexagenary cycle
The sexagenary cycle, also known as the gānzhī (干支) or stems-and-branches, is a cycle of sixty terms, each corresponding to one year, thus amounting to a total of sixty years every cycle, historically used for recording time in China and t ...
* Sri Rama Chakra
* Vedic astrology
Notes
References
External links
*
Glyphs and keywords for asteroids (often different from the astronomical ones)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Astrological Symbols
Symbols
A symbol is a mark, sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, object, or relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by creating linkages between otherwise different concep ...
Astronomical symbols
Religious symbols
Symbols
Western astrological signs
Heraldic charges
Unicode