The Ancient Metal Symbols

In the time of the ancient Babylonians, seven metals were known, namely gold, silver, copper, iron, tin, lead and mercury. Except for a few metalloids, this number did not increase until the Renaissance. These metals have been associated with particular symbols for at least eight centuries and some of these are still in frequent use:

The metal symbols appear to have attained their final form in the 11th and 12th centuries A.D. and were used by most of the medieval alchemists and astronomers

What is the history of the symbols? Some believe that they originated with the use of the circle as the sign of perfection, which was thus given to gold. By this reasoning, the less noble a metal the more intricately disfigured was the circle. The author believes that a plausible explanation is given by a French manuscript interpreter, Saumaise (Latin Salmasius), who lived between 1588 and 1653 and who wrote that the symbols are essentially modifications of Greek letters with one or two derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Alchemy can be traced back to the priests of Ancient Egypt and their ideas were inherited by Greek thinkers after Alexander the Great. Alchemy continued to flourish in Egypt, especially during the last centuries B.C. When later the Arabs became the standard-bearers in the Mediterranean, they introduced alchemy as a science to the Iberian peninsula from which it trickled into Central Europe and Italy.

The ancient Babylonians had already established a link between the seven then known metals and the same number of mobile celestial bodies - sun, moon and five planets - so that every metal had its corresponding celestial body. Seven was a sacred number and a week therefore had seven days, each with its special deity and celestial body from which the name of the day was derived. When this system was taken over by the Greeks and then by the Romans, the oriental deities were replaced by their corresponding Greek and Roman deities and eventually by the Teutonic/ Nordic gods and goddesses. This is shown in the table below.

There was also considerable activity in alchemy in the Eastern Roman Empire. Here the alchemists used the metal symbols for both the metal and the corresponding planet and this may still be found in some astronomical tables today.

Authors who used Greek in their texts on alchemy were dominant for may centuries and their symbols were accepted in the Latin world; the metal symbols thus appear to have attained a kind of standardization in the 12th century.

Medieval alchemists and astrologers also played an important role in the acceptance of these symbols.

How did these symbols develop:

Gold

The association between gold and the sun is evident: both the colour and the gloss invite comparison. In ancient Egypt Ammon, the god of the sun, was written with the hieroglyph where the Circle means perfection and the dot indicates that the Circle is not empty (this concept suggests a nullity and would later be used for zero). Originally, the hieroglyph with a face in profile under a conical hat, the sign for royalty, was used for gold, but the circular sign predominated, perhaps because it was easier to write. In both ancient Greece and in Rome the mightiest god Zeus, viz. Jupiter, did not have a relation to the sun and therefore not to gold either. For some time Zeus was related to electrum, the natural alloy of gold and silver, but this relation ceased when it was demonstrated that electrum could be artificially produced. In Rome, Sunday was called the day of the sun (dies solis). This nomenclature was taken over by the Teutonic languages, whereas in the Latin-based languages this day is named after God, dies Domini.

Silver

If gold is related to the sun, the relation silver-moon is analogous. In many ancient religions the gold or rather goddess of the moon was worshipped as the queen of heaven; a remnant of this exists both in Christianity and Islam. The Virgin Mary has been identified with the Egyptian moon goddess Isis, the Mother of Heaven, who is usually reproduced as standing on the Crescent. The hieroglyph of Isis was , a crescent and this has also become the symbol for silver. In ancient Greece/Rome, the moon goddess was Selene/Luna. While her power was not as great as that of her Egyptian equivalent, it was sufficient that her name was given to one day of the week, Monday, dies lunae, the day of moon. This name is still valid in the Latin-based and Teutonic languages. On old maps, a crescent indicates a silver mine.

Reference:

“The ancient metal symbols” by Gotthard Bjorling, Former Professor of Metallurgy, Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. Published in Historical Metallurgy Notes, CIM Bulletin, January 1991.

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