The Symbols in the Ancient World

  • 2017
Table of contents hide 1 Allegories and Symbols 2 Abstraction of Symbols 3 The Circle and the Cross 4 Myths and Legends

It is an unquestionable certainty that all human communication is done through symbols :

- Alphabets.

- Mathematical Symbols.

- Icons.

- Logos.

- Emblems

But what is a Symbol really?

Everything we can read and write, what we can say, tell, represent, publish, we do it using some communication process that exchanges symbols such as letters of an alphabet, numbers, icons, special signs, emblems etc.

The symbols are then an abstraction that allows us to communicate. It's that simple: the symbol is the vehicle of information, of the message we want to convey.

Naturally, for this communication to occur, the sender and the receiver must attribute a common meaning to the symbols used. For example, agents in charge of regulating street traffic use a STOP signal when they want a car to stop. But communication is only possible if drivers know what they should do when they see that signal.

Mathematical symbols assume a particular language that scholars must learn to express the corresponding formulations and that other people can understand them; and so on, since Antiquity, man has communicated through symbols that have been essential in all ages and in all cultures.

Allegories and Symbols

It is necessary to differentiate between Allegories and Symbols, because they are often confused.

Allegories are representations of a concept based on a Metaphor. A known figure is associated with an idea due to some attribute of that figure. For example, the white dove is an allegory of peace, because its whiteness represents purity and meekness.

In addition, the ancients used Metaphors to represent the gods as aspects of nature. For example, for the Egyptians, Anubis was a jackal-headed god, in charge of guiding the dead in their transit to the other world. Their representation with the head of a jackal or dog can be derived from the frequency with which these animals roamed the cemeteries in search of shelter and food.

Symbols, on the other hand, are conceptual abstractions, represented rather by geometric figures. For example, the Circle is the symbol of infinity, because it is a geometric figure of infinite sides, and of eternity because its circumference has no beginning or end.

Symbol Abstraction

The Symbol, the more abstract it is:

- transcends cultural diversity.

- It is more universal.

- It is not limited by language.

- is richer in interpretations.

An important property of the Symbol is that, the more abstract it is, the more powerful its meaning is, because it becomes independent of cultural context, time, language and other factors. That is, the Symbol becomes universal .

The appearance of similar symbols in cultures far from each other and not communicated, called attention to the Swiss psychologist Carl Gustav Jung (1875-1961), founder of the School of Analytical Psychology . Jung came to postulate the existence of a collective unconscious, below the personal unconscious, which is a world of archetypes, of ideas shared by humanity. The psychological nature of the human being is then manifested through a universal language of common symbols.

The collective unconscious is anything but an isolated and personal system. It is objectivity, wide as the world and open to the world. I am the object of all subjects, in perfect inversion of my habitual consciousness, where I am always a subject who has objects. There I am in the immediate and intimate union with the world, united to the point that I forget too easily who I really am. Lost in itself is an appropriate phrase to designate that state. But that mismo is the world or a world when a consciousness can see it. That is why you have to know who you are.

CG Jung. On the archetypes of the collective unconscious-

Associated with the Symbols are the keys to their interpretation, the ability to explain or decode their message. These keys are multiple, offering the person who approaches the Symbol several dimensions of understanding.

Teaching is offered as understood; and considering that there are seven interpretation keys for each symbol and allegory, it turns out that a meaning that may not respond, for example, to the psychological or astronomical aspect, is You will find, however, perfectly accurate in the physical or metaphysical.

-Helena P Blavatsky. The Key to Theosophy

The Circle and the Cross

One of the most universal and ancient symbols is the circle.

Helena P Blavatsky describes in the "Proem of the Secret Doctrine", the pages of a mysterious book that only contains a sequence of symbols that describe the genesis of the Universe. The first of these symbols is a white circle representing the Universe in its unmanifested, undifferentiated state. Then a point appears: " the Aurora of Manifestation ", the manifested One. Next we have the circle with a horizontal line that symbolizes the appearance of the primordial spirit-matter duality. The sequence ends with the circle having an inscribed cross that represents the fundamental Trinity of the Universe with the Spirit-Matter, and the interaction between them as a third element.

For its part, the cross is a much older symbol than Christianity .

Its origin is in the representation of solar disk radiation. Engravings of the Bronze Age have been found where the cross inscribed in a circle representing the Sun appears.

In the ruins of Troy we have found more refined representations, albeit similar, until we arrive at the most known representations today.

The Assyrian king Shamash-Adad V, who lived in the eighth century before the current era, wore a cross with rounded edges on his neck, as if the part of the circumference that is not within the circle had been removed from the solar disk the rays or arms of the cross.

The evolution of this figure shows that the ancients wanted to represent the sun's rays through the arms of the cross. The cross has been, then, as a solar symbol, a symbol of life and not of death as most people in Christianity think today.

The cross was used by Christianity due to the popularity it enjoyed in the ancient world. Emperor Constantine the Great (272-337), definitive promoter of Christianity in the Roman Empire, related that in a dream he saw the cross with the legend "in hoc signo vinces" (IHSV, for this sign you will win). However, the phrase itself has much older initiation connotations, since IHS was one of the names of Bacchus. Once again, the ancient world and the modern world, the pagan and the Christian, are intertwined in a much deeper way than most readers might suspect.

Another common feature of the symbols is that their meaning may vary depending on the context, giving rise to different versions.

For example, there are many interpretations of the cross symbol and there are different varieties.

One of the oldest and most emblematic crosses is the C ruz A nsata or Ankh, widely used in Egypt as we can see in its engravings and writings.

The Ankh is the symbol of life. It was an attribute of Isis, because for the Egyptians, she is the giver of life. This type of cross has historical continuity with the symbol of Venus, which is a more modern symbol of the feminine. On the other hand, Isis is the Egyptian equivalent of the pagan Venus; Both goddesses represent the feminine aspect of life.

The Ankh cross is composed of two parts:

-The upper part is a circle, symbol of the spirit, of the infinite.

-The bottom is a Tau, a T that symbolizes matter.

In this way, with united spirit and matter, the Ankh represents Life that is possible thanks to the interaction of both aspects of duality.

There is also a sexual interpretation of Ankh, the Circle being the feminine element and the Tau the masculine, representing the sacred union that generates life.

In addition, the Ankh, as with many symbols, has a key to interpretation related to the inner process, with the transformation of the human being that leads to his awakening and the expansion of his consciousness. In this process the inner nature of the human being takes possession of the functions of the mind, emotions and physical sensations, so that it acts as a unit, and not as a fragmented being. Thus, the union symbolized by the Ankh in one of its most mystical interpretations, is a symbol of the union of the spiritual with the human, of the inner self with the personal self, union that is the goal of Yoga.

There are many other varieties of crosses, each with its particular meaning.

-The swastika C has its origin in ancient India and is the symbol of Shiva . It represents a cross with the ends of fire rotating. The angles seen at the ends of the cross are the steles left by the fire due to the rotation of the cross. The swastika represents the creative power when it rotates clockwise and the destructive power when it rotates counterclockwise. As an attribute of Shiva, both senses were used to show that the destruction of forms is a stage in the process of the renewal of life to allow the construction of new forms and continue to evolve.

-The C ruz Greek is pre-Christian. It has all four arms of the same length and represents the duality manifested in nature, male and female, spirit and matter.

-The Latin C ruz is the Christian cross. Its origin is older since it was used in initiatory rites. In his book " The Secret Egypt, " Paul Brunto cites an account of Apuleyo in which the candidate for initiation was laid on a cross with open arms, plunging into a symbolic death, a state of sleep or trance for later resurrect having born his conscience to a new life.

Myths and legends

The mystery religions and traditions of Antiquity have always been nourished by myths and legends, to the point that the distinction between what was real and what was not, acquires very diffuse nuances.

The word " Legend " comes from the Latin L egenda and indicates " what should be read ." Generally these are stories about characters that may have been real, but mixing real and imaginary facts, thus producing an idealization of the character.

Examples of legends are those of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, hero of the Spanish Reconquest. The Cid is credited with feats, courage and extraordinary moral qualities, which may have been exaggerated to highlight the figure of the hero and convey an enthusiastic message to the people.

Another well-known legend is that of Romulus and Remus, the founding brothers of Rome, who according to the legend were breastfed by a wolf. It seems more likely that children were protected by a prostitute (popularly called magnifying glass or wolf, hence the famous image). The legend tries to highlight the value of the characters to overcome the difficulties.

The word " M ito " comes from the Greek word M ythos and means " story ." In it both the characters and the facts are and have been designed with a didactic purpose, to easily convey a message, a teaching that can have a moral, religious or philosophical character.

Examples of myths are mythology figures. Thor, in Norse mythology was the god of thunder, which influenced the weather, crops, justice and other things. In ancient Egypt, the most revered myth was the myth of the death and resurrection of Osiris .

The teachings transmitted through myths have the advantage that they are easy to transmit from mouth to ear. In ancient times, when the printing press did not exist and the books were not available to anyone, myths were an important vehicle for the transmission of ideas. As they were attractive oral stories, they impressed the listener, making it easy to remember them. They were also easy to represent with figures and allegories. Art was responsible for perpetuating them through classical paintings and sculptures that we can still enjoy today.

But there is another deeper reason for the transmission of teaching through the format of myth. The allegories, symbols and stories make the profane believe that these are simply inconsequential stories, which should not be valued. Thus the detractors were confused, and instead the authentic education was reserved for those interested.

When using symbolic language, myths appeal to intuition . More than teaching, they suggest. Myths contain a message that we must discover; that is, it is about finding the hidden revelation behind the veil of characters and fictional events, because that message is destined to evoke an answer that goes beyond ordinary thinking.

For this last reason, the myths were widely used in the initiatory systems of the ancient world. The aim of these systems was to help interested people produce an inner transformation that would allow them to better understand life, the Universe and our role in it. The candidates went through a process of preparation in which they had to purify their psychological nature, strengthen their morals and their character and finally following a ritual, they were initiated into a new life.

The " Mystery Schools " were very popular in the ancient world. They extended from Egypt and Asia Minor to the Mediterranean Sea countries such as Greece and Rome where they had great boom. Their external activity was related to the annual or five-year celebration of the Mysteries, in which people attended ritual representations of the themes that constituted the myth worshiped in the Mysteries, received certain teachings and were put in contact with sacred symbols. What was studied there remains hidden under a blanket of rumors and secrets. And yet, that ancestral wisdom is still present, available to those who have the courage to look beyond the apparent.

So far our tour of the Ancient World Symbols. I hope you enjoyed reading.

AUTHOR Eva Villa, editor in the big family hermandadblanca.org.

SOURCE: "Theosophy in the XXI s"

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