Earth symbol

{{short description|Astronomical symbols for the planet Earth, alchemical symbol for the element Earth}}

{{Special characters|image = Alchemical earth symbol (fixed width).svg|alt = Alchemy symbol for earth, one of the four classical elements}}

{{Infobox symbol

|sign=🜨 ♁
☷ 🜃

|unicode=
{{unichar|1F728|ALCHEMICAL SYMBOL FOR VERDIGRIS}}
{{unichar|2641|Earth}} (Globus cruciger)
{{unichar|2637|Trigram for Earth}}
{{unichar|1F703|Alchemical symbol for Earth}}

|different from= {{unichar|23DA|Earth ground}}
Electrical earth (ground)

}}

A variety of symbols or iconographic conventions are used to represent Earth, whether in the sense of planet Earth, or the inhabited world, or as a classical element. A circle representing the round world, with the rivers of Garden of Eden separating the four corners of the world, or rotated 45° to suggest the four continents, remains a common pictographic convention to express the notion of "worldwide". The current astronomical symbols for the planet are a circle with an intersecting cross, file:Earth symbol (fixed width).svg,{{cite web|url=https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/680/solar-system-symbols/ | title= Solar System Symbols | publisher = NASA | date = 18 March 2019 | accessdate= 8 December 2019}} and a globus cruciger, file:Globus cruciger (fixed width).svg. Although the International Astronomical Union (IAU) now discourages the use of planetary symbols, this is an exception, being used in abbreviations such as M_🜨 or M_♁ for Earth mass.{{cite book

| title = The IAU Style Manual

| url = http://www.iau.org/static/publications/stylemanual1989.pdf

| date = 1989

| page = 27

}}

History

The earliest type of symbols are allegories, personifications or deifications, mostly in the form of an Earth goddess (in the case of Egyptian mythology a god, Geb).{{Cite journal |last=Tobin |first=Vincent Arieh |date=1988 |title=Mytho-Theology in Ancient Egypt |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/40000877 |journal=Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt |volume=25 |pages=169–183 |doi=10.2307/40000877 |issn=0065-9991}}

Before the recognition of the spherical shape of the Earth in the Hellenistic period, the main attribute of the Earth was its being flat.{{Cite book |last=Dicks |first=D. R. |url=http://archive.org/details/earlygreekastron0000dick |title=Early Greek astronomy to Aristotle |date=1970 |publisher=Ithaca, N.Y. : Cornell University Press |others=Internet Archive |isbn=978-0-8014-0561-7 |pages=72–198}}{{Cite book |last=Numbers |first=Ronald L. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=pWouCwAAQBAJ |title=Newton's Apple and Other Myths about Science |last2=Kampourakis |first2=Kostas |date=2015-11-04 |publisher=Harvard University Press |isbn=978-0-674-91547-3 |language=en}} The Egyptian hieroglyph for "earth, land" depicts a stretch of flat alluvial land with grains of sand (Gardiner N16: 𓇾). The Sumerian cuneiform sign for "earth, place" KI (𒆠) originates as a picture of a "threshing floor", and the Chinese character (土) originated as a lump of clay on a potting wheel.

Earth, the classical element

In Chinese mysticism, the classical element "Earth" is represented by the trigram of three broken lines in the I Ching (☷).{{Cite book |last=Knechtges |first=David Richard |title=Ancient and early medieval Chinese literature: a reference guide |last2=Chang |first2=Tai ping |date=2010 |publisher=Brill |isbn=978-90-04-18016-1 |series=Handbook of oriental studies |location=Leiden}}

The Western (early modern) alchemical symbol for earth is a downward-pointing triangle bisected by a horizontal line (🜃).{{Cite web |title=Alchemical Symbols: Symbols for Aristotelian elements |url=https://unicode.org/charts/nameslist/n_1F700.html |access-date=2023-09-27 |website=unicode.org}} Other symbols for the earth in alchemy or mysticism include the square and the serpent.{{cite book |last=Jacobi | first= Jolande |title= Complex/Archetype/Symbol in The Psychology Of C G Jung | pp = 146–169 |publisher= Routledge | date = 2013 |isbn= 9780415209397}}

The planet

In the Roman period, the globe, a representation of the spherical Earth, became the main symbol representing the concept.

The globe depicted the "universe" (pictured as the celestial sphere) as well as the Earth.{{Cite web |date=September 27, 2023 |title=The Sphere of the World: The Unchanging Celestial Region |url=https://www.loc.gov/static/collections/finding-our-place-in-the-cosmos-with-carl-sagan/articles-and-essays/modeling-the-cosmos/ancient-greek-astronomy-and-cosmology.html |access-date=2023-09-27 |website=www.loc.gov}}

File:Diagrammatic T-O world map - 12th c.jpg representation of the world.]] File:INC-1870-r Солид. Никифор I и его сын Ставракий. Ок. 803—811 гг. (реверс).png with a Byzantine Emperor holding a globus cruciger in his right hand.]]

The globus cruciger (♁) is the globe surmounted by a Christian cross, held by Byzantine Emperors on the one hand to represent the Christian ecumene, on the other hand the akakia represented the mortal nature of all men.

In the medieval period, the known world was also represented by the T-and-O figure, representing an extremely simplified world map of the three classical continents of the Old World, viz. Asia, Europe and Africa (in various orientations: 🜖, 🜗, ⦺, file:T-and-O map symbol.svg).

Unicode encodes four characters representing the globe in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block:

EARTH GLOBE EUROPE-AFRICA U+1F30D {{resize|🌍}}
EARTH GLOBE AMERICAS U+1F30E {{resize|🌎}}
EARTH GLOBE ASIA-AUSTRALIA U+1F30F {{resize|🌏}}
GLOBE WITH MERIDIANS U+1F310 {{resize|🌐}}

References

External links

Category:Alchemical symbols

Category:Astronomical symbols

Symbol