The Ancient World
Symbol · The Ancient World
Gorgoneion
The Visage of Protection
The severed head of the Gorgon Medusa, utilized as a powerful apotropaic amulet to ward off evil.
What it meansIt works by looking at you. The head is set facing outward on shields, doorways and cups — the only frontal face in an art of profiles — so the thing that turned men to stone is aimed at whatever approaches. Protection by threat, kept after the monster was killed.
Symbol · The Ancient World
Triquetra
The Celtic Trinity Knot
Three arcs, one unbroken line: distinct forces that hold only because each relies on the others.
What it meansThree arcs drawn without lifting the pen: the figure is one continuous line that looks like three things. Whatever triad it has been used for — and it has served several — the reading is always that the parts are distinguishable and not separable.
Symbol · The Ancient World
Rod of Asclepius
The Staff of Healing
A single serpent entwined around a rugged staff, the true ancient emblem of medicine and therapeutic arts.
What it meansOne snake, no wings, and the creature was chosen because it sheds its skin — an animal that renews itself, wound round the staff of a god whose temples were places you slept in to be healed. Medicine's emblem is an animal that survives its own body.
- AnkhThe Breath of LifeEgyptian
- GorgoneionThe Visage of ProtectionGreek
- HamsaThe Hand of ProtectionKabbalah
- LabyrinthThe Path to the CenterGreek
- OmphalosThe Navel of the WorldGreek
- OuroborosThe Serpent of EternityPagan
- PentacleThe Star of ElementsPagan
- Rod of AsclepiusThe Staff of HealingGreek
- TriquetraThe Celtic Trinity KnotCeltic
- TriskelionThe Spiral of LifeCeltic
