MadSci Network: Chemistry
Query:

Re: Alchemical Symbol for Iron

Date: Wed Jul 29 11:23:08 1998
Posted By: Dan Berger, Faculty Chemistry/Science, Bluffton College
Area of science: Chemistry
ID: 901679091.Ch
Message:

I am trying to find an image of the alchemical symbol for iron.


That's an impossible task, as the symbols used were not universal. They tended to vary from century to century and from alchemist to alchemist. Often planetary symbols were used, and elements were assigned to this or to that planet; many alchemists were also astrologers and associated metals with planets on the basis of "sympathy." The most consistent assignments appear to have been gold = the Sun, silver = the Moon, and mercury (quicksilver) = Mercury, but even this is not always the case.

For example, one of my sources shows the metal iron being assigned to the planet Mercury by the 2d-Century alchemist Celsus, and to the planet Mars by the 5th-Century alchemist Proklos. Interestingly, neither Celsus nor Proklos bothered to assign quicksilver (mercury) to a planet -- mercury didn't become important in alchemy until some centuries later.

Classical alchemists were usually gnostics -- believers in esoteric knowledge -- and a consistent, public set of symbols would defeat the purpose of keeping secrets from those not already alchemically adept.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, among Christian alchemists, base metals (that is, anything not gold or silver -- or quicksilver) were often depicted allegorically as lepers (symbolizing sinfulness), who could be cleansed (changed into gold) by God working through the alchemist. I don't know the symbolism used by Muslim alchemists, who were at least as important as the Christian ones during the Medieval and Rennaissance periods. But again, medieval alchemists were concerned primarily with keeping their craft secrets from the uninitiated (in this they were no different from more prosaic guild masters, like tanners or dyers), and so the symbolism was never fully consistent.

For symbols of the planets, go to The Nine Planets.

Check out Dover Publications, which publishes lots of good reprints in this area. I especially recommend J.R. Partington's A Short History of Chemistry and Eric Holmyard's Alchemy; if you're interested in metallurgy, Dover also sells Herbert Hoover's translation of De Re Metallica. Other good books which bear on alchemy are Hugh Salzberg's From Caveman to Chemist and The Norton History of Chemistry.

marsIf you want to use a planetary symbol for iron, I recommend the symbol for Mars.

  Dan Berger
  Bluffton College
  http://cs.bluffton.edu/~berger


Current Queue | Current Queue for Chemistry | Chemistry archives

Try the links in the MadSci Library for more information on Chemistry.



MadSci Home | Information | Search | Random Knowledge Generator | MadSci Archives | Mad Library | MAD Labs | MAD FAQs | Ask a ? | Join Us! | Help Support MadSci


MadSci Network, webadmin@www.madsci.org
© 1995-1998. All rights reserved.