NO WORDS NECESSARY

They are some of the most iconic symbols in use today, each with a fascinating backstory spanning decades or even centuries. As featured in Colin Salter’s book, here are the stories of nine of the most familiar and interesting signs

Poppy

When Canadian medical officer Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae lost a close friend on the battlefield of Ypres during the First World War, he expressed his grief in a few short lines of poetry. The poem, in today’s terms, went viral, inspiring a symbol of loss and commemoration.

The Jolly Roger

The skull, with or without crossed bones, has been a recorded symbol of death since at least the 6th Century when it began to appear on grave markers. It was a reminder that death – the Great Leveller – comes to us all. The first recorded use of the flag is by pirate ships on the notorious Barbary Coast of northern Africa. These ships raided ports not only there but in Europe.

Astrology signs

The symbols may seem meaningless at first glance, but many are simply abstracted pictograms of their subjects. Aries, the ram, is represented by a stylised pair of horns. Capricorn, part-goat, part-fish in Babylonian culture, has a ram’s horns and a fish’s tail. Leo the lion is a face with a flowing mane. Scorpio has many legs and a sting in the tail.

Anarchy

A is for Anarchy in many languages. Although the concept of anarchy is often misunderstood, there’s no mistaking the simple symbol of an A in a circle, as adopted by nihilists, punks, students and anarchists all around the world.

Windows

The history of Microsoft’s Windows symbol is a case study in small changes. In essence it has remained the same since Windows was launched – a window with four panes – but little adjustments with each new release have, over time, made the latest version very different from the first.

Evil Eye

The use of a symbolic Eye to ward off evil became a more general practice to avert misfortune. Ships in the ancient cultures of Greece, Egypt and China are all known to have been decorated with eyes. Even today, Turkish airline Fly Air decorates its tailfins with a nazar boncugu, a blue Evil Eye charm.

The Smiley

One of the most recognisable and flexible of symbols, the Smiley face has taken on many different meanings in the years since its creation in the 1960s. From the Peace movement of the 1960s through the high-energy dance culture of the 1980s, the Smiley has evolved into an entire language of emotional expression.

Musical notation

The oldest genuinely complete piece of recorded music is known as the Seikilos epitaph. Carved on a stone column memorial found in western Turkey near Ephesus and dedicated to a man named Seikilos, it is dated to between 100 and 200 CE. It bears a poem about the fleeting nature of life written in Greek, with the notes chiselled above the words. The notes are shown by letters, in a system devised by Pythagoras some 700 years earlier, with further abstract symbols beside them giving other instructions.

Maltese Cross

The Maltese Cross is the least cross-like of the many “cross” symbols, more like a star or a flower than a cross. Its four arms do not in fact cross at all but converge like arrows on a bullseye. Its origins may lie elsewhere but its connection to the island of Malta is historic and unbreakable.