Alchemical symbol

A table of alchemical symbols from Basil Valentine's The Last Will and Testament, 1670

A table of alchemical symbols from Basil Valentine's The Last Will and Testament, 1670

Part 1	Part 2
Alchemical symbols before Lavoisier

Alchemical symbols were used to denote chemical elements and compounds, as well as alchemical apparatus and processes, until the 18th century. Although notation was partly standardized, style and symbol varied between alchemists. Lüdy-Tenger published an inventory of 3,695 symbols and variants, and that was not exhaustive, omitting for example many of the symbols used by Isaac Newton. This page therefore lists only the most common symbols.

Three primes

According to Paracelsus (1493–1541), the three primes or tria prima – of which material substances are immediately composed – are:

• Sulfur or soul, the principle of combustibility: 🜍 (File:Sulphur symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Mercury or spirit, the principle of fusibility and volatility: ☿ (File:Mercury symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Salt or body, the principle of non-combustibility and non-volatility: 🜔 (File:Salt symbol (alchemical).svg)

Four basic elements

Western alchemy makes use of the four classical elements. The symbols used for these are:

• Air 🜁 (File:Air symbol (alchemical).svg)
• Earth 🜃 (File:Earth symbol (alchemical).svg)
• Fire 🜂 (File:Fire symbol (alchemical).svg)
• Water 🜄 (File:Water symbol (alchemical).svg)

Seven Template:Vanchor

File:Arms of the Royal Society of Chemistry.svg

The shield in the coat of arms of the Royal Society of Chemistry, with the seven planetary-metal symbols

The seven metals known since Classical times in Europe were associated with the seven classical planets; this figured heavily in alchemical symbolism. The exact correlation varied over time, and in early centuries bronze or electrum were sometimes found instead of mercury, or copper for Mars instead of iron; however, gold, silver, and lead had always been associated with the Sun, Moon, and Saturn.Template:NoteTag The associations below are attested from the 7th century and had stabilized by the 15th. They started breaking down with the discovery of antimony, bismuth, and zinc in the 16th century. Alchemists would typically call the metals by their planetary names, e.g. "Saturn" for lead, "Mars" for iron; compounds of tin, iron, and silver continued to be called "jovial", "martial", and "lunar"; or "of Jupiter", "of Mars", and "of the moon", through the 17th century. The tradition remains today with the name of the element mercury, where chemists decided the planetary name was preferable to common names like "quicksilver", and in a few archaic terms such as lunar caustic (silver nitrate) and saturnism (lead poisoning).

• Silver, corresponding with the Moon ☽ or ☾ (File:Moon crescent symbol (fixed width).svg or File:Moon decrescent symbol (fixed width).svg) [also 🜛 in Newton]
• Gold, corresponding with the Sun ☉ 🜚 ☼ (File:Sun symbol (fixed width).svg File:Sun symbol (medieval).svg File:Sol symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Quicksilver, corresponding with Mercury ☿ (File:Mercury symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Copper, corresponding with Venus ♀ (File:Venus symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Iron, corresponding with Mars ♂ (File:Mars symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Tin, corresponding with Jupiter ♃ (File:Jupiter symbol (fixed width).svg)
• Lead, corresponding with Saturn ♄ (File:Saturn symbol (fixed width).svg)

Mundane elements and later metals

File:Squared circle.svg

The squared circle: an alchemical symbol (17th century) illustrating the interplay of the four elements of matter symbolising the philosopher's stone

• Antimony ♁ (File:Globus cruciger (fixed width).svg) (in Newton), also File:Antimony psi symbol.svg
• Arsenic 🜺 (File:Arsenic symbol.svg)
• Bismuth ♆ (File:Bismuth trident symbol.svg) (in Newton), 🜘 (File:Bismuth symbol.svg) (in Bergman)
• Cobalt File:Alkali symbol.svg (approximately 🜶) (in Bergman)
• Manganese File:Manganese symbol (Bergman).svg (in Bergman)
• Nickel File:Nickel symbol.svg (in Bergman; previously used for regulus of sulfur)
• Oxygen File:Oxygen symbol (Lavoisier).svg (in Lavoisier)
• Phlogiston File:Phlogiston symbol.svg (in Bergman)
• Phosphorus File:Phosphorus symbol.svg or File:Phosphorus symbol (inverted).svg
• Platinum File:Platinum symbol.svg or File:Platinum symbol (simple).svg (in Bergman et al.)
• Sulfur 🜍 (File:Sulphur symbol (fixed width).svg) (in Newton)
• Zinc File:Zinc symbol (fixed width).svg (in Bergman)

Alchemical compounds

File:Alchemical-symbols-1775.jpg

Alchemical symbols in Torbern Bergman's 1775 Dissertation on Elective Affinities

The following symbols, among others, have been adopted into Unicode.

• Acid (incl. vinegar) 🜊 (File:Acid symbol (alchemical).svg)
• Sal ammoniac (ammonium chloride) 🜹 (File:Sal ammoniac symbol.svg)
• Aqua fortis (nitric acid) 🜅 (File:Aqua fortis.svg), A.F.
• Aqua regia (nitro-hydrochloric acid) 🜆 (File:Aqua regia (alchemical).svg), 🜇 (File:U+1F707.svg), A.R.
• Spirit of wine (concentrated ethanol; called aqua vitae or spiritus vini) 🜈 (File:U+1F708.svg), S.V. or 🜉 (File:Aqua vitae symbol.svg)
• Amalgam (alloys of a metal and mercury) 🝛 (File:U+1F75B.svg) = a͞a͞a, ȧȧȧ (among other abbreviations).
• Cinnabar (mercury sulfide) 🜓 (File:Cinnabar symbol.svg)
• Vinegar (distilled) 🜋 (File:Distilled vinegar symbol.svg) (in Newton)
• Vitriol (sulfates) 🜖 (File:Vitriol symbol.svg)
• Black sulphur (residue from sublimation of sulfur) 🜏 (File:Black sulfur symbol (fixed width).svg)

Alchemical processes

File:Alchemy-Digby-RareSecrets.png

An extract and symbol key from Kenelm Digby's A Choice Collection of Rare Secrets, 1682

The alchemical magnum opus was sometimes expressed as a series of chemical operations. In cases where these numbered twelve, each could be assigned one of the Zodiac signs as a form of cryptography. The following example can be found in Pernety's Dictionnaire mytho-hermétique (1758):

1. Calcination (Aries File:Aries symbol (fixed width).svg) ♈︎
2. Congelation (Taurus File:Taurus symbol (fixed width).svg) ♉︎
3. Fixation (Gemini File:Gemini symbol (fixed width).svg) ♊︎ (Solidification)
4. Solution (Cancer File:Cancer symbol (fixed width).svg) ♋︎
5. Digestion (Leo File:Leo symbol (fixed width).svg) ♌︎
6. Distillation (Virgo File:Virgo symbol (fixed width).svg) ♍︎
7. Sublimation (Libra File:Libra symbol (fixed width).svg) ♎︎
8. Separation (Scorpio File:Scorpius symbol (fixed width).svg) ♏︎
9. Ceration (Sagittarius File:Sagittarius symbol (fixed width).svg) ♐︎
10. Fermentation (Capricorn File:Capricornus symbol (fixed width).svg) ♑︎ (Putrefaction)
11. Multiplication (Aquarius File:Aquarius symbol (fixed width).svg) ♒︎
12. Projection (Pisces File:Pisces symbol (fixed width).svg) ♓︎

Units

Several symbols indicate units of time.

• Month 🝱 (File:Month symbol.svg) or File:Month XXX symbol.svg or xXx
• Day-Night 🝰 (File:Day-night symbol.svg)
• Hour 🝮 (File:Hour symbol.svg)

Unicode

The Alchemical Symbols block was added to Unicode in 2010 as part of Unicode 6.0.

Gallery

A list of symbols published in 1931:

• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 1.jpg
• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 2.jpg
• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 3.jpg
• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 4.jpg
• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 5.jpg
• File:De Rosemont (1931) plate 6.jpg
• (all 6 plates, large file)
  (all 6 plates, large file)

An 1888 reproduction of a Venetian list of medieval Greek alchemical symbols from about the year 1100 but circulating since about 300 and attributed to Zosimos of Panopolis. The list starts with 🜚 for gold and has early conventions that would later change: here ☿ is tin and ♃ electrum; ☾ is silver but ☽ is mercury. Many of the 'symbols' are simply abbreviations of the Greek word or phrase. View the files on Commons for the list of symbols.

• File:Marcianus gr. 299 fol 6.jpg
• File:Marcianus gr. 299 fol 7.jpg
• File:Marcianus gr. 299 fol 7v.jpg

See also

Other symbols commonly used in alchemy and related esoteric traditions:

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    • Circled dot (disambiguation)
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• Template:Annotated link
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• Template:Annotated link, as used by Hermetic theurgists
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External links

• wikt:Appendix:Unicode/Alchemical Symbols
• Alchemical symbols in Unicode