11/25/2023 0 Comments Heart hand emoji1250) pictures a kneeling man handing his heart to a love interest - the first instance of the heart symbol signifying love in a metaphorical context The French text “ Roman de la poire ” (c. Note the likeliness to the modern heart emblem: As was common in such books, the first letter of each chapter was often ornately decorated in one of these letters, an “S,” a man is depicted handing his heart (a symbol of his love) to his damsel. The first known instance of this appears in “Le roman de la poire” (“Romance of the pear”), a French love tale dating back to 1250, in which a man and his lover peel a pear together with their teeth. Galen’s writings - including his description of the heart - were generally accepted, and they served as “the foundation of authority for all medical writers and physicians” for nearly 1,300 years.īeginning in the mid-13th century, the ♥ symbol began popping up in artwork - this time, representing not ivy leaves, but the human heart, and moreover, love. As a result, scholars, artists, and doctors had to rely on ancient, humor-based anatomical descriptions. From these studies, he composed some 22 volumes of medical text, which included an account of the heart as looking akin to a pine cone, or an inverted leaf - similar to the representation of ivy in ancient Greece.īetween antiquity and the middle ages, a tremendous body of medical knowledge was lost, in part due to the Roman Catholic Church’s discouragement of scientific advances in anatomy (religious powers outlawed autopsies). Some of the earliest human anatomy studies were conducted by Galen of Pergamon, a Greek physician who tended to the grave injuries of gladiators, and was able to examine human organs without performing dissections. Historians are uncertain as to exactly when these representations of leaves became interlinked with the human heart - but the answer likely lies in a lack of anatomical understanding at the time. The trade of this plant was so incredibly lucrative in Cyrene that the symbol for its seeds was printed on currency:Ĭoins from ancient Cyrene, depicting silphium seedsīut despite bearing great semblance to what we now recognize as the “heart symbol,” these depictions had nothing to do with human anatomy. In the 2nd century BC, Buddhists began inscribing the symbol as a way of depicting the fig leaf, which, to them, represented enlightenment.ĭuring the 2nd century in the city of Cyrene, the symbol illustrated silphium, a plant used in ancient times as a crude form of birth control. In Etruscan art (4th century BC Italy), these ivy leaves symbolized procreation, fidelity, and rebirth, and were often presented to brides and grooms during wedding ceremonies. 350 BC)Ĭompletely independent of the Greeks, this symbol was used elsewhere in the world, also to signify leaves of some sort. Gold ivy wreath featuring symbols resembling the modern heart symbol, found in Chalkidike, Macedonia, Greece (c. Wreaths featuring these symbols were commonly worn by priests during festivals and feasts: In ancient Greece, for instance, the symbol was often used to portray a vine leaf, which harkened to Dionysus, the god of wine. But these early instances - etched into Grecian, Minoan, Cretian, Mycean, and Roman pottery - were actually representations of ivy or fig leaves, and had no connection with the human heart, or the idea of love. Historians have found relics resembling the modern heart symbol that date as far back as 3000 BC. How did this weird-looking, medically-inaccurate symbol become the go-to representation of the human heart - and moreover, an expression of our love and desire? It shows its face in an endless sea of Valentine’s Day cards. It’s emblazoned on t-shirts, graffitied on walls, and is offered, in an endless array of colors, across all mediums of technology. It dangles from necklaces, earrings, and bracelets. The symbol is ubiquitous in our modern world. We’re talking, of course, about the anatomically incorrect heart ( ♥) - a symbol at once cherished by teenage texters and detested by crusaders of medical accuracy. Yet in a grossly simplified form, it has become the reigning metaphor of our love. A twisted, bulbous mass of ventricles, veins, and muscle, it inspires neither romance nor lust.
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