We'd like to use analytics cookies to understand which symbols people look up, so we know what to research next. They are not used for advertising and we set none of them unless you say yes. What we store.
Marks recovered from the material record: apotropaic and mason's marks, graffiti and inscription conventions, merchant and maker's marks, and the editorial notation used to publish them.
Here when the symbol is known primarily from surviving objects and the scholarship on them. A mark still in ordinary use today is filed with whatever use that is, however old it turns out to be.
Historically documented above everything else — this is the largest concentration of that evidence class in the catalogue, and interpretations are attributed rather than stated.
All 657symbols in this domain, A–Z.
A script commissioned for an empire.
Letters standing for numbers.
A word written repeatedly with one letter dropped each line, forming a triangle.
Cast lettering and a load class on a manhole or inspection cover.
An acorn carried or displayed as a charm, and used as a decorative finial.
Gemstones set in order so that their initials spell a word.
An eight-armed Icelandic stave with trident-like terminals.
A script that outlived its language.
A blue label reading PAR AVION, marking an item for carriage by air.
A stylised heart shape.
A sign for the vessel in which substances are melted at high heat.
A sign for a round vessel with a long downward-bent neck.
An upward triangle crossed by a horizontal bar.
A sign for the distilling head, the characteristic alchemical vessel.
A circle with a cross above it, the inversion of the sign for Venus.
A sign for nitric acid.
A sign for the acid mixture that dissolves gold.
A pair of overlapping triangles, or a stylised S-and-Z form depending on the source.
A sign for bismuth, one of the later metals to be distinguished.
A sign for reducing a substance to powder by strong heat.
A sign for mercury sulphide, the chief ore of mercury.
A sign for a liquid setting into a solid.
A sign for taking a solid into solution.
A sign for separating substances by boiling and condensing.
A downward triangle crossed by a horizontal bar.
A sign for the working of a substance from within.
An upward-pointing triangle, the alchemical sign for fire.
A sign for making a volatile substance stable against heat.
A sign for saltpetre, potassium nitrate.
A sign for phosphorus, isolated from urine in 1669.
A sign for controlled decay, held to precede regeneration.
A form resembling a crossed or looped stroke, denoting ammonium chloride.
A circle divided by a horizontal line through its middle.
A sign for a solid passing directly to vapour and back.
A triangle above a cross, the sign for sulphur and for the principle of combustibility.
A sign for a water bath, giving gentle and controlled heat.
A looped form resembling a script V or a hooked stroke, denoting sulphate salts.
A downward-pointing triangle, the alchemical sign for water.
The first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, used together.
Geometric marks on skin.
Pictures for a language that also had cuneiform.
An anchor on a decoration or badge, marking naval service.
A ship's anchor with a ring, stock, shank and two flukes.
An anchor carved on a monument.
A winged human figure carved as a monument or in relief.
Text the editor adds because the ancient writer left it out.
An ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic sign shaped like a cross with a looped top, signifying life.
A plain ring, and the cadency mark of a fifth son.
A plain ring marking a fifth son.
An anvil with a hammer, marking a smith.
A crossed loop for a weight.
A weight below the dram.
The hand the Hebrew Bible is written in.
A fixed point all measurements refer to.
A marked point locating an object.
Short strokes showing a cut edge.
A bounded area of excavation.
The heraldic tincture silver or white, one of the two metals.
A dated mark applied at the office of delivery.
A town struck into metal.
A small emblem identifying which office tested and marked the article.
In scholarship, a form nobody attested — reconstructed, not recorded.
The ancient auspicious mark as it continues in Asian religious practice.
A script built to record sound exactly.
A pair of outspread wings worn as a qualification badge by aircrew.
A fern frond with paired leaflets.
A flag for twenty, a feather for eight thousand.
The heraldic tincture blue, one of the colours.
A king's script that became a syllabary.
A wavy line or a small basin before a date, marking a baptism.
A narrow horizontal band, borne in multiples across a shield.
A plain rectangular bar worn as a junior officer rank device.
A circlet with six silver balls, four shown.
The lower portion of a heraldic shield, and a band occupying it.
A script for the ritual specialist.
A Philippine script with a modern revival.
A colonial fix for a real defect.
One bit, sent a hundred miles.
A bear, frequently muzzled and collared in blazon.
A pattern of strokes carrying news.
A name cast into bronze.
A diagonal band running from the top left of a shield to the bottom right, as the bearer sees it.
A diagonal band running from the top right of a shield to the bottom left, as the bearer sees it.
Fractions of a rupee as glyphs.
A gold roundel, named for a coin.
A small upright rectangle borne as a charge.
Two runes sharing a stroke.
Incised figures aiding a recitation.
A star before a date meaning the person was born then.
A wild boar with prominent tusks and a bristled back.
An open book with a pen, marking a scholar, clerk or writer.
A small block of stamps bound into a booklet.
A band following the whole edge of a shield, like a frame.
Text present on the object that the editor judges a mistake.
The ancestor of the digits.
The earliest Indian text dividers.
A grammar for reading a brand.
A woven rush cross with four arms and a square centre.
A seated figure of Britannia marking the higher 958 silver standard.
A three-pronged arrow marking British government property.
A chain with one link broken, carved on a monument.
A classical column carved snapped off partway up.
One of four living Philippine scripts.
A small coffin or urn outline before a date, marking a burial.
A pre-arranged indicator paid by the recipient.
A butterfly carved on a monument, most often a child's.
A small charge added to arms to distinguish one son from another.
A winged staff with two serpents wound around it, originally the attribute of Hermes (Mercury), the messenger god.
A stacked pile of stones marking a route, a summit or a place.
Letters after a year saying which era it counts from.
A medal awarded for service in a named conflict or theatre.
A small square in the upper corner of a shield, usually the dexter side.
Numbers marking gold purity — 375, 585, 750, 916 — and what carats mean.
Letters that look Greek and are not.
A rope drawn round a royal name.
Two towers joined by an embattled wall with a gateway between them.
The next page's first word printed at the foot of this one.
A script read from beneath another text.
A circlet with rays each ending in a star.
An Iberian system for a Celtic language.
A cross with a ring encircling the intersection of its arms.
A knot built on a hidden grid.
A mark showing mail has been examined and resealed.
A Brahmic script across two states.
A script of a state that ended.
A wreath of leaves with four flowers.
An inverted V-shaped band spanning a shield, like a rafter or a roof gable.
The Greek letters X and P superimposed as a monogram of Christ.
A broad horizontal band across the top of a shield, occupying roughly the upper third.
Two beads above and five below a bar.
A crenellated line with towers.
A red block of carved characters.
A Khwarazmian chancery hand.
Vietnamese written in Chinese characters.
A single winding path set into a floor — not a maze.
The building points east, and that is why 'the east end' means the altar.
Two hands holding a crowned heart, an Irish emblem of love and loyalty.
A pattern that is title to country.
A charge of disputed identity, drawn as ranked pipes.
Two hands joined in a handshake, carved on a monument.
A stamp issued in a roll with two plain edges.
D G REG F D — the Latin round the rim, expanded.
Money left at a shrine, well or grave.
A small black block on a section's spine, stepping down the book when gathered.
A statement at the end or start of a book naming who made it.
Optional extra marks struck to mark a national occasion.
A balance-scale mark recognised across the Vienna Convention countries.
A uniform rounded-top headstone bearing a unit badge, name and optional emblem.
Rings drawn inside one another, incised as a protective mark.
A ringed cross painted or cut on a church wall, marking an anointing.
A number identifying one deposit, cut or structure.
A sheet marking identifying a printing for accounting.
Greek letters counting in Egypt.
A row of small carved heads under the eaves.
A twisted horn-shaped pendant, usually red, worn against the evil eye.
A beast lying down with its head raised.
A crescent moon with its horns pointing upward.
A crescent marking a second son.
A figure that names a lineage.
The dense block of sigla at the foot of a scholarly edition recording variant readings.
A cross-shaped decoration — the dominant form for gallantry awards in Europe.
A vertical and a horizontal band crossing at the centre of a shield, spanning it in both directions.
A cross each of whose arms is itself crossed near the end.
A cross whose arms end in fleurs-de-lis.
A cross whose arms split and curl outward at the ends, like a millrind.
A cross with forked ends marking an eighth son.
A cross whose arms widen outward and end in three flowing points each.
A cross with narrow arms that flare broadly at the ends.
A cross whose arms each end in a crossbar, forming T-shapes.
Two swords crossed in saltire, used as a branch and appointment device.
Two tools carved crossed in saltire, marking a trade.
A crown on a decoration, marking the sovereign as the source of the honour.
A circlet with raised ornaments, borne as a charge or worn by another charge.
A crown worn as a rank device in British and Commonwealth services.
Daggers around text the editor believes is corrupt and cannot repair.
A descriptive term for external shape.
A sign that is written and never said.
Wedges counted in sixties.
Greek written in syllables.
A single letter recording the year of assay — and readable only per office.
An opening word above the text.
The third script on the stone.
The vertical and horizontal lines that carry the relationships in a tree.
A phonemic alphabet for a territory.
A spoked wheel representing the Buddha's teaching.
An angled mark flagging a quotation.
A bird shown from the front with both wings spread open.
A pair of ticks meaning 'the same as the line above'.
The script the Maldives used before Thaana.
The marriage rings drawn apart, meaning the marriage ended.
A Jammu hand related to Sharada.
A stylised fish-like dolphin, drawn arched with a spiny crest.
Pictographs still being written.
A style with a stated origin.
A dove carved on a monument, often in flight or with an olive branch.
A four-legged winged reptile with a barbed tail.
A classical urn with a cloth laid over it.
A circlet with strawberry leaves and no balls.
A head meaning the tax was paid.
A monarch's head marking that excise duty had been paid.
Four interlocked ram's horns.
A stylised eagle, usually shown displayed with wings spread.
Cuts in an animal's ear encoding an owner or a number.
A circlet with balls raised on points above leaves.
A circle quartered by a cross — the Earth.
A circlet with plain triangular points.
A picture that fixes the meaning.
An Albanian alphabet from one manuscript.
Notation for text deliberately removed from the object in antiquity.
A white field scattered with small black tail-shaped marks.
A scallop shell, shown with its ribbed outer face toward the viewer.
A star of six wavy rays.
A row of dots and dashes dividing text.
The numerals Rome inherited.
A painted thanks on a wall.
An offering left in thanks for a prayer answered.
A pattern of vertical bars orienting mail for machines.
Two right hands clasped, a betrothal motif on European rings.
A horizontal band across the middle of a shield, about a third of its depth.
An enclosed compound with one entrance.
A number in a shaped surround giving the metal's purity in parts per thousand.
A firefighter's helmet carved on a monument, often with crossed axes or a ladder.
A printed design on an envelope issued with a new stamp on its first day.
A cancellation applied on a stamp's first day of sale.
A pair of arcs cut in from the shield sides.
The stylised lily charge as used in blazon, and the cadency mark of a sixth son.
A stylised lily marking a sixth son.
A printed leaf or flower used as an ornament or a divider.
An indicator for mail sent by serving personnel.
A small five-petalled flower carved on a memorial.
A rounded rectangle that is never quite one.
A U that fills what the ovoid leaves.
A private handstamp on mail carried outside the post.
A roundel barry wavy of blue and white.
Ten-day weeks, briefly.
A lozenge interlaced with two crossing diagonal bands.
Two crocodiles sharing one stomach.
An award for a specific act of courage, as distinct from service.
A bound sheaf of wheat.
One throws water off the roof; the other does not, and only one is a gargoyle.
The small marks that stand in for born, died and married before a date.
A cross before a date meaning the person died then.
A plain silver cross bearing St George and the dragon, for gallantry away from the enemy.
The first Slavic alphabet.
Sanskrit written in the Tamil country.
The compass direction a burial faces, set by tradition.
A contour of gravitational variation.
A face with foliage growing from it, carved in a church.
A phonetic shorthand using stroke length and elliptical curves, of uniform thickness.
A creature with an eagle's head, wings and forelegs on a lion's body.
A beast with its head turned to face the viewer.
A scale mapped onto the palm.
The heraldic tincture red, one of the colours.
Two stamps joined across a blank margin.
A triangular wedge running to the shield centre.
Consonant shapes drawn from the mouth.
A living Philippine abugida.
A diagram of stratigraphic relationships in an excavation.
A boxed context number in a diagram.
A line stating which context is earlier.
An Aramaic hand from one city.
Figures pecked into lava.
The sun, switched on and off.
A slip that revises a name.
A painted circular geometric design on Pennsylvania Dutch barns.
A six-petalled rosette drawn with a compass inside a circle.
Hieroglyphs written at speed.
A coin recarved by hand.
A chalk or coal mark left on a gatepost as a message to the next traveller.
An iron horseshoe hung as a charm, conventionally with the ends upward.
An hourglass carved on a monument, marking time running out.
A household's sign of ownership.
A blue roundel.
Part alphabet, part syllabary.
Abbreviated Greek letters naming the figure in an icon.
Three letters, I H S, carved as a Christian monogram.
A stamp issued without perforations.
A distinct assay office mark showing an article was hallmarked on import.
Short inscriptions nobody can read.
A small shield borne on a shield.
The Sasanian hand on rock.
A chancery hand on rock.
Lines on the face and hands.
A torch carved pointing downward, sometimes still alight.
Trailing ivy carved winding across a monument.
A three-pointed device marking a designated site.
A branching stroke marking mulberry cultivation.
A stylised numeral four or Greek zeta crossed by a bar — Jupiter, and tin.
The clerk's hand of north India.
A script devised in a single year.
A key with a ringed bow and a toothed bit, often borne in crossed pairs.
Numbers from the Gandharan north-west.
Two scripts, one still unread.
A community's script for its own texts.
An official Sindhi hand, briefly.
Heavy parallel bars struck across a stamp.
Another letter kept only for counting.
A toothed line following the ground.
A mounded semicircle on a base.
A carved post with a fierce face.
Painted rafter patterns that name a house.
A mark that changes the vowel.
A narrow horizontal bar with short depending tags, marking an eldest son.
Dots or a rule showing a gap where text is missing entirely.
A lamb carved on a monument, most often a child's.
An upright cross with a shorter crossbar set above the centre.
A ring of laurel leaves enclosing or framing another device.
A letter lying on its side.
The bracket system that separates what survives on a stone from what an editor supplied.
Brackets around text deleted in antiquity.
Syllables rotated into a block.
The ancestor of Tifinagh.
A trumpet-shaped lily carved on a monument.
A Himalayan script with a full stop of its own.
Slashes showing where the lines of the original object break.
The script Linear B came from, unread.
A picture standing beside a count.
A short-lived script, recently read.
A stylised lion, the commonest beast in European heraldry.
A walking lion marking sterling silver in England.
A design burned or frozen into hide, read by a fixed grammar.
A steam engine carved on a monument, marking a railway worker.
A script named after a palm leaf.
A diamond-shaped charge standing on one of its points.
A Greek-derived script with extra sounds.
A lyre or harp carved on a monument, marking a musician.
A dated circle with wavy lines applied by machine.
A merchant's script with no vowels.
A script with no final consonants.
Fractions with their own glyphs.
A wooden mallet with a stone chisel, marking a mason.
A cross of four arrowhead-shaped arms meeting at a point, with eight outer points.
Mongolian letters with added dots.
An alphabet that counts vowels as letters.
A seated cat figurine with one paw raised in a beckoning gesture.
A script that travelled with a religion.
A small pointing hand in the margin, drawn to say 'look here'.
A hand with index and little finger extended, the others folded.
A closed fist with the thumb pushed between index and middle finger.
Lines, crosses and hands added in a book's margin.
Two overlapping V shapes scratched as a protective mark.
A mark for mail carried by ship.
Who made a mark is the first question, and it changes what it can mean.
A circlet alternating leaves and balls on the rim.
Two interlocked rings before a date, meaning a marriage.
A circle with an arrow pointing up and right — Mars, the male sign, and iron.
A small stylised bird drawn without feet.
A footless bird marking a fourth son.
A script for a language across four states.
A small angular monogram identifying who cut the stone.
A scratched semicircle of lines on a south wall — a sundial for service times.
A medieval sleeve with a long hanging cuff.
Dots for ones, bars for fives.
Signs for the units of a date.
Signs read in blocks.
A shell standing for nothing.
A metal bar fixed across a medal's ribbon, naming a campaign or action.
A five-pointed star suspended from a light blue ribbon, the highest US military decoration.
The Rod of Asclepius and the caduceus on memorials, and which of them actually means medicine.
A script revived and made official.
A skull, coffin or hourglass on a ring, worn as a reminder of mortality.
A syllabary written right to left.
A seven-branched lampstand, distinct from the nine-branched hanukkiah.
A seven-branched lampstand, used as a Jewish memorial marker.
A square note of the mensural system.
Joined noteheads read as a group.
A square note with a descending stem.
The longest note shape of the mensural system.
Renaissance note shapes whose values depend on context.
A trader's sign on a bale.
A horned circle above a cross — Mercury, and quicksilver.
A read script in an unread language.
A carved stick carrying a message.
A Greek alphabet in the heel of Italy.
A small metal votive shaped as a limb, an organ, a person or an animal.
A V-shaped stripe worn on the sleeve to mark non-commissioned rank.
A star worn as a rank device, most familiar on general officers' insignia.
A date recording when work stopped.
A line where a seam meets the surface.
A hatched area of extracted ground.
A gauze-covered oil lamp, marking a miner and used to detect gas.
A half-size copy of a medal, worn with evening dress.
The smallest liquid measure.
A carving on the underside of a hinged choir seat.
A screenfold read like a path.
The marks of Marathi administration.
A gap that is a character.
A crescent — the Moon, and silver in alchemy.
A pharmacist's mortar and pestle carved on a monument.
A bowl with a grinding club resting in it, marking pharmacy and compounding.
A star of five straight points, and the cadency mark of a third son.
A five-pointed star marking a third son.
A commercial hand from the Punjab.
The cursive that became Arabic.
A southern hand for Sanskrit.
A woven design with a maker's rules.
Rings of braid around the cuff marking commissioned naval rank.
Figures only whole from above.
A trident — Neptune.
Early note shapes showing melodic direction rather than exact pitch.
A contracted sacred name under a bar.
A monogram flagging a passage worth noting.
A body of signs deliberately not public.
Two forms joined to show a bond.
A small metal numeral on a ribbon, counting awards or tours.
A script written by women.
Oak leaves and acorns carved on a monument.
An oak leaf worn as a field officer rank device, above the collar or on a shoulder.
A small cluster of oak leaves worn on a ribbon to mark a repeat award.
A tall tapering four-sided pillar with a pyramidal top.
The ancient mark for a line the scholar judged not to belong.
An eight-leaved figure marking a ninth son.
An indicator for mail sent on government business.
Notches cut along an edge.
An arrow saying where to start.
A script designed for Santali in 1925.
Angular letters cut for wood.
The alphabet Rome borrowed and kept.
Graffiti across a desert.
Wedges designed, not inherited.
The earlier hand of the Silk Road.
Angular letters cut in stone.
The link between Sogdian and Mongolian.
A small brocade pouch amulet sold at Japanese shrines and temples.
An open book carved on a monument, often a Bible.
The heraldic tincture gold, one of the two metals.
The insignia of an order, worn in a form that indicates the grade held.
A horizontal bar above a broad arrow, cut into stone as a height reference.
A narrow band inside and clear of the shield edge.
A Somali alphabet from the 1920s.
A script that hid its own words.
A vertical band down the centre of a shield, about a third of its width.
A circlet set with pointed stakes.
A Y-shaped band across a shield, formed of a half-pale and two half-bends.
A narrow vertical band, half the width of a pale.
A small bronze palm frond worn on a ribbon, chiefly in French and Belgian systems.
A long feathered palm leaf carved on a monument.
A caravan city's own hand.
A flourished mark opening a section.
A beast walking, with three paws on the ground and the right forepaw raised.
A circle enclosing a vertical line and two downward diagonal lines, originally designed for the British nuclear disarmament movement.
Gold ermine spots on a black field.
A black roundel.
An official's hand-sign.
Initials perforated through a postage stamp to deter theft.
A figure giving the number of holes in a set length.
A printed indicator replacing a stamp in bulk mail.
A circle within a square within a triangle within a circle — the emblem of the great work.
Twenty-two letters that travelled.
A Greek alphabet in Anatolia.
A pickaxe crossed with a shovel, marking a miner.
Letters as fragments of a grid.
A wedge or triangle issuing from the top of a shield and tapering to a point.
Ships, crosses and names scratched by people passing through.
A small star-shaped device marking junior officer rank in British practice.
A basin with a drain, and a cupboard recess — both beside the altar.
A phonetic shorthand using stroke thickness and position to carry meaning.
A number in a sheet margin identifying the printing plate.
Fineness numbers for the two later-hallmarked precious metals.
Farming implements carved on a monument, marking agricultural work.
A latticed gate with spiked feet and chains at its upper corners.
A mark showing that postage was underpaid and a charge is owed on delivery.
An inked impression cancelling a stamp and recording where and when mail was handled.
A short verse or motto engraved inside a ring's band.
Interlocking crutch shapes in alternating tinctures.
A vessel drawn half in section and half in elevation.
Two hands pressed together with fingers pointing upward.
A cancellation printed before the stamp is used.
Small holes guiding the ruling of a page.
An emblem identifying the printer of a book, placed on its title page or colophon.
A record scratched where nothing else could be written.
A barrel that survived a test.
The first alphabet, made from pictures.
A script named for one book.
A purple heart-shaped medal bearing a profile of George Washington.
The heraldic tincture purple, one of the colours.
A flower closing a chapter.
A mark of origin, not of maker.
Dyed cords carrying category.
The knot that means one.
Turns counted to give the digit.
A cord hanging from the main line.
One knot, one unit, in the tens and above.
A cord hanging off a cord.
A date with an error, a laboratory code and a calibration marker.
A mark applied to mail sorted aboard a train.
A beast reared on its hind legs with forelegs raised, shown in profile.
Straight or flaming rays radiating between the arms of a decoration.
The row of small stamped marks on gold and silver, and what each position in the row tells you.
How the parts of a medal group fit together — medal, ribbon, clasp, device and the order they are worn in.
The recurring motifs on gravestones, and why confident one-line meanings for them are usually overstated.
Tools and objects carved on graves, and why they are weaker evidence of a trade than they look.
Terms naming the front and back of a leaf.
A red lion before a rising sun, a recognised but dormant Geneva emblem.
A red string or thread worn on the wrist as protection.
A Sumatran script of few letters.
Lines radiating across a sea chart.
A row of short ribbon lengths worn in place of the medals themselves.
A letter sitting on a curve.
A staff with a single serpent coiled around it, associated in Greek mythology with Asclepius, the god of medicine.
A continuous repeating pattern applied by a wheel.
Glyphs from Easter Island, unread.
A script that is not read.
The stair to nowhere, and the beam socket above the chancel arch.
A stylised five-petalled rose shown from the front, with sepals between the petals.
A rose carved on a monument, sometimes shown with a broken stem.
A heraldic rose marking a seventh son.
A small circular ribbon knot worn on civilian dress to indicate an honour.
Cuts rather than holes along a stamp edge.
Letters the editor supplies to spell out an abbreviation the writer used.
A plain circular charge.
Two rowan twigs bound with red thread into an equal-armed cross.
A heading or initial written in red.
A dot deciding hard or soft.
A lozenge pierced with a round hole.
Monumental letters of severe geometry.
The heraldic tincture black, one of the colours.
A diagonal cross in the form of an X.
The older Hebrew letters, still in use.
The last of the numeral-only signs.
The marks of the Kashmiri hand.
A five-by-five letter square reading the same in four directions.
A crossed sickle shape — Saturn, and lead.
A script for a migrant community.
A small hooked mark standing for con or cum.
A divided mark standing for is.
A bar above a letter standing for a missing n or m.
A p with a crossed descender.
A p with a curled descender.
A q with a stroke through its tail.
A crossed stroke closing a genitive plural.
A curled mark closing a word.
A partly unrolled scroll carved on a monument.
Different stamp designs joined in one sheet.
A vertical slice, drawn to rule.
Hachures, levels and a datum line recording a vertical face.
A shaded wave against two-way time.
A beast sitting on its haunches, forelegs straight on the ground.
A snake, often borne coiled or knotted.
A small star worn on a military medal ribbon to count campaigns or awards.
A diagonal or horizontal sleeve stripe marking completed years of service.
A pair of shears carved on a monument, marking a cloth trade or the cutting of life.
A female figure displaying her genitals, carved on a church or castle.
A scallop or cockle shell carved on a monument.
A sailing vessel carved on a monument, marking a mariner.
A single continuous stroke standing for a whole word in a shorthand system.
A coloured jar in the window.
Characters written in mirror image.
A note that an oddity was in the original and is not a printing error.
An opening blessing on the page.
Indian letters preserved in Japan.
A script from one city, barely read.
A report that means one thing.
A letter at the foot of a page showing where a gathering starts.
A device cut in reverse into a ring's face, to be read in its impression.
Numbers written to resist forgery.
A column interrupted on purpose.
The script that turned the page sideways.
A letter marking a mineral topsoil.
A letter marking a subsoil of accumulation.
A letter marking little-altered parent material.
A letter marking an organic layer.
A triangle plotting three particle fractions.
Two closed loops interlaced with one another in a flat symmetrical figure.
A script attributed to a revelation, in 1936.
The script behind a national emblem.
An overprint marking a stamp as not valid for postage.
Initials in a shaped punch, identifying who submitted the article.
A carpenter's square and a pair of compasses interlocked, the emblem of Freemasonry.
Text inside them is gone from the object and supplied by the editor.
A slot cut obliquely through a wall to see the altar.
A male deer with branched antlers, borne in its own set of attitudes.
A star on a decoration — the commonest award motif, and the least transferable.
A crescent moon paired with a star.
A six-pointed star formed from two overlapping triangles.
A beast standing still in profile, all four paws on the ground.
A letter that is only a number.
A monument carved as a rough-barked stump with its limbs cut short.
A sun with a human face, surrounded by alternating straight and wavy rays.
A circle with a dot at its centre — the Sun, and gold in alchemy.
A script revived by regulation.
An overprint changing a stamp's face value.
How a medal hangs from its ribbon — ring, straight bar or ornate suspender.
An ancient hooked-cross symbol with a long history as a sign of good fortune across many cultures, and a separate, more recent history as the central emblem of Nazi Germany.
A straight double-edged sword, borne point upward by default.
A script for a language called a dialect.
Two competing vowel systems.
A face that states a descent.
A Palawan script held by few.
A script for scripture in the north.
A script crossing a national border.
Four strokes and a cross.
Debt cut into a split stick.
Thousands of characters, all invented at once.
Printed and painted bark cloth.
A deliberate teardrop-shaped scorch burned into a timber beam.
A thread count written as colour codes and numbers, defining a tartan.
The oldest writing in western Europe.
Abbreviations and numbers counting the stitches of each ring.
An alphabetic shorthand built from simplified letter shapes, used by journalists.
Two joined stamps printed head to foot.
The Victorian practice of assigning meanings to flowers — and why it is a poor key to gravestone carving.
One language written three ways.
A thistle head with spiny leaves, the plant badge of Scotland.
Three interlinked chain rings, the emblem of the Odd Fellows.
Geometric letters of the Amazigh.
Colour written in lines.
The Maithili manuscript hand.
A mark resembling a small seven, standing for 'and' in Latin and Irish.
Squares of design on Inca cloth.
What a coin's surface says about where it has been.
A red roundel.
A single masonry tower with battlements and a door.
Letters strung down a vertical line.
Coloured dots in a margin checking ink registration.
A dated mark applied at an office along the route.
A shell case turned into a vase.
A narrow orle, usually drawn doubled.
Three interlaced arcs forming a three-cornered knot.
Woven panels between the carvings.
An alphabet written in wedges.
A dot beneath a letter: visible on the object but not certainly that letter.
A horse-like beast with a single spiral horn, cloven hooves and a lion's tail.
A circle with a vertical stroke rising to a cross — Uranus.
A funerary urn with a weeping willow bending over it.
A note that a blank space on the object is deliberate, not damage.
Africa's first indigenous syllabary.
A pattern of interlocking blue and white bell shapes.
An eight-armed Icelandic stave, each arm ending in a different device.
An alphabet that punctuated its syllables.
A circle above a cross — Venus, the female sign, and copper.
The heraldic tincture green, one of the colours.
A bronze cross pattée bearing a lion and crown, the highest British gallantry award.
A circlet with sixteen silver balls in a row.
A second Albanian invention.
Beads recording an agreement.
A script attributed to a revelation.
A yoke with two hanging water skins.
Two curves swapping order to flag a zone.
A vertical strip carrying one measurement.
Ears or a sheaf of wheat carved on a monument.
A winged child's face carved on a gravestone.
An hourglass with a wing on each side, for time flying.
A human skull with wings, carved on early gravestones.
Outspread wings on a badge or decoration, chiefly marking aviation.
One picture for each year.
A stoneware or glass bottle filled with pins, hair and urine, buried as a counter-charm.
A wolf, distinguished from a heraldic dog by its bushy tail and pointed ears.
A bale of wool or a merchant's mark carved on a monument.
A laurel or oak wreath framing a decoration's central device.
A circular garland of leaves or flowers, carved or laid on a memorial.
A script for a closed tradition.
A thousand syllables, standardised.
An alphabet that got smaller.
Mongolian written in Tibetan blocks.
The oldest writing in the Americas.
Colours read as a message.