Symbols.com – Encyclopedia of Western Symbology

Have you ever wondered where the peace sign came from? Or did you know that a swastika was a symbol first used by Sumerians in 3,000 B.C? You can find this out and more at Symbols.com, an encyclopedia with 2,500 entries of symbols that can searched.

There is a graphic index, which is a cool feature to find a symbol you’ve seen without knowing the name or how to describe it verbally. If you answer four questions about the unknown symbol regarding its graphic elements, a search result page will come up that will very likely contain your symbol somewhere. When I tested it, I found the peace sign right away. The graphic index form also has great help descriptions for how to answer.

There is also a word index with names of symbols and phrases that describe them. I did not find any way to just browse the site content, but the word index and quicklink “random sign” are good places to start surfing.

Finding this site, for me, was like wandering through the stacks of a library and spying a book on something strange and cool that I could easily lose a few hours to. I think you’ll like it!