1,000 Symbols: What Shapes Mean in Art and Myth

Scholars have debated definitions of symbols for centuries. For the purposes of this book a relatively simple definition based on G.G. Jung’s theories has been adopted. In Man and His Symbols (1968, pp. 3‐4) Jung describes a symbol as “a term, name, or … picture that … possesses specific connotations in addition to its conventional … meaning”. Symbols are defined by authors, Rowena and Rupert Shepherd as “something that a particular culture considers to mean something else”. Unlike signs, which carry one meaning, symbols belong to a world of “inference and suggestion, rather than … concrete facts …”.

This book...