Astrological symbols

Symbols for the classical planets, zodiac signs, aspects, lots, and the lunar nodes appear in the medieval Byzantine codices in which many ancient horoscopes were preserved.

[2] The written symbols for Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn have been traced to forms found in late Classical Greek papyri.

Bianchini's planisphere, produced in the 2nd century,[4] shows Greek personifications of planetary gods charged with early versions of the planetary symbols: Mercury has a caduceus; Venus has, attached to her necklace, a cord connected to another necklace; Mars, a spear; Jupiter, a staff; Saturn, a scythe; the Sun, a circlet with rays radiating from it; and the Moon, a headdress with a crescent attached.

[5] A diagram in Johannes Kamateros' 12th-century Compendium of Astrology shows the Sun represented by the circle with a ray, Jupiter by the letter zeta (the initial of Zeus, Jupiter's counterpart in Greek mythology), Mars by a shield crossed by a spear, and the remaining classical planets by symbols resembling the modern ones, without the cross-mark seen in modern versions of the symbols.

One symbol, ♇, is a monogram of the letters PL (which can be interpreted to stand for Pluto or for astronomer Percival Lowell), was announced with the name of the new planet by the discoverers on May 1, 1930.

[12] The astrological symbols for the first four objects discovered at the beginning of the 19th century — Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta — were created shortly after their discoveries.

Shortly after Giuseppe Piazzi's discovery of Ceres, a group of astronomers ratified the name, proposed by the discoverer, and chose the sickle as a symbol of the planet.

[14] Karl Ludwig Harding, who discovered and named Juno, assigned to it the symbol of a scepter topped with a star.

The symbol for the first-recognised centaur, 2060 Chiron, was devised by Al H. Morrison soon after it had been discovered by Charles Kowal, and has become standard amongst astrologers.

The following symbols are used to note aspect:[41] The glyph of the Conjunction plus a circle on top of its line, implying two objects are opposed.