From pigments to printing presses, symbols have been part of human communication from the very first day of mankind’s existence. The imperfection of speech, which undoubtedly allowed the sharing of ideas and stimulated invention, eventually resulted in the creation of new forms of communication, improving both the range at which people could express themselves and the longevity of information. Nowadays, symbols are so common that we hardly ever wonder how they started. A symbol can tell you more about a person, a group of people, an organization, or even a religion and political ideology than a thousand words.
Most of us are perfectly aware of what certain symbols represent and in many cases a single hand gesture or salute is enough to give you a clear message. Each December, for example, millions of people worldwide decorate their houses with mistletoe and kiss beneath it. The original meaning of this plant, however, had nothing to do with kissing or Christmas. Ancient Norse myth, where the mistletoe originates, saw mistletoe as a symbol of ritual castration. Here are ten more symbols from antiquity that probably don’t represent what most of us may think they do in modern times.
However, with AirPlay mirroring, HDMI cable support, and a bunch of new games showing up for the Mac platform along their Windows brethren, there are times when a console style controller is a better alternative. Playing games on your Mac is great fun of course, and all of them use the keyboard and/or mouse to control the games being played. Connect360 for mac pro. By • 6:00 am, October 29, 2012 • After we reported on coming to the Mac, we got a reader question that I figured it’d be good to write a tip on.
Winston Churchill in Downing Street giving his famous 'V' sign. ( ) The Heart Shape The heart shape is a symbol that today is strictly associated with love, romantic relationships, and most recently Valentine’s Day.
But in ancient Greece it had nothing to do with these things. We first meet the heart shape as a symbol for silphium, a species of giant fennel that once grew on the North African coast near the Greek colony of Cyrene. The ancient Greeks first used silphium to flavor food and as a medicine, but it would later become the most popular form of birth control.

'Top Chef's' home vandalized with political and religious symbols by The Associated Press Heifer International's 3rd Annual Beyond Hunger Gala with Tom Colicchio and Lori Silverbush. Vandalism is an 'action involving deliberate destruction of or damage to public or private property'. The term includes property damage, such as graffiti and defacement directed towards any property without permission of the owner. The term finds its roots in an Enlightenment view that the Germanic Vandals were a uniquely destructive people.
Silphium integrifolium. ( ) The Barber Pole You probably don’t know this, but the colors on the old-fashioned, almost iconic barber pole are not random. They symbolize a bloody legacy from the medieval period, when people went to barbers not just for a haircut and a shave but also for bloodletting and other medical procedures. See, during the Middle Ages bloodletting was a common treatment for a wide range of diseases and apparently barbers were as trusted as physicians to carry out the procedure. 16th century barber-dentist. ( ) During the Middle Ages bloodletting was performed by barbers and physicians.