Introduction to Symbols Part 1

The word "symbol" is derived from the ancient Greek word symballein, meaning to throw together.

Its figurative use originated in the custom of breaking a clay tablet to mark the conclusion of a contract or agreement. 

Each party in the agreement would be given a piece of the brocken tablet, so that when they reconvened the pieces could be put together like a jigsaw puzzle. 

The broken pieces of the of the tablet, that identified the persons in the agreement, were known as symbola. 

So a symbol then came to be known as something that represented something else.

Symbols also represented something missing or an invisible part that is needed in order to complete the whole meaning. 

Whether consciously or unconsciously, symbols carry the sense of joining things together to create a whole greater than the sum of its parts, as shades of meaning accrue to produce a complex idea.