Solar symbol

and stars as shown on the Nebra sky disk () The basic element of most solar symbols is the circular solar disk. The disk can be modified in various ways, notably by adding rays (found in the Bronze Age in Egyptian depictions of Aten) or a cross. In the ancient Near East, the solar disk could also be modified by addition of the Uraeus (rearing cobra), and in ancient Mesopotamia it was shown with wings. Bronze Age writing and other gods Egyptian hieroglyphs have a large inventory of solar symbolism because of the central position of solar deities (Ra, Horus, Aten etc.) in ancient Egyptian religion. The main logogram for "Sun" was a representation of the solar disk, N5 (Gardiner N5), with or without a dot or circle in the center, with a variant including the Uraeus, N6 (N6). The "Sun" logogram in early Chinese writing, beginning with the oracle bone script (c. 12th century BC) also shows the solar disk with a central dot (analogous to the Egyptian hieroglyph); under the influence of the writing brush, this character evolved into a square shape (modern 日). Classical era for the Sun, a circled dot (), was first used in the Renaissance. == Rayed depictions ==

worshipping Aten (14th century BC; 1903 drawing) A circular disk with alternating triangular and wavy rays emanating from it is a frequent symbol or artistic depiction of the sun. Antiquity The ancient Mesopotamian "star of Shamash" could be represented with either eight wavy rays, or with four wavy and four triangular rays. The Vergina Sun (also known as the Star of Vergina, Macedonian Star, or Argead Star) is a rayed solar symbol appearing in ancient Greek art from the 6th to 2nd centuries BC. The Vergina Sun appears in art variously with sixteen, twelve, or eight triangular rays. ''Bianchini's planisphere'', produced in the 2nd century, has a circlet with rays radiating from it. Sun with face The iconographic tradition of depicting the Sun with rays and with a human face developed in Western tradition in the high medieval period and became widespread in the Renaissance, harking back to the Sun god (Sol/Helios) wearing a radiate crown in classical antiquity. Sunburst The sunburst was the badge of King Edward III of England, and has thus become the badge of office of the Windsor Herald. Modern pictogram The modern pictogram representing the Sun as a circle with rays, often eight in number (indicated by either straight lines or triangles; Unicode Miscellaneous Symbols U+2600; U+263C) indicates "clear weather" in weather forecasts, originally in television forecasts in the 1970s. The Unicode 6.0 Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs (October 2010) block introduced another set of weather pictograms, including "white sun" without rays 1F323 , as well as "sun with face" U+1F31E . Two pictograms resembling the Sun with rays are used to represent the settings of luminance in display devices. They have been encoded in Unicode since version6.0 in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block under U+1505 as "low brightness symbol" () and U+1F506 as "high brightness symbol" (). == Crosses ==

The "sun cross", "solar cross", or "wheel cross" (🜨) is often considered to represent the four seasons and the tropical year, and therefore the Sun (though as an astronomical symbol it represented the Earth). In the prehistoric religion of Bronze Age Europe, crosses in circles appear frequently on artifacts identified as cult items. An example from the Nordic Bronze Age is the "miniature standard" with amber inlay revealing a cross shape when held against the light (National Museum of Denmark). The Bronze Age symbol has also been connected with the spoked chariot wheel, which at the time was four-spoked (compare the Linear B ideogram 243 "wheel" ). In the context of a culture that celebrated the Sun chariot, the wheel may thus have had a solar connotation (cf. the Trundholm sun chariot). The Arevakhach ("solar cross") symbol often found in Armenian memorial stelae is claimed as an ancient Armenian solar symbol of eternity and light. Some Sámi shaman drums have the Beaivi Sámi sun symbol that resembles a sun cross. The swastika has been a long-standing symbol of good fortune in Eurasian cultures: its appropriation by the Nazi Party from 1920 to 1945 is a brief moment in its history. It may be derived from the sun cross, and is another solar symbol in some contexts. It is used among Buddhists (manji), Jains, and Hindus; and many other cultures, though not necessarily as a solar symbol. The "Black Sun" (German: ) is a 'sun wheel' with twelve-fold rotational symmetry. The design was incorporated as a mosaic into a floor of Wewelsburg Castle during the Nazi era and may have been inspired by Alemannic Iron Age swastika-like designs in Migration-period Zierscheiben. It has been adopted by modern Satanist groups and neo-Nazis. The "Kolovrat", or in Polish Słoneczko, represents the Sun in Slavic neopaganism. == Modern flags and emblems ==

Official insignia which incorporate rayed solar symbols include the flag of Uruguay, the flag of Kiribati, some versions of the flag of Argentina, the Irish Defence Forces cap badge, and the 1959–1965 coat of arms of Iraq. The depictions of the sun on the flags of the Republic of China (Taiwan), Kazakhstan, Kurdistan, the Brazilian state of Pernambuco, and Nepal have only straight (triangular) rays; that of Kyrgyzstan has only curvy rays; while that of the Philippines has short diverging rays grouped into threes. Another rayed form of the sun has simple radial lines dividing the background into two colors, as in the military flags of Japan and the flag of North Macedonia, and in the top parts of the flags of Tibet and Arizona. The flag of New Mexico is based on the Zia sun symbol which has four groups of four parallel rays emanating symmetrically from a central circle. {{Gallery == Code points in Unicode ==

• • (A more accurate term might be "solid colour". The actual colour is an implementation choice, for example , .) • (A more accurate term might be "outlined". The actual colour is an implementation choice.) • • (A more accurate term might be "outlined". The actual colour is an implementation choice.) • • • • • • • == See also ==