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+--- Thread: Just in time for Valentine's Day -- where does the heart symbol come from? (/Thread-Just-in-time-for-Valentine-s-Day-where-does-the-heart-symbol-come-from)
Just in time for Valentine's Day -- where does the heart symbol come from? - Byrd - 01-30-2024
Never actually thought about this one, but it came up on a Discord channel and I was really unsatisfied with the answers -- which were:
* seeds of the plant Silphium, so popular with the Romans that they drove the plant to extinction
* stylized (female) breasts
* stylized buttocks (gender of your choice)
* testes (this after a look at the Pink Reese's Candy) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GEnbENkXYAAUiCd?format=jpg&name=medium (yes, that's safe for work but ... maybe you should make sure you're not observed anyway)
* various plant leaves (ivy, for example)
* eye of a wild boar (this is Japanese, for reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heart_symbol)
The actual human heart looks nothing like the heart emoji... so how come we use it to symbolize a heart and love? It's an interesting little mystery.
The first actual depiction of a "heart shape" as a heart/love symbol is actually pretty recent -- one site traces it to around 1250 AD: https://www.artandobject.com/news/history-heart-shape
And that angle ties it into the idea of courtly love (something that was invented around that time.)
So there's a little history-mystery. Given its appearance so early, I'm going to go with "ivy leaf", myself... for no real reason except that I like the idea.
