"Dedicated to Research
and Preservation of Pre-Columbian North America"
Guishapeobject
Heart Symbol
An unidentified piece, similar in some respects in form to the Gui being held by character on sword, and has a heart shaped symbol and a partial circle at the tip and other possible symbols. Unknown material at this time.
There is a bulbous, baked clay goblet in the museum of Kabul in Afghanistan which dates from the first half of the 3rd millenium B.C., depicting stylized fig leaves with broad stems. This decoration can be found on later ceramics of neighboring cultures. As well as other vegetal decorations there appear these same fig leaves and later ivy leaves which may have anticipated the modern heart shape.
Approximately 1000 years later these botanic patterns appeared on Cretian clay vessels. Fresco painters decorated scenes of figures in Minoan palaces with naturalistic painted tendrils of ivy, heart-shaped leaves.
The Acheans, heirs of the Minoan culture and bearers of the Mycean culture group, adopted the stylized ivy leaf in there ornamentation’s. Heart-shaped tendril are also found on Grecian stelae and later on Roman gravestones.
Whether the true meaning and intent for the initial use of the heart symbol is ever discovered, it can be said that the survival of the symbol regardless of it's modern use, was important to many cultures throughout the centuries.