Origins: The Heart Symbol

Silphium is found in the coinage of Cyrene,

which features a seed pod of the revered plant.

Over 400 years before Jesus walked the earth the heart symobl was used on silver coins from Cyrene.

The symbol appears to be an image of the seed or the fruit (Silphium) the sad thing is the plant is now extincted it used to grow in Cyrenaica (in present-day Libya)

Pliny reported that the last known stalk of silphium was given to the Emperor Nero "as a curiosity"

Contemporaneous writings help tie silphium to sexuality and love, as laserpicium makes an appearance in a poem (Catullus 7) of Catullus to his lover Lesbia. As well as in Pausanias' Description of Greece in which he says "For it so happened that his maiden daughter was living in it. By the next day this maiden and all her girlish apparel had disappeared, and in the room were found images of the Dioscuri, a table, and silphium upon it."

The true nature of silphium may never be known but i think it is amzing how the human heart - the repository and the embodiment of romantic love - is always drawn stylized instead of in the natural shape of the human heart organ? The answer is rooted in the ancient function of Silphium!