Alchemy Symbols for Elements — Gold, Silver & More Copy & Paste
Alchemy symbols are some of the most mysterious and beautiful characters in history. Used by medieval alchemists to represent chemical elements, compounds, and processes, these symbols were a secret code — a visual language understood only by initiated practitioners.
Today, alchemy symbols are popular in tattoos, designs, and creative projects. Many of them are part of the Unicode standard, so you can copy and paste them digitally. This guide covers the most important alchemy symbols and their meanings.
The Four Classical Elements
Ancient alchemists believed everything was composed of four elements: earth, air, fire, and water. Each was represented by a triangle — pointing up or down, with or without a line through it.
Note: In Unicode, the fire and air triangles both use the upward triangle △ (U+25B3), while water and earth use the downward triangle ▽ (U+25BD). Traditionally, air was an upward triangle with a horizontal line, and earth was a downward triangle with a horizontal line.
Metal Symbols (Planetary Metals)
Alchemists associated seven metals with seven celestial bodies. Each metal had a symbol derived from its associated planet. These are the most commonly used alchemy symbols and many have Unicode representations.
Extended Alchemy Symbols (Unicode)
Unicode includes a dedicated Alchemical Symbols block (U+1F700 to U+1F77F) with over 100 alchemy-related characters. Here are the most useful ones:
The Three Primes (Tria Prima)
Paracelsus, the famous 16th-century alchemist, defined three prime elements (tria prima) that made up all substances:
- Salt (🜔) — Represents the body, matter, and the principle of solidification
- Sulfur (🜙) — Represents the soul, combustion, and the principle of inflammability
- Mercury (☿) — Represents the spirit, fluidity, and the principle of transformation
According to Paracelsus, all diseases were caused by an imbalance of these three principles. Healing involved restoring balance through alchemical remedies.
The Philosopher's Stone Symbol
The Philosopher's Stone — the legendary substance that could transmute base metals into gold and grant eternal life — had several symbolic representations. The most common was a circle containing a square, containing a triangle, containing a smaller circle. This nested geometric pattern represented the union of all elements and the perfection of matter.
While no Unicode character exists for the Philosopher's Stone symbol specifically, you can approximate it with layered geometric shapes: ◯ △ □ ○
Alchemy Symbols in Modern Use
Today, alchemy symbols are used primarily in design, tattoo art, and popular culture. Fullmetal Alchemist, the popular anime and manga series, uses alchemical symbols extensively. The video game industry often incorporates alchemy symbolism in fantasy RPGs.
Modern chemistry still uses some alchemical conventions. The symbol for gold (Au) comes from the Latin "aurum," silver (Ag) from "argentum," and mercury (Hg) from "hydrargyrum" — all names that originated in alchemical tradition.
How to Type Alchemy Symbols
The classical planet-metal symbols (☉☽☿♀♂♃♄) are in the standard Miscellaneous Symbols Unicode block and work on all devices. The extended alchemical symbols (🜚🜛🜜 etc.) require Unicode support for the Alchemical Symbols block (U+1F700+), which is available on most modern operating systems and browsers.
- Windows: Character Map or Win+Period emoji picker
- Mac: Character Viewer (Ctrl+Cmd+Space)
- HTML: Use あ or hex entities
- Easiest: Copy and paste from this page
Quick Copy — Essential Alchemy Symbols
All the key symbols in one line: ☉ ☽ ☿ ♀ ♂ ♃ ♄ △ ▽ 🜚 🜛 🜔 🜙
For more element-related symbols, see our guide to periodic table element symbols.