Apentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointedstar polygon, formed from the diagonalline segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting)regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around the five points creates a similar symbol referred to as thepentacle,[1] which is used widely byWiccans and inpaganism, or as a sign of life and connections.
The wordpentagram comes from theGreek word πεντάγραμμον (pentagrammon),[2] from πέντε (pente), "five" + γραμμή (grammē), "line".[3]The word pentagram refers to just the star and the wordpentacle refers to the star within a circle, although there is some overlap in usage.[4] The wordpentalpha is a 17th-century revival of a post-classical Greek name of the shape.[5]
Early pentagrams have been found on Sumerian pottery fromUrc. 3500BCE, and the five-pointed star was at various times the symbol ofIshtar orMarduk.[6][7]
A Pythagorean "Hugieia Pentagram"[8]A right-handed interlaced pentagram, popular with Wiccans and some other neo-pagans. TheFlag of Morocco often bearsthe left-handed version.
Flinders Petrie mentioned that the pentagram started to appear as a decoration onPredynastic Egyptian pottery at around "Sequence Date" 64 in his system, corresponding to the earlyNaqada III era.[9]
Pentagram symbols from about 5,000 years ago were found in theLiangzhu culture ofChina.[10][11] A pentagram appeared in a Chinese text on music theory from theWarring States period (c. 475 – 221 BCE) as a diagram of the mathematical relations between the five notes in a particularChinese musical scale.[11]
The pentagram was known to theancient Greeks, with a depiction on a vase possibly dating back to the 7th century BCE.[12]Pythagoreanism originated in the 6th century BCE and used the pentagram as a symbol of mutual recognition, well-being, and good deeds and charity.[13]
During 300–150 BCE, preceding theHasmonean period, the pentagram was the symbol of theJudahite administration ofJerusalem, the seal of which was denoted with theHebrew lettersירשלם (YRŠLM).[14] InModern Hebrew, Jerusalem is spelledיְרוּשָׁלַיִם (Yĕrûšālayim).
In theSerer religion and theSerer creation myth, the pentagram, calledYooniir (also spelledYoonir) in theSerer language, is the symbol of theUniverse.[15][16] The Serer religion, in its understanding of era following theBig Bang, posits that the peak of the five-pounted star represents the Serercreator deity,Roog. The other four points represent the cardinal points of the Universe. The crossing of the lines ("bottom left" and "top right" and "top left and bottom right") pinpoints the axis of the Universe, through which all energies pass. The top point is "the point of departure and conclusion, the origin and the end".[17]Yoonir also represents "good fortune and destiny"—in a Serer religious sense, and in an ethno-nationalistic sense—following centuries ofreligious andethnic persecution, it also represents theSerer people,[17][18] an ethnoreligious group with members inSenegal,Gambia, andMauritania.[19][20][21][22][23] The Serer have a detailedpictorial representation of the Universe, representing the three worlds in Serer primordial time: the invisible world, the terrestrial world, and the nocturnal world.[24]
The pentagram was used inChristendom during theMiddle Ages as a symbol for thefive senses and of theFive Holy Wounds ofJesus Christ.[25] The pentagram is featured with a symbolic role in the 14th-century English poemSir Gawain and the Green Knight, in which the symbol decorates the shield of the hero,Gawain. The unnamedGawain Poet credits the symbol's origin toKing Solomon, explaining that each of the five interconnected points represents a virtue tied to a group of five: Gawain is perfect in his five senses and five fingers; faithful to the Five Holy Wounds; takes courage from thefive joys ofMary, mother of Jesus; and exemplifies the five virtues ofknighthood,[26] which are generosity, friendship, chastity, chivalry, and piety.[27]
The north-facing rose ofAmiens Cathedral—built in the 13th century—exhibits a pentagram-based motif. Some sources interpret the unusual downward-pointing star as symbolizing theHoly Spirit descending on celebrants.
Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa and others perpetuated the pentagram's popularity as a magic symbol, attributing the five neoplatonic elements to its five points, in typical Renaissance fashion. Agrippa depicts the human body inscribed in an 'upright' (point-up) pentagram and another with its hands in rotated pentagrams, among numerous other geometrical figures, in the section on 'the proportions and harmonious measures of the human body', and an 'inverted' (point-down) version of the Pythagorean 'hygeia' pentagram in the section on 'characters, received only by revelation, which no other kind of reasoning can discover', alongside variations of theChi-Rho and the Hebrew wordMakabi.
'Of this type are the signet shown toConstantine, which most people called a cross, inscribed in Latin letters, 'in this conquer', and another revealed toAntiochus who was surnamed Soteris, in the shape of a pentagon, which issued health, for resolved into letters, it issued the word ὑγίεα, that is, 'health', in the confidence and virtue of which signs, each of the kings won a notable victory against their enemies. Thus Judas, who for this reason was afterwards known as Maccabeus, was about to fight with the Jews against Antiochus Eupatorus, and received that noble seal מׄכׄבׄיׄ from the angel'.[28]
By the mid-19th century, a further distinction had developed amongst occultists regarding the pentagram's orientation. With a single point upward, it depicted the spirit presiding over the four elements of matter and was essentially "good". However, the influential but controversial writerÉliphas Lévi, known for believing that magic was a real science, had called it evil whenever the symbol appeared the other way up:
"A reversed pentagram, with two points projecting upwards, is a symbol of evil and attracts sinister forces because it overturns the proper order of things and demonstrates the triumph of matter over spirit. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns, a sign execrated by initiates."[29]
"The flaming star, which, when turned upside down, is the heirolgyphic [sic] sign of the goat ofblack magic, whose head may be drawn in the star, the two horns at the top, the ears to the right and left, the beard at the bottom. It is a sign of antagonism and fatality. It is the goat of lust attacking the heavens with its horns."[30]
"Let us keep the figure of the Five-pointed Star always upright, with the topmost triangle pointing to heaven, for it is the seat of wisdom, and if the figure is reversed, perversion and evil will be the result."[31]
Theapotropaic (protective) use inGerman folklore of the pentagram symbol (calledDrudenfuss in German) is referred to byGoethe inFaust (1808), where a pentagram preventsMephistopheles from leaving a room (but did not prevent him from entering by the same way, as the outward pointing corner of the diagram happened to be imperfectly drawn):
Also protective is the use inIcelandic folklore of a gestured or carved rather than painted pentagram (calledsmèrhnút in Icelandic), according to 19th century folkloristJón Árnason:[33]
A butter that comes from the fake vomit is called a fake butter; it looks like any other butter; but if one makes a sign of a cross over it, or carves a cross on it, or a figure called a buttermilk-knot,* it all explodes into small pieces and becomes like a grain of dross, so that nothing remains of it, except only particles, or it subsides like foam. Therefore it seems more prudent, if a person is offered a horrible butter to eat, or as a fee,[34] to make either mark on it, because a fake butter cannot withstand either a cross mark or a butter-knot.
Based on Renaissance-era occultism, the pentagram entered the symbolism of modern occultists. Its primary use is a continuation of the ancient Babylonian use of the pentagram as anapotropaic charm to protect against evil forces.[35] Éliphas Lévi claimed that "The Pentagram expresses the mind's domination over the elements and it is by this sign that we bind the demons of the air, the spirits of fire, the spectres of water, and the ghosts of earth."[36] In this spirit, theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn developed the use of the pentagram in thelesser banishing ritual of the pentagram, which is still used to this day by those who practice Golden Dawn-type magic.
Aleister Crowley made use of the pentagram in the system ofmagick used inThelema: an adverse or inverted pentagram represents the descent of spirit into matter, according to the interpretation ofLon Milo DuQuette.[37] Crowley contradicted his old comrades in theHermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, who, following Levi, considered this orientation of the symbolevil and associated it with the triumph of matter over spirit.
The five-pointed star is a symbol of theBaháʼí Faith.[38][39] In the Baháʼí Faith, the star is known as theHaykal (Arabic:"temple"), and it was initiated and established by theBáb. The Báb andBahá'u'lláh wrote various works in the form of a pentagram.[40][41]
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is theorized to have begun using both upright and inverted five-pointed stars inTemple architecture, dating from theNauvoo Illinois Temple dedicated on 30 April 1846.[42] Other temples decorated with five-pointed stars in both orientations include theSalt Lake Temple and theLogan Utah Temple. These usages come from the symbolism found inRevelation chapter 12: "And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars."[43]
Because of a perceived association with Satanism and occultism, many United States schools in the late 1990s sought to prevent students from displaying the pentagram on clothing or jewelry.[44] In public schools, such actions by administrators were determined in 2000 to be in violation of students'First Amendment right tofree exercise of religion.[45]
The encircled pentagram (referred to as apentacle by the plaintiffs) was added to the list of 38 approved religious symbols to be placed on the tombstones of fallen service members atArlington National Cemetery on 24 April 2007. The decision was made following ten applications from families of fallen soldiers who practicedWicca. The government paid the familiesUS$225,000 to settle their pending lawsuits.[46][47]
The inverted pentagram is broadly used inSatanism, sometimes depicted with thegoat's head ofBaphomet, as popularized by theChurch of Satan since 1968.LaVeyan Satanists pair the goat head with Hebrew letters at the five points of the pentagram to form theSigil of Baphomet. The Baphomet sigil was adapted for theJoy of Satan Ministries logo, usingcuneiform characters at the five points of the pentagram, reflecting the shape's earliest use inSumeria. The inverted pentagram also appears inThe Satanic Temple logo, with an alternative depiction of Baphomet's head. Other depictions of the Satanic goat's head resemble the inverted pentagram without its explicit outline.
TheOrder of the Eastern Star, an organization (established 1850) associated withFreemasonry, uses a pentagram as its symbol, with the fiveisosceles triangles of the points colored blue, yellow, white, green, and red. In most Grand Chapters, the pentagram is used pointing down, but in a few, it points up. Grand Chapter officers often have a pentagon inscribed around the star[50](the emblem shown here is from the Prince Hall Association).
Koch snowflakes drawn withMSWLogo (in Tartapelago[51])Drawing of a pentagram with notations of its angles.
The pentagram is the simplestregularstar polygon. The pentagram contains ten points (the five points of the star, and the five vertices of the inner pentagon) and fifteen line segments. It is represented by theSchläfli symbol {5/2}. Like a regular pentagon, and a regular pentagon with a pentagram constructed inside it, the regular pentagram has as itssymmetry group thedihedral group of order 10.
It can be seen as a net of apentagonal pyramid although with isosceles triangles.
The pentagram can be constructed by connecting alternate vertices of apentagon; seedetails of the construction. It can also be constructed as astellation of a pentagon, by extending the edges of a pentagon until the lines intersect.
A regular pentagram colored to distinguish its line segments of different lengths. The four lengths are ingolden ratio to one another.A golden triangle (red), and large (blue) and small (green) goldengnomons in a regular pentagram.
Thegolden ratio,, plays an important role in regular pentagons and pentagrams. Each intersection of edges sections the edges in the golden ratio: the ratio of the length of the edge to the longer segment is, as is the length of the longer segment to the shorter. Also, the ratio of the length of the shorter segment to the segment bounded by the two intersecting edges (a side of the pentagon in the pentagram's center) is. As the four-color illustration shows:
The pentagram includes tenisosceles triangles: fiveacute and fiveobtuse isosceles triangles. In all of them, the ratio of the longer side to the shorter side is. The acute triangles aregolden triangles. The obtuse isosceles triangle highlighted via the colored lines in the illustration is agolden gnomon.
As a result, in an isosceles triangle with one or two angles of 36°, the longer of the two side lengths isφ times that of the shorter of the two, both in the case of the acute as in the case of the obtuse triangle.
A pentagram can be drawn as astar polygon on a sphere, composed of five great circle arcs, whose all internal angles are right angles. This shape was described byJohn Napier in his 1614 bookMirifici logarithmorum canonis descriptio (Description of the wonderful rule of logarithms) along with rules that link the values of trigonometric functions of five parts of a right spherical triangle (two angles and three sides). It was studied later byCarl Friedrich Gauss.
The pentagram of Venus is the apparent path of theplanetVenus as observed fromEarth. Successiveinferior conjunctions of Venus repeat with anorbital resonance of approximately 13:8—that is, Venus orbits theSun approximately 13 times for every eight orbits of Earth—shifting 144° at each inferior conjunction.[52] The tips of the five loops at the center of the figure have the same geometric relationship to one another as the fivevertices, or points, of a pentagram, and each group of fiveintersectionsequidistant from the figure's center have the same geometric relationship.
^πεντάγραμμον, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott,A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus; a noun form of adjectival πεντάγραμμος (pentagrammos) or πεντέγραμμος (pentegrammos), a word meaning roughly "five-lined" or "five lines"
^πέντε, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott,A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus; Satan all 3 names mentioned before daylight fullγραμμή, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott,A Greek-English Lexicon, on Perseus
^this usage is borne out by the Oxford English Dictionary, although that work specifies that a circumscription makes the form of a five-pointed star and its etymon post-classical Latinpentaculum [...] A pentagram, esp. one enclosed in a circle; a talisman or magical symbol in the shape of or inscribed with a pentagram. Also, in extended use: any similar magical symbol (freq. applied to a hexagram formed by two intersecting or interlaced equilateral triangles)."
^πένταλφα, "five Alphas", interpreting the shape as five Α shapes overlapping at 72-degree angles.
^Budge, Sir E. A. Wallis (1968).Amulets and Talismans. p. 433.
^Scott, Dustin Jon (2006)."History of the Pentagram". Archived from the original on 27 April 2021. Retrieved18 May 2021.
^Allman, G. J.,Greek Geometry From Thales to Euclid (1889), p.26.
^Petrie, William Matthew Flinders (1853-1942) (1939).The Making of Egypt.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
^Madiya, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies. "International Centre for African Language, Literature and Tradition", (Louvain, Belgium), pp. 27, 155,ISBN0-660-15965-1
^abMadiya, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji, Canadian Museum of Civilization, Canadian Centre for Folk Culture Studies, "International Centre for African Language, Literature and Tradition", (Louvain, Belgium), pp. 27, 155,ISBN0-660-15965-1
^Gravrand, Henry,La civilisation sereer, vol. II :Pangool, Nouvelles éditions africaines,Dakar, 1990, p. 21,ISBN2-7236-1055-1
^Villalón, Leonardo A. (23 November 2006).Islamic Society and State Power in Senegal. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 62.ISBN978-0-521-03232-2.
^Bulletin de la Société de géographie, Volume 26. Société de Géographie (1855), pp. 35 - 36.[1] (retrieved 24 March 2025).
^Maury, Alfred,Rapports à la Soc. de géogr, Volume 1. (1855). p. 25[2] (retrieved 24 March 2025)
^Marty, Paul,L'Islám en Mauritanie et au Sénégal. E. Leroux (1916), p. 49
^Gravrand, Henry (1990).Génie religieux sereer (in French). Dakar: Nouvelles éditions africaines du Sénégal. p. 216.ISBN2-7236-1055-1.
^Christian Symbols Ancient and Modern, Child, Heather and Dorothy Colles. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1971,ISBN0-7135-1960-6.
^Morgan, Gerald (1979). "The Significance of the Pentangle Symbolism in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"".The Modern Language Review.74 (4):769–790.doi:10.2307/3728227.JSTOR3728227.
^Agrippa von Nettesheim, Heinrich Cornelius (1533).De occulta philosophia libri tres. Cologne. pp. 160, 163,276–277. Retrieved28 November 2024.eius generis sunt signaculum Constantino ostensum, quod crucem plerique appelabant, Latinis literis inscriptum, 'in hoc vince', et alterum revelatum Antiocho cognomine Soteris, in figura pentagoni, quod sanitatem edicit, nam resolutum in literas, edicit vocabulum ὑγίεα, id est, 'sanitas', in quorum signorum fidutia et virtute, uterque regum insignem contra hostes victoriam reportauit. Sic Iudas qui ob eam rem postea cognominatus est Machabaeus, cum Iudaeis pugnaturus contra Antiochum Eupatorem, nobile illud signaculum מׄכׄבׄיׄ ad angelum accepit,
^Lévi, Éliphas (2002) [1939 (translated), 1859 (first published)].The Key of the Mysteries [la Clef des grands mystères suivant Hénoch, Abraham, Hermès Trismégiste et Salomon]. Trans. byAleister Crowley. Boston:Weiser. p. 69.OCLC49053462.
^Árnason, Jón (1862). "Töfrabrogð [Magic trick]".Íslenzkar Þjoðsögur og Æfintýri [Icelandic Folktales and Legends] (in Icelandic). Vol. 1.Leipzig: J. C. Hinrich's Bookstore. p. 432.Smèr það, er verður af tilberaspýunni, er kallað tilberasmèr; er það útlits sem annað smèr; en gjöri maður krossmark yfir því, eða risti á það kross, eða mynd þá, er smèrhnútur heitir,* springur það alt í smámola og verður eins og draflakyrníngur, svo ekki sèst eptir af því, nema agnir einar, eða það hjaðnar niður sem froða. Þykir það því varlegra, ef manni er boðið óhrjálegt smèr að borða, eða í gjöld, að gjóra annaðhvort þetta mark á það, því tilberasmèr þolir hvorki krossmark né smjörhnút. / * Smèrhnútur er svo í lögun:
^Gravrand, Henry (1990).La civilisation Sereer, Volume II: Pangool. Nouvelles éditions Africaines du Sénégal (in French). Dakar, Senegal. p. 20.ISBN2-7236-1055-1.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
^Madiya, Clémentine Faïk-Nzuji (1996).Tracing Memory: A Glossary of Graphic Signs and Symbols in African Art and Culture. Mercury series, no. 71. Hull, Québec: Canadian Museum of Civilization. pp. 27, 155.ISBN0-660-15965-1.
Becker, Udo (1994)."Pentagram".The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols. Translated by Garmer, Lance W. New York City: Continuum Books. pp. 230ff.ISBN978-0-8264-0644-6.
Conway, John Horton; Burgiel, Heidi; Goodman-Strauss, Chaim (April 2008). "Chapter 26, Higher Still: Regular Star-Polytopes".The Symmetries of Things. Wellesley, Massachusetts: A. K. Peters. p. 404.ISBN978-1-56881-220-5.
Ferguson, George Wells (1966) [1954].Signs and Symbols in Christian Art. New York City: Oxford University Press. p. 59.OCLC65081051.
Grünbaum, Branko (1994). "Polyhedra with Hollow Faces". In Bisztriczky, T.;McMullen, P.; Schneider, A.; Weiss, A. Ivić (eds.).Polytopes: Abstract, Convex and Computational. NATO ASI Series C: Mathematical and Physical Sciences. Vol. 440. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands. pp. 43–70.doi:10.1007/978-94-011-0924-6_3.ISBN978-94-010-4398-4.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.svg)
.svg)
.svg)
