Swede here, do you have any clue on what symbol this is? Think it’s finnish…

33 comments
  1. Where did you find this? A little bit of context could help. These kind of easy-to-carve symbols were used as “house marks” (Finnish “puumerkki” and Swedish “bomärke”), to mark household’s properties and used also in similar way to today’s signatures.

  2. It reminds me of map marker church symbol.

    I should add not Finnish or Swedish but spent 20 plus years reading maps around the world while in the military.

  3. Google lense says the symbol of phosphorus, one of the symbols of alchemy.

    Doubtful that’s correct. 🙂

  4. This looks like a traditional puumerkki, which are family name signatures made in a way which was easy to carve into wood.

    Seeing the design it could be an alternative for a family member that ended up becoming a priest, or by some curiosity it could also be one for the local church. Most of the time there were specific copies for each member of the family that slightly deviated from the one held by the family head, but seeing as they have a cross here it is reasonable to assume that has significance here.

    This could be a method for the local priest to sort of approach the common man. They may be well educated and capable of writing, but to use something like this as a signature would be understandable if it were done to allow the others to feel closer to the church. Also if it is a simple variation on the puumerkki held by their family it could also be thought of as a way of paying respects to where you came from, given these are mostly used by the commoners, whereas priests were usually sons of the nobles and the bourgeoisie.

    Just my 2¢. Any idea where the guy was from? I could see about researching the locations history for similar puumerkkis or even this one directly.

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