These two little symbols, despite being very simple and recognizable, have a lot of meaning and correlations with planets and metals. Both these associations started at the beginning of civilization. The ancients, after observing how planets and stars, like the Sun, were moving across the universe, they found out there was a causal relationship between those movements and corresponding changes in events on our planet.
|Venus (on the left) and Mars (on the right)|
Each planet, along with the respective god, was also associated with a particular metal. For example, the Sun (Helios) was associated with gold. And also the two planets Mars and Venus (Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus) had a representative metal. Mars (in Greek, Thouros) was associated with Iron, the hard metal used to make weapons that can turn red in form of rust.On the other hand, Venus (in Greek, Phosphorus) as associated with Copper, a softer metal that can turn green as rust.
Just like we do today with the periodic table, the Greeks would refer to these metals, using the name of the god they’re associated with, using a combination of letters. After a while, also a little shorthand was made. Talking about Mars (Thouros) and Venus (Phosphorus):
…and, as you can see, the shorthand began to change slightly again and again through the centuries, becoming the symbols we all know today. So, men and women are different but still connected by the stars. Have a good Life and Never Stop Snooping Around :)