Trowel
A mason's trowel, the working tool of the Master Mason. It stands for brotherly love, the cement that binds Masons together.
Meaning
A stonemason uses the trowel to spread the mortar that binds stones together; in Freemasonry it spreads the 'cement' of brotherly love, uniting a sacred band or society of friends, the Grand Lodge of California explains. George Thornburgh's 1903 monitor names it the special working tool of the third degree, the Master Mason, and Albert Mackey gave the same reason for its place there.
Origin and history
A text of 1726 has a candidate holding a trowel in his right hand and a hammer in his left while taking his obligation, a detail that did not appear again. By 1742 to 1744 a French drawing of a lodge showed the trowel among the square, compasses, level and plumb rule, as Harry Carr of the Quatuor Coronati research lodge recorded.
Write in the Freemasons’ cipher
stringmash.comPigpen cipherThe grid cipher once used for lodge records, drawn from any text you type.Read next
- Next in Masonic symbolsGavelThe common gavel, a stone-cutter's hammer. It is a working tool of the first degree, and a Master is handed one at his installation as the sign of his office.
- The same shape in Aztec symbols and godsCoatlicueThe Aztec earth goddess whose name means “serpent skirt”, mother of Huitzilopochtli. Her colossal statue in Mexico City has two facing serpents for a head, a necklace of hands and hearts and a skirt of woven snakes.
See also
Square and compasses, The letter G, All-seeing eye, Double-headed eagle, Boaz and Jachin, Checkered pavement.
Sources
- Masonic Monitor of the Degrees of Entered Apprentice, Fellow Craft and Master Mason, George Thornburgh, 1903, approved by the Grand Lodge of Arkansas, Project Gutenberg, Master Mason degree
- Freemasonry Symbols, Masons of California (Grand Lodge of California)
- The Symbolism of Freemasonry, Albert G. Mackey, 1869, Project Gutenberg, Chapter X
- Origin of the Working Tools, Harry Carr (ed.), Ars Quatuor Coronatorum, vol. 78 (1965), pp. 278–80, Grand Lodge of British Columbia and Yukon
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from diamonds.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed September 25, 2026. How we research
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