Sun symbols
The commonest sun symbol is a disc: plain, with rays, with wings, or carried on a chariot. The winged sun disc of Egypt and Assyria, the Babylonian sun god’s four-pointed star in a disc, the gold disc of the Trundholm Sun Chariot and the chariot wheels of the Sun Temple at Konark each belong to a named tradition.
Meaning
A circle for the sun is the obvious sign, and the old traditions built on it in different ways. Egypt and Assyria gave the disc wings; Babylon put a four-pointed star inside it with flames between the points; Bronze Age Denmark set a gold disc on wheels behind a horse; India built a whole temple as the sun god’s chariot. Jean Rhys Bram’s article on the sun in the Encyclopedia of Religion (1987) is the comparative source for most of them; each is also in a museum’s or excavator’s own account. Some of these forms are still in use: the sun on Japan’s national flag, and Surya, whom Britannica notes most Hindus invoke in the Gayatri mantra at dawn. This page covers the sun’s emblems; the gods themselves are on the sun gods page.
Origin and history
The Trundholm Sun Chariot was ploughed up from a former bog in north-western Zealand in September 1902. The National Museum of Denmark dates it to the Early Bronze Age, around 1400 BC, and explains it: “The Sun Chariot illustrates the idea that the sun was drawn on its eternal journey by a divine horse. A sun image and the horse have been placed on wheels to symbolize the motion of the sun.” Its disc is gold with spiral ornament, which the museum says “reveals its Nordic origin”. Bram calls it “a spectacular object confirming northern sun worship”.
The winged disc, Bram writes, is the sun’s round form with the wings of birds attached, “so common in solar iconography”. In Egypt it is the winged sun disk. In Assyria it was the symbol of the sun god Shamash, shown above the king on the stele of Ashurnasirpal II (Ruth Horry, Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses), and set, in Bram’s words, “above representations of royalty”; see the Assyrian winged disc.
Egypt also worshipped the plain disc. Under Amenhotep III the disc of the sun, the Aton, began to appear as a sacred symbol, and his son Akhenaten’s artists drew it reaching down to the royal family “with long rays ending in human hands” (Bram).
The sun god’s star in a disc
The Babylonian sun god Shamash had his own sign besides the winged disc: “a four-pointed star in a disk with flames shooting out from between the points of the star” (Bram). This is the emblem drawn on this page. Britannica notes that Shamash is often pictured with a disc for the sun, and Ruth Horry describes the limestone tablet in the British Museum (BM 91000) on which he sits in his shrine, the E-babbar, “White House”, holding the rod and ring of kingship. The E-babbar temples stood at Sippar and Larsa, his two cult cities.
The chariot of the sun at Konark
The Sun Temple at Konark, on the Bay of Bengal in Odisha, is a sun symbol built in stone. Britannica explains the town’s name from the Sanskrit kona, “corner”, and arka, “sun”, and describes the thirteenth-century temple as the chariot of the sun god Surya. The two sources count it differently: Britannica gives “12 huge carved stone wheels and 7 stone horses”, while UNESCO’s World Heritage listing gives the chariot “24 wheels … decorated with symbolic designs” and “a team of six horses”.
The sun’s face
Some traditions gave the disc a face. The Aztec sun god Tonatiuh “is generally represented by a colourful disk”, Britannica writes, and is best known as the face at the centre of the Aztec sun stone. The Inca Inti and the Taíno sun have their own pages.
Read next
- Next in Symbols across culturesAxis mundiAxis mundi, Latin for “axis of the world”, is the scholars’ name for the line said to join heaven, earth and the underworld at the centre of the world: a mountain such as Meru, a tree such as Yggdrasil, a pillar, a ladder or a temple.
- The winged sun disk of EgyptWinged sun diskThe sun disk with outstretched wings, carved above temple doorways: the form Horus of Behutet took, in Egyptian myth, to fight the enemies of Ra.
See also
Sun gods, Assyrian winged disc, Tree of life, Labyrinth, Crescent moon, Spiral.
Sources
- Sun (Encyclopedia of Religion), Jean Rhys Bram (1987), “Sun”, Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition, ed. Lindsay Jones (Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), on Encyclopedia.com, Encyclopedia of Religion (Macmillan Reference USA), via Encyclopedia.com, introduction; northern Europe; Egypt; Mesopotamia; Japan
- The Sun Chariot (National Museum of Denmark), “The Sun Chariot”, National Museum of Denmark, Danish prehistory: the Bronze Age, National Museum of Denmark, page text
- Utu/Šamaš (god) (Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses), Ruth Horry, “Utu/Šamaš (god)”, Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses, Oracc and the UK Higher Education Academy (2019), Ancient Mesopotamian Gods and Goddesses (Oracc, University of Pennsylvania Museum), images; cult
- Shamash (Encyclopaedia Britannica), “Shamash”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 2 June 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, article
- Konark (Encyclopaedia Britannica), “Konark”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 17 February 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, article
- Sun Temple, Konârak (UNESCO World Heritage Centre), “Sun Temple, Konârak”, UNESCO World Heritage List, no. 246 (Internet Archive copy, 3 October 2026), UNESCO World Heritage Centre, brief synthesis
- Tonatiuh (Encyclopaedia Britannica), “Tonatiuh”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 19 December 2025), Encyclopaedia Britannica, article
- Surya (Encyclopaedia Britannica), “Surya”, Encyclopaedia Britannica (Internet Archive copy, 31 July 2026), Encyclopaedia Britannica, article
The same shape elsewhere
Browse symbols formed from circles or stars.
Researched, edited and approved by Rory Hansen before publishing. Last reviewed October 10, 2026. How we research
Added .