Also called pinecone, pigna, pine cone meaning, thyrsus tip
The pine cone has stood for fertility, renewal and long life from Assyrian palace reliefs to the giant bronze Pigna in the Vatican. In folk custom a gathered cone is kept as a charm for luck, abundance and a full house through winter.
TraditionAncient Mediterranean symbolism and European folk custom
RegionMesopotamia, Greece, Rome and Europe
Era9th century BCE to present
Moon☽ Waxing moon
DayThursday · Jupiter
ElementEarth
Difficulty●○○ Simple
Time20 minutes
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
The working
Find a fallen cone on a walk and thank the tree it came from. Brush off dirt and let it dry indoors for a day.
Write a short wish for the household on the paper strip, such as steady work, good health or a new baby welcomed safely.
Roll the strip tightly and slide it between the scales near the base of the cone.
Wind the thread around the cone three times and tie it, saying the wish aloud as you knot it.
Set the cone in a bowl by the hearth, on a windowsill or near the front door.
Leave it in place through the season. When the cone opens fully in the warm room, take it as a sign that the wish is ripening.
At the turn of the year, remove the paper, put the cone outside under a tree or in the garden, and gather a fresh one.
Take care: Pick up fallen cones rather than cutting them from trees, and do not take them from parks or reserves where collecting is banned. Dry them fully before bringing them near a fire; resin-heavy cones flare quickly.
Versions across time and place
i
The cone of the Assyrian protective spirits
Neo-Assyrian palace art · 9th century BCE
Winged figures on reliefs from Ashurnasirpal II's palace at Nimrud hold a cone in one hand and a small bucket in the other. Museum notes say Assyrian texts call the cone a purifier, and that its shape may come from the male date spathe used to pollinate date palms, so the gesture may stand for fertility as well as protection.
Uses: cone, bucket of water
Recorded in: British Museum and Metropolitan Museum catalogue notes on reliefs from Nimrud
ii
The thyrsus of Dionysus
Ancient Greek religion · 5th century BCE onward
Followers of Dionysus carried a thyrsus, a fennel staff wound with ivy and often shown topped with a cone, as a sign of fertility and revelry. The art historian Edward Olszewski has argued that the staff's tip varied widely in antiquity and that the firm pine cone label is largely a modern reading, so this link is less certain than popular books suggest.
Uses: fennel staff, ivy, cone
Recorded in: Thyrsus, Wikipedia; Edward J. Olszewski, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society
iii
The Vatican Pigna
Roman fountain, later Christian landmark · 1st century CE onward
A bronze pine cone almost four meters high once spouted water near the Pantheon in Rome. In the Middle Ages it stood in the courtyard of Old St Peter's, where Dante saw it and used it in the Inferno to describe the size of the giant Nimrod's face. It was moved to its present niche in the Vatican in 1608, flanked by copies of bronze peacocks from Hadrian's tomb.
Recorded in: Fontana della Pigna, Wikipedia
History
Pine and fir cones are the seed cases of conifers, and a single cone can hold dozens of seeds, which helps explain why so many cultures read them as fertility and plenty. On reliefs from the Assyrian palace at Nimrud, carved around 865 BCE, winged spirits lift a cone beside the sacred tree. In the Greek world the cone is linked with Dionysus through the thyrsus staff, and with Attis and Cybele through the pine tree. Roman tombs and gateposts carried stone cones as signs of life continuing.
The best-known cone is the Pigna, a Roman bronze almost four meters tall that once served as a fountain near the Pantheon and now sits in a niche of the Vatican, where it was placed in 1608. Dante mentions it in the Inferno. In later European folk custom, cones were gathered for winter fires and Christmas greenery and kept as small luck charms. A popular modern claim that pine cones in ancient art secretly depict the pineal gland has no support in the historical sources.
