Craftsman tools

Tools, equipment, machinery and devices provide a vocabulary of symbolism arising from their functionings and purposes. This is a symbolism of technology that includes a vast number of human artifacts ranging from a stone age grinder for masticating food to a modern computer. Symbols that have appeared with frequency are the builder's compasses and rule, the carpenter's nails, the bricklayer's plumbline, and mortar trowel; the smith's furnace, anvil, tongs, and hammer; the farmer's and agricultural labourer's plough, sickle, and scythe; the woodsman's axe; the miner's sieve, the fisherman's net, and the hunter's bow. In another category one might cite the doctor's stethoscope, the surgeon's scalpel, and the apothecary's mortar and pestle. Other trade or profession related symbols are the demi-monde red light, the pawnbroker's tri-sphere, the gambler's roulette wheel, the judge's gavel, the hangman's noose and the undertaker's hearse.

Some tool symbols have been employed to represent ideologies. The Freemasons use the compasses, the trowel, and the master craftsman's tool apron. Fascist Italy used the double axe and Communist' Russia, the sickle and hammer. Notable among symbolic domestic devices have been the loom, distaff, shuttle, spindle, thimble and needle to indicate what was traditionally women's work, and thus the female sex, but also referring to human generation.