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The Forum: Symbols, Signs and Secrets. What symbols tell us about ourselves.

Discussion & Talk

Hieroglyphics from the Giza Pyramids in Egypt. Credit: Getty Images

12/12/2015 GMT

Symbols, Signs and Secrets. What symbols tell us about ourselves.

BBC World Service - The Forum, Symbols, Signs and Secrets. What symbols tell us about ourselves.

Why symbols are so important, their history and their future.

Exploring the importance of symbols, how their history relates to us today and how we might use them in the future.

Art Historian Dr Janina Ramirez explores symbols in our past and present- how we use them in our everyday lives, their place in distant history and how they are evolving. Ranging from hieroglyphics in the ancient World through symbols in art to the increasing use of the emoji, Dr Ramirez examines the power of the symbol and its importance.

With her  to discuss symbols and signs, Professor Martin Kemp, Emeritus Research Professor of the History of Art at Oxford University whose special interest is Leonardo Da Vinci, Professor Mimi Ito, a cultural anthropologist who studies new media use, particularly among young people in Japan and the US, from the University of California, Irvine and Professor Joann Fletcher, an Egyptologist and honorary visiting Professor at the University of York in the UK who explores the link between ancient symbols and how we communicate today.

Photo: Hieroglyphics from the Giza Pyramids in Cairo (Getty Images).

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