Symbols and words of peace

The peace symbol ☮

Born in 1958: The symbol was designed in Britain in 1958 by Gerald Holtom, a designer and artist¹.
Two letters in flags: According to Holtom, the symbol combines the letters N and D in flag semaphore: Nuclear Disarmament¹. He also described a personal meaning: the figure of a person in despair, arms stretched downwards¹.
The march to Aldermaston: The symbol first appeared over the Easter weekend of 1958, on the march from London to Aldermaston. Five hundred cardboard signs on sticks were made for it¹.
It belongs to everyone: According to Britain's Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), the symbol has never been copyrighted, and that was deliberate. Nobody has to pay or ask permission to use it¹.

The dove and the olive branch

Religious tradition: the Flood story: The Book of Genesis (8:11) says in Hebrew: ״וַתָּבֹא אֵלָיו הַיּוֹנָה לְעֵת עֶרֶב, וְהִנֵּה עֲלֵה-זַיִת טָרָף בְּפִיהָ״ — the dove came back to him in the evening with a freshly plucked olive leaf in its beak². In the verse itself the leaf shows that the waters had gone down. The word peace does not appear in it.
Religious tradition: an early Christian reading: The early Christian writer Tertullian wrote in his work On Baptism that the dove returned with an olive branch, a sign that heralds peace among the other nations too³. This shows that in his time the olive branch already counted as a sign of peace outside Christianity as well.
Culture of the classical world: Rome: In Virgil's Aeneid (Book 8) Aeneas holds out from his ship an olive bough, described there as a bough of peace⁴. In Roman religion Pax was the personification of peace, and in 9 BCE an altar was dedicated to her, the Ara Pacis⁵.
Modern history: the UN emblem, 1946: On 7 December 1946 the UN General Assembly adopted the organisation's emblem: a map of the world inside a wreath of olive branches. According to the UN, the olive branches symbolise peace⁶.
Modern history: Picasso's dove, 1949: Pablo Picasso made the lithograph Dove in 1949⁷. The poet Louis Aragon chose it in Picasso's studio, and it was selected for the poster of the First International Peace Congress in Paris that year⁸.

The handshake

An ancient gesture of connection: On a marble funerary vase from Attica in Greece, dated to about 400–390 BCE, a man named Kallisthenes is shown clasping the hand of a seated man⁹. The museum does not give the gesture a single meaning. It is a gesture of connection between people, not a symbol of peace.
Camp David, 1978: Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin were photographed shaking hands on 7 September 1978, during the Camp David summit¹⁰.
Washington, 1993: Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat shook hands on the White House lawn on 13 September 1993, at the signing ceremony of the Declaration of Principles, with Bill Clinton standing between them¹¹.
Not a universal symbol: A handshake does not carry one meaning in every culture and every period. On the Greek vase it is a gesture of connection; in the photographs of 1978 and 1993 it was read as a sign of reconciliation. Even a famous handshake is a moment, not an agreement.

שלום · سلام · Peace

Word	Language	Root or origin	Core senses	Source
שָׁלוֹם (shalom)	Hebrew	The Semitic root šlm; the BDB lexicon lists it under the verb shalem, to be complete	completeness, soundness, welfare, peace	American Heritage Dictionary¹²; BDB lexicon¹³
سلام (salaam)	Arabic	From the Arabic verb salima, to be safe; the dictionary assigns it to the same Semitic root, šlm	peace, safety	American Heritage Dictionary¹⁴
peace	English	From Latin pax, through Old French pais; from the Indo-European root pag, to fasten	compact, treaty of peace, tranquillity, absence of war	Online Etymology Dictionary¹⁵

The peace symbol ☮

The dove and the olive branch

The handshake

שלום · سلام · Peace

Sources