What Are Alchemical Symbols?
Alchemical symbols are a notation system used by alchemists from the medieval period through the early modern era (roughly 1300–1700 AD). They represented chemical elements, compounds, and processes long before the modern periodic table existed. Unicode added these to the standard in version 6.0, placing them in block U+1F700–U+1F77F — one of the most obscure ranges in all of Unicode.
Very few websites surface these symbols because they require Supplementary Multilingual Plane font support. If you can see them on your device, you have a modern enough system to use them.
🜁 The Four Classical Elements
The foundation of alchemical thought. Earth, Water, Air, and Fire — each with its own symbol.
🜚 Metals & Planets
In alchemy, each metal was associated with a celestial body. Gold = Sun, Silver = Moon, Iron = Mars, etc.
🜠 Processes & Operations
Symbols representing alchemical processes like sublimation, distillation, calcination, and dissolution.
🜰 Compounds & Substances
Symbols for specific chemical compounds and substances known to alchemists: vitriol, aqua fortis, sal ammoniac, and more.
The Full Block (All 128 Characters)
Every single character in the Alchemical Symbols Unicode block, from U+1F700 to U+1F77F. This is the most complete collection available on the web.
Using Alchemical Symbols
These symbols render on iOS 14+, Android 10+, Windows 10+, and macOS 11+. They work on Instagram, Discord, Twitter/X, and most modern platforms. For older devices, they may appear as empty boxes (□) — but that's part of their mystique.
Pro tip: Visit The Lab on ARCScribe to stack combining marks on top of alchemical symbols, creating corrupted variants that literally don't exist anywhere else.