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41b:34 ·
The staff of Mercurius was sometimes mistaken for the staff of Aesculape, the latter having only one snake, which means that the Mercurii staff has also been used in many countries as the emblem of medicine.
Compare with the Phoenician staff sign  . Western ideography contains a large number of staff signs, i.e. graphic structures depicted as if they were staffs or tools used by the gods and goddesses in mythological representations. Below are the most common of these staff signs:
 , the augur's staff (and the Christian bishop's crosier);  , the staff borne by the Babylonian god of thunder and the weather, Adad's staff;  , the staff of the Germanic father of the gods, Woden's or Odin's staff;  , the attribute of the Greek father of the gods, the staff of Zeus, which corresponds to the Romans' staff of Jupiter;  , the staff of Neptune;  , Tor's hammer, Mjölner;  , which was among other uses held by the Sumerian Venus goddess, and  , the ankh staff from ancient Egypt.
In ancient Egypt there were also two other staffs used as symbols of power:  and  . A third staff sign,  , represented gold, fortune, and riches.
Compare with the sign  , for the god or planet Zeus-Jupiter.
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