Doves are unique animals that can be found just about anywhere in the world. You may see them while you are eating your lunch on a bench in Stanley park or all the way out in the countryside near the edges of forests. All around the world in a variety of cultures share a common understanding of doves. They are usually used as symbols of peace, love, and harmony in most stories.
They have been used as a reference for the Holy Spirit in Christianity. At Jesus’ baptism, it is said that the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. Another biblical reference is in the story of Noah and the flood, Noah sends a dove out to see if God’s judgment on the earth had finished and on the third day it brings back an olive branch in its mouth signaling renewal. A dove with an olive branch in its mouth was still used many centuries later as a sign of peace and good tidings.
The dove has also been entwined with femininity; used to depict the Virgin Mary, Aphrodite in Greek mythology, and in Assyrian culture, it is symbolic of the Great Mother. This association is created because mother doves starve themselves for weeks to provide the best quality milk for their young when they are first born. In the Greco-Roman culture, doves are used as symbols for sexual passions and love whereas, in many other cultures it is symbolic of innocence. This bird also portrays eternal love in many cultures because they are monogamous, only have one mate.
In Egyptian folklore, doves sit on the branches of the Tree of Life and eat of its fruits and drink from the wells of life. On the other hand, in Celtic cultures the dove’s song, which has a mournful tone, is associated with a peaceful passing of someone nearby. Even in death itself, doves are used as emblems of peace and harmony with the finality of life itself and the expectation of a newer, better life to come in the afterlife.
Every culture-derived their symbols of doves from the various unique attributes of its song, maternal roles, and monogamous relations. Doves continue to be used as emblems in jewelry to represent these same ideas from a diverse range of cultures over the span of thousands of years.