Looped square
symbol
The looped square (⌘), also known as Saint John's Arms, Saint Hannes cross (related to Swedish sankthanskors, Danish johanneskors, and Finnish hannunvaakuna or käpälikkö), and as the command-key symbol due to its use on the command key on Apple computer keyboards, is a symbol consisting of a square with outward pointing loops at its corners. It is referred to as a looped square, for example, in works regarding the Mississippian culture (approximately 800 AD to 1600 AD). It is also known as the place of interest sign when used on information signs, a practice that started in Finland in the 1950s, spreading to the other Nordic countries in the 1960s.
It is an ancient symbol used by several cultures, and remains in common use today. It belongs to a class of symbols which are called valknute in Norway.
Ancient use
The symbol appears on a number of ancient objects in Northern Europe. It features prominently on a picture stone from Hablingbo, Gotland, Sweden, that was created between 400 and 600 AD.
It is also similar to a traditional heraldic emblem called a Bowen knot.
In Finland, the symbol was painted or carved on houses and barns, and domestic utensils such as tableware, to protect them and their owners from evil spirits and bad luck. The oldest surviving example is a pair of 1000-year-old (Finnish pre-Christian period) wooden skis decorated with the symbol.
The looped square also appears on artifacts of the Mississippian culture of the southeastern United States.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Apr 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1670806. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1600 and 1000.
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This entry incorporates text from “Looped square” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.