The finders of these many buried messages may fail to read the languages inscribed, but they might recognize a symbol. Our evolutionary legacy gives us some predispositions to seeing gestalt wholes, so we naturally group objects enclosed by a line. We're sensitive to edges, and pick figures out of ground readily. Breaking down information from large chunks into bits comes easily to us.

Being too symbolic and abstract these signs though playing important roles these days could lose all their meaning with time. Cultural memory will change and the power of these symbols will diminish. Therefore we have to look for a kind of signs that communicate meaning without presupposing a common cultural memory and language. In just this century, the swastika went from a positive religious symbol of India to the hated Nazi emblem.