Every Masonic researcher must have encountered illustrations of masons’ marks at some time in his career.
These illustrations abound in early volumes of Ars Quatuor Coronatorum and the Transactions of several other lodges of research, and in certain non-Masonic publications as early as 1843.
Unfortunately, much of the published material reveals a lack of scientific method in observation and recording of data, and there is no definitive study of the subject as a whole. Worse — some authors attempt to link masons’ marks with occult religion, numerology, alchemy, the genesis of alphabets and other imaginative theories which blithely ignore sites and ages that do not fit their needs.
