Ἑρμῆς

The oldest meaning of Hermes may be a heap of rocks. The Greek word herma (plural hermai) meant a cairn — a pile of stones placed at boundaries, crossroads, and thresholds to mark transitions between territories. Travelers would add a stone to the pile as they passed. Over centuries, these cairns were carved into pillars topped with the head of a bearded man: the god Hermes, protector of travelers and boundaries, the deity who moved between worlds. A landmark became a god. His name might literally mean 'he of the stone pile.'

Hermes was the messenger of the gods, the guide of souls to the underworld, and the patron of merchants, thieves, and translators — anyone who moved things from one place to another. In Hellenistic Egypt, Greek settlers identified Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth, creating a syncretic figure called Hermes Trismegistus — 'Hermes the Thrice-Great.' This composite deity was credited with writing the Hermetic Corpus, a collection of philosophical and alchemical texts from the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. The alchemists who studied these texts sealed their vessels airtight to prevent contamination. The phrase hermetically sealed entered English by the 1660s.

From the same root came hermeneutics — the art and theory of interpretation. If Hermes carried messages between gods and mortals, then hermeneuein meant 'to interpret' or 'to translate.' Friedrich Schleiermacher formalized hermeneutics as a philosophical discipline in the early 19th century; Hans-Georg Gadamer extended it in the 20th. Every field that interprets texts — theology, law, literary criticism — practices hermeneutics. A god of stone piles gave us the word for reading.

In 1837, Thierry Hermès opened a harness workshop in Paris that eventually became the luxury fashion house. The company chose the name because of the god's association with horses and travel. Today, a Birkin bag costs more than most people earn in a month. The god of travelers and thieves would appreciate the irony: his name now marks the boundary between those who can afford the bag and those who cannot.