Influenced by Greek mythology, so much so that Athena, goddess of war and wisdom, had an owl as a mascot.
The Greeks considered the night as the moment of philosophical thought and intellectual revelation and the owl, being a nocturnal bird, ended up representing this search for knowledge.
There is yet another explanation for such a relationship, which the animal would certainly not be so proud of. With its large and disproportionate eyes, the owl also became a symbol of ugliness.
In an Old Norse language, it was called uglaa word that imitated the sound emitted by the bird and that would give rise to the term ugly, “ugly” in English. “Thus, the owl follows the stereotype of the wise man, who is generally seen as someone more concerned with inner wanderings than with external appearance”, says the Hellenist (a scholar of Greek civilization) Antônio Medina Rodrigues, from the University of São Paulo (USP ).
But it was not in all cultures that the animal became a symbol of intelligence. In the Roman Empire, for example, the bird was considered ominous and its song would announce the proximity of death. In addition, other animals were also used in different civilizations to represent wisdom, such as the turtle for the Chinese and the salmon for the Celts.