Important to consider how symbols go together to produce meaning and how they are used. A symbol is a signifier.
Meanings are the signifieds.
Universals of meaning with respect to symbolism. Rodney Needham, a British social anthropologist. Probably influenced by Carl Jung. Needham's less ambitious scheme for talking about symbolic universals is useful. Clusters of primary factors, or synthetic images, have some degree of persistence through time and continuity over space.