Seal, State

There are, so far as we know, no records to explain why the 18th and 19th century designers of the State Seal chose to include the particular figures and items depicted on the Seal. However, the design elements are all fairly standard emblems, and would have been familiar to many people at that time.

Plenty is almost always depicted with a cornucopia (though it is not exclusively her symbol—several other mythological deities and semi-deities also carried the horn of plenty, or at least were depicted that way in paintings and sculpture). The cornucopia is symbol of nourishment and abundance.

Liberty is often depicted holding the pole and cap (sometimes called a Phrygian cap). The pole and cap were symbols of struggle and eventual freedom from tyranny and slavery--the pole was imitated later in Liberty Trees during the American Revolution; the cap was a symbol from antiquity, adapted and re-adapted by people in the 18th and 19th centuries). Thus, the designers wished to show that the state was both bountiful and free. The ship symbolizes the voyages of discovery and colonization that brought people to the land that became North Carolina.

The State Seal of Iowa has a flag surmounted by a Phrygian cap, and the Seal of New Jersey depicts both Liberty and Ceres with their standard emblems, so these symbols are not unique to the state.

Steven Case
Government & Heritage Library