Great Seal > Symbols > Eye

... Endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.

The Eye of Providence

"And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor." – Closing sentence of the Declaration of Independence

The eye was originally suggested by Pierre Du Simitière, the consultant and artist on the first Great Seal committee appointed July 4, 1776. He specified: "The Eye of Providence in a radiant Triangle whose Glory extends over the Shield and beyond the Figures."

Top of first committee's design.

Barton's reverse This design was not approved by Congress, but six years later the third committee suggested the eye for the reverse side of the Great Seal: "A Pyramid of thirteen Strata... In the Zenith, an Eye, surrounded with a Glory."

Charles Thomson liked Barton's design, but put a triangle around the eye and created two new mottoes. Congress approved his reverse design: "A Pyramid unfinished. In the Zenith an Eye in a triangle surrounded with a glory... Over the Eye these words Annuit Cœptis." (Zenith means more than apex or summit. It also suggests a highest point or state; culmination.")

According to Thomson's explanation: the Eye and "the Motto allude to the many signal interpositions of providence in favour of the American cause."

    NOTE
  • The official description of the Great Seal does not specify a left or right eye. It is simply referred to as a single eye.
  • The designers of the Great Seal did not call it an "all-seeing eye." They referred to it as the "eye of Providence."
  • And they never called it the "eye of Horus."

Recognize myths and misinformation about the pyramid & eye.

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