In early Christianity, particularly as it entered the Gentile world and the Roman Empire, we know that there were various ways that Christians communicated and conveyed their presence. One interesting example of this that one finds is a simple drawing of a fish as a way to indicate the
presence of something Christian. One apparently finds it particularly commonly among the catacombs, the early graveyard of Christians, below the city of Rome and its nearby environs.
We also know that this adaptation or derivative of the word fish led to the use of the letters of the word fish to form “an acronym or acrostic for "Ἰησοῦς Χρῑστός Θεοῦ Υἱός Σωτήρ", Iēsoûs Khrīstós, Theoû Huiós, Sōtḗr.” These words in common or ‘koine’ Greek “translate into English as 'Jesus Christ, God's Son, [our] Savior’.”
One then finds carved into stone in a number of city ruins of the Roman Empire a circular combination, sometimes casually referred to as a pie chart, of these letters.
This entry in Wikipedia, quoted twice above already, describes it succinctly:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ichthys
“Jesus - Iota (i), Iēsoûs (Ἰησοῦς), "Jesus"
Christ - Chi (ch), Khrīstós (Χρῑστός), "anointed"
God’s - Theta (th), Theoû (Θεοῦ), "of God", the genitive [possessive] singular of Θεóς, Theós, "God"
Son - Ypsilon (y or u), (h)uiós (Yἱός), "Son"
Saviour - Sigma (s), sōtḗr (Σωτήρ), “Savior""
How these letters were combined is crudely represented in this engraving below from the ruins of Ephesus according to the above Wikipedia article. To understand it better with the help of a colour line drawing, look at the accompanying ‘pie chart’ where I for Iesous/Jesus is blue, X for Xristos/Christ is green, Th for Theos/God is black, Y for Yios/Son is red and S in the sigma form for Soter/Saviour is orange.
Finally, a photo I took from the streets of the ruins of Laodicea, mentioned in
Colossians and Revelation, is pictured as well, although the circle and some elements are rather time-worn.
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