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A crescent shape (, ); ; .
See e.g. the following:
is a symbol or emblem used to represent the lunar phase (as it appears in the northern hemisphere) in the first quarter (the "sickle moon"), or by extension a symbol representing the Moon itself.
In Hindu Iconography, Shiva is often shown wearing a crescent moon on his head, symbolising his control over time, as well as his attributes of both creation and destruction.
It is used as the astrological symbol for the Moon, and hence as the alchemical symbol for silver. It was also the emblem of Diana/Artemis, and hence represented virginity. In veneration of Mary in the Catholic Church, it is associated with Mary, mother of Jesus.
From its use as roof finial in Ottoman mosques, it has also become associated with Islam, and the crescent was introduced as chaplain badge for Muslim United States military chaplains in 1993.On December 14, 1992, the Army Chief of Chaplains requested that an insignia be created for future Muslim chaplains, and the design (a crescent) was completed January 8, 1993. Emerson, William K., Encyclopedia of United States Army Insignia and Uniforms (1996), p. 269f. Prior to its association with Islam, a crescent badge had already been used in the US military for the rank of commissary sergeant (Emerson 1996:261f).
The crescent symbol was long used as a symbol of the Moon in astrology, and by extension of Silver (as the corresponding metal) in alchemy.Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon. The astrological use of the symbol is attested in early Greek papyri containing .Neugebauer, Otto; Van Hoesen, H. B. (1987). Greek Horoscopes. pp. 1, 159, 163.
In the 2nd-century Bianchini's planisphere, the personification of the Moon is shown with a crescent attached to her headdress. Its ancient association with Ishtar and Diana is preserved in the Moon (as symbolised by a crescent) representing the femininity (as juxtaposed with the Sun representing the masculinity), and (Artemis-Diana being a virgin goddess) especially virginity and female chastity.
In Christian symbolism, the crescent entered Marian iconography, by the association of Mary with the Woman of the Apocalypse (described with "the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars" in Revelation) The most well known representation of Mary as the Woman of the Apocalypse is the Virgin of Guadalupe.
On the domes of certain Eastern Orthodox churches, particularly Russian Orthodox ones, there appears a Christian cross over a crescent. This symbolises Jesus Christ as two of the threefold office, the King and High Priest. It is sometimes mistakenly taken as a symbol of the victory of Christianity over Islam, but it has nothing to do with it nor Islam at all, as domes featuring the cross-over-crescent design were constructed in medieval Russia in the 12th century, prior to the arrival of Islam in Kievan Rus'.
The tapered regions towards the points of intersection of the two arcs are known as the "horns" of the crescent. The classical crescent shape has its horns pointing upward (and is often worn as horns when worn as a crown or diadem, e.g. in depictions of the lunar goddess, or in the headdress of Persian kings, etc.The new Moon at sunset and the old Moon at sunrise, when observed with horns pointing upward, is also known as "wet moon" in English, in an expression loaned from Hawaiian culture.
The word is derived etymologically from the present participle of the Latin verb crescere "to grow", technically denoting the waxing moon (luna crescens). As seen from the northern hemisphere, the waxing Moon tends to appear with its horns pointing towards the left, and conversely the waning Moon with its horns pointing towards the right; the English word crescent may however refer to the shape regardless of its orientation, except for the technical language of used in heraldry, where the word "increscent" refers to a crescent shape with its horns to the left, and "decrescent" refers to one with its horns to the right, while the word "crescent" on its own denotes a crescent shape with horns pointing upward.Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry
or http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~bprince/hr/foxdavies/index.htm .
The shape of the lit side of a spherical body (most notably the Moon) that appears to be less than half illuminated by the Sun as seen by the viewer appears in a different shape from what is generally termed a crescent in planar geometry: Assuming the terminator lies on a great circle, the crescent Moon will actually appear as the figure bounded by a half-ellipse and a half-circle, with the major axis of the ellipse coinciding with a diameter of the semicircle.
Unicode encodes a crescent (increscent) at U+263D (☽) and a decrescent at U+263E (☾). The Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs block provides variants with faces as emoji: and .
The Egyptian logograph representing the Moon also had a crescent shape 𓇹 (Gardiner N11, "moon" (with increscent and decrescent variants); variant N12 𓇺). In addition, there is a 19th-dynasty hieroglyph representing the "moon with its lower half obscured (N9 𓇷 , with a variant with a crescent shape N10 𓇸).A.H. Gardiner, . 3rd Ed., pub. Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1957 (1st edition 1927), p. 486.
The crescent was well used in the iconography of the ancient Near East and was used by the Phoenicians in the 8th century BC as far as Carthage and Numidia in modern Tunisia and Algeria. The crescent and star also appears on pre-Islamic coins of South Arabia.Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidah, Gertrude Caton Thompson, p.76
The combination of star and crescent also arises in the ancient Near East, representing the Moon and Ishtar (the planet Venus), often combined into a triad with the Shamash."the three celestial emblems, the sun disk of Shamash (Utu to the Sumerians), the crescent of Sin (Nanna), and the star of Ishtar (Inanna to the Sumerians)". Irving L. Finkel, Markham J. Geller, Sumerian Gods and Their Representations, Styx, 1997, p71. It was inherited both in Sasanian Empire and Hellenistic iconography.
In the iconography of the Hellenistic period, the crescent became the symbol of Artemis-Diana, the virgin hunter goddess associated with the Moon. Numerous depictions show Artemis-Diana wearing the crescent Moon as part of her headdress. The related symbol of the star and crescent was the emblem of the Mithradates dynasty in the Kingdom of Pontus and was also used as the emblem of Byzantium.
Anna Notaras, daughter of the last megas doux of the Byzantine Empire Loukas Notaras, after the fall of Constantinople and her emigration to Italy, made a seal with her coat of arms which included "two lions holding above the crescent a cross or a sword".Tipaldos, G. E., Great Greek Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, page 292, Athens, 1930
From its use in the Sasanian Empire, the crescent also found its way into Islamic iconography after the Muslim conquest of Persia. Umar is said to have hung two crescent-shaped ornaments captured from the Sasanian capital of Ctesiphon in the Kaaba.Oleg Grabar, "Umayyad Dome," Ars orientalis (1959), p. 50, cited after Berger (2012:164). The crescent also became the symbol of the Umayyad Caliphate. The crescent appears to have been adopted as an emblem on Islamic flags by the Islamic armies from at least the 13th century, although the scholarly consensus holds that the widespread use of the crescent in Islam develops later, during the 14th to 15th century.Pamela Berger, The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary (2012), p. 164f The use of such flags is reflected in the 14th-century Libro del Conoscimiento and the Catalan Atlas. Examples include the flags attributed to Gabes, Tlemcen, Hafsid dynasty and Buda,Znamierowski Flags through the ages: A guide to the world of flags, banners, standards and ensigns, (2000) section 'the Muslim crescent', cited by Ivan Sache, FOTW , 11 March 2001 Nubia/Dongola (documented by Angelino Dulcert in 1339) and the Mamluks of Egypt."After king Nasr ad din had fled to Cairo in 1397 to beg assistance against his cousin, the King of Nubia is depicted with a yellow flag with a white crescent but also with a yellow shield with a white crescent. At the same time the yellow crescented flag waves over all the Mameluk Empire. The flag of the Sultan of Egypt is yellow with three white crescents. From this we may conclude that any autonomy of the Nubian king was over at the time." Hubert de Vries, Muslim Nubia (hubert-herald.nl).
The Roman Catholic fashion of depicting Madonna standing or sitting on a crescent develops in the 15th century.
Conrad Grünenberg in his Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1486) consistently depicts cities in the Holy Land with crescent finials.so for Jaffa (29r), Raman (31v-32r), Jerusalem (35v-36r). Grünenberg's pilgrimage took place still during the late Mamluk era (Burji dynasty) of control over the Holy Land. Flags with crescents appear to have been used on Ottoman vessels since at least the 16th century.
Prints depicting the Battle of Lepanto (1571), including the print by Agostino Barberigo of Rome made just a few weeks after the battle,Agostino Barberigo, L' ultimo Et vero Ritrato Di la vitoria de L'armata Cristiana de la santissima liga Contre a L'armata Turcheschà ..., 1571. Antonio Lafreri , L’ordine tenuto dall’armata della santa Lega Christiana contro il Turcho ..., n'e seguita la felicissima Vittoria li sette d'Ottobre MDLXXI ..., Rome, 1571 and the Martino Rota of Venice in the following year, show the Ottoman vessels displaying flags with one or several crescents in various orientations (as do the monumental paintings commissioned later based on these prints). Rota also shows numerous crescent finials, both on ships and on fortresses depicted in the background, as well as some finials with stars or suns radiant, and in some cases a sun radiant combined with a crescent in the star-and-crescent configuration.
The official adoption of star and crescent as the Ottoman state symbol started during the reign of Sultan Mustafa III (1757–1774) and its use became well-established during Sultan Abdul Hamid I (1774–1789) and Sultan Selim III (1789–1807) periods. A buyruldu (decree) from 1793 states that the ships in the Ottoman navy have that flag.
Muhammad Ali, who became Pasha of Egypt in 1805, introduced the first national flag of Egypt, red with three white crescents, each accompanied by a white star.
The association of the crescent with the Ottoman Empire appears to have resulted in a gradual association of the crescent shape with Islam in the 20th century. A Red Crescent appears to have been used as a replacement of the Red Cross as early as in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877/8, and it was officially adopted in 1929.
While some Islamic organisations since the 1970s have embraced the crescent as their logo or emblem (e.g. Crescent International magazine, established 1980), some Muslim publications tend to emphasize that the interpretation of the crescent, historically used on the banners of Muslim armies, as a "religious symbol" of Islam was an error made by the "Christians of Europe"."Like the Crusaders, the Christians of Europe were misled into a belief that the crescent was the religious symbol of Islam" Islamic Review 30 (1942), p. 70., "many Muslim scholars reject using the crescent moon as a symbol of Islam. The faith of Islam historically had no symbol, and many refuse to accept it.", Fiaz Fazli, Crescent magazine, Srinagar, September 2009, p. 42. The identification of the crescent as an "Islamic symbol" is mentioned by James Hastings as a "common error" to which "even approved writers on Oriental subjects" are prone as early as 1928."There is no more common error than the supposition that the crescent (or rather crescent and star) is an Islamic symbol, and even approved writers on Oriental subjects are apt to fall into it." James Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, Volumes 11–12 (1928), p. 145.
The crescent was used on a flag of the American Revolutionary War and was called the Moultrie Flag.
The symbol of the Triple Goddess is a circle flanked by a left facing and right facing crescent, which represents a virginity, mother goddess and crone archetype.Gilligan, Stephen G., and Simon, Dvorah (2004). Walking in Two Worlds: The Relational Self in Theory, Practice, and Community. Zeig Tucker & Theisen Publishers. p. 148. , . Retrieved 03 January 2022. The biohazard symbol bears peculiar resemblance to the triple crescent badge of Henry II of France.
New Orleans is nicknamed "the Crescent City", and a crescent (or crescent and star) is used to represent the city in official emblems. The origin is the crescent shape of the old city, hugging the East Bank of the Mississippi River.
Crescents, often with faces, are found on numerous modern municipal coats of arms in Europe, e.g. France: Katzenthal, Mortcerf; Germany: Bönnigheim, Dettighofen, Dogern, Jesenwang, Karstädt, Angelbachtal, Waldbronn; Italy: Province of Agrigento; Malta: Qormi; Sweden: Trosa; Switzerland: Boswil, Dättlikon, Neerach (from the 16th-century Neuamt coat of arms).
The crescent printed on military ration boxes is the US Department of Defense symbol for subsistence items. The symbol is used on packaged foodstuffs but not on fresh produce or on items intended for resale.MIL STD 129, FM 55-17
Since 1993, the crescent has also been in use as chaplain badge for Muslim chaplains in the US military.
File:Flag_of_South_Carolina.svg|Flag of South Carolina (1861)
File:Flag of Maldives.svg|Flag of Maldives (1965)
File:IFRC_logo_2020.svg|The emblem of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement around the world
File:MHP_Symbol.svg|Symbol of the Nationalist Movement Party of Turkey
File:Dreamliner_logo.svg|The Dreamliner logo is painted on many Boeing 787s
File:Coat of Arms of the 1st-54 Regulares Battalion Tetuán.svg|Coat of arms of the 1st-54 Regulares Battalion "Tetuán" (Spanish Army)
Other things called "crescent"
The term crescent may also refer to objects with a shape reminiscent of the crescent shape, such as houses forming an arc, a type of solitaire game, Crescent Nebula, glomerular crescent (crescent shaped scar of the glomeruli of the kidney),. It is a sign of rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis (also called crescentic glomerulonephritis).
the Fertile Crescent (the fertile area of land between Mesopotamia and Egypt roughly forming a crescent shape), and the croissant (the French form of the word) for the crescent-shaped pastry.
See also
Footnotes
Notes
Sarah Quail (1994). 090155992X, City of Portsmouth. 090155992X
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