Crescent
A crescent shape (/ˈkrɛsənt/, UK also /ˈkrɛzənt/)[1] 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.[2]
It is used as the
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.[3]
Symbolism
The crescent symbol is primarily used to represent the Moon, not necessarily in a particular lunar phase. When used to represent a waxing or waning lunar phase, "crescent" or "increscent" refers to the waxing first quarter, while the symbol representing the waning final quarter is called "decrescent".
The crescent symbol was long used as a symbol of the Moon in
Its ancient association with
Shape
Examples of planar geometry (shaded areas). Examples in the top row can be considered crescent shapes, because the lune does not contain the center of the original (right-most) circular disk.
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The crescent shape is a type of
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.[7]
The word
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: U+1F31B 🌛 FIRST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE and U+1F31C 🌜 LAST QUARTER MOON WITH FACE.
History
Early history
The crescent shape is used to represent the Moon, and the Moon deity
The
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psḏ, with a variant with a crescent shape N10
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).[9]
The crescent was well used in the iconography of the
The combination of
Classical antiquity
Selene, the moon goddess, was depicted with a crescent upon her head, often referred to as her horns, and a major identifying feature of hers in ancient works of art.[12][13]
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.
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Bust ofRoman sarcophagus(3rd century)
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pre-Islamic era. Note the crescent above the arch.
Middle Ages
The crescent remained in use as an emblem in the Sasanian Empire, used as a
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".[15]
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.[16] The crescent also became the symbol of the
The Roman Catholic fashion of depicting Madonna standing or sitting on a crescent develops in the 15th century.
Early modern and modern
The goddess Diana was associated with the Moon in classical mythology. In reference to this, feminine jewelry representing crescents, especially diadems, became popular in the early modern period. The tarot card of the "Popess" also wears a crescent on her head.
Conrad Grünenberg in his Pilgrimage to the Holy Land (1486) consistently depicts cities in the Holy Land with crescent finials.[20] 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,[21] 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
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
While some Islamic organisations since the 1970s have embraced the crescent as their logo or emblem (e.g.
The crescent was used on a flag of the American Revolutionary War and was called the Liberty (or Moultrie) Flag.
The symbol of the
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Triple crescent badge of Henry II of France (Château d'Écouen)
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Mamluk lancers, early 16th century (etching by Daniel Hopfer)
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The painting of the 1571Ottoman Empire.
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A naval battle painting of theOttoman Algiers titled A Sea Fight with Barbary Corsairs by Laureys a Castro, c. 1681
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Madonna on the crescent, Bad Waldsee church (17th century)
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Portrait of a Lady as Diana by Pompeo Batoni (1760s)
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Symbol of the Triple Goddess
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A circle with an upward facing crescent representing theWiccan Horned God
Heraldry
The crescent has been used as a
- Azure, a crescent moon argent pierced by an arrow fesswise Or all between in chief three mullets of six points and in base two mullets of six points argent (von Hagen, p. 176);
- Azure, an increscent and a decrescent addorsed Or (von Stoternheim, p. 146);
- Per pale Or and sable, a crescent moon and in chief three mullets of six points counterchanged (von Bodenstein, p. 182).
In English heraldry, the crescent is used as a
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Three examples of coats of arms with crescents from thecrusilyand three crescents argent); no. 120: John Peche (gules, a crescent or, on a chief argent two mullets gules); no. 128: Rauf de Stopeham (argent, two (of three) crescents and a canton gules).
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Coat of arms of theZürich (16th century).[28] Its reversed crescent was taken up in the 20th-century municipal coats of arms of Niederglatt, Neerach and Stadel (canton of Zürich).
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This coat of arms of the Divorde family (Holland and Brabant), around 1440, shows three crescents.
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Inverted crescent on Polish coat of arms.
Contemporary use
The crescent remains in use as
New Orleans is nicknamed "the Crescent City", and a crescent (or crescent and star) is used to represent the city in official emblems.[30]
Crescents, often with faces, are found on numerous modern municipal coats of arms in Europe, e.g. Germany: Bönnigheim, Dettighofen, Dogern, Jesenwang, Karstädt, Michelfeld (Angelbachtal), Waldbronn; Switzerland: Boswil, Dättlikon, Neerach (from the 16th-century Neuamt coat of arms); France: Katzenthal, Mortcerf; Malta: Qormi; Sweden: Trosa.
The crescent printed on
Since 1993, the crescent has also been in use as
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Flag of South Carolina (1861)
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Flag of Maldives (1965)
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The emblem of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement around the world
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Symbol of the Nationalist Movement Party of Turkey
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The Dreamliner logo is painted on manyBoeing 787s
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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
See also
- Barkhan dune
- Lune (mathematics)
- Star and crescent
- Astronomical symbols
- Astrological symbols
- Lunar phase
Notes
- Latincrēscēns 'growing, waxing'.
See e.g. the following:- "crescent". Dictionary.com Unabridged (Online). n.d.
- "crescent". CollinsDictionary.com. HarperCollins.
- "crescent". Lexico UK English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. Archived from the original on 2021-10-22. Retrieved 2022-09-02.
- ISBN 978-1-4438-5728-4.
- ^ a b 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).
- ^ Alchemy and Symbols, By M. E. Glidewell, Epsilon.
- ^ Neugebauer, Otto; Van Hoesen, H. B. (1987). Greek Horoscopes. pp. 1, 159, 163.
- ^ "Bianchini's planisphere". Florence, Italy: Istituto e Museo di Storia della Scienza (Institute and Museum of the History of Science). Archived from the original on 2009-10-30. Retrieved 2010-03-19.
Maunder, A. S. D. (1934). "The origin of the symbols of the planets". The Observatory. 57: 238–247. Bibcode:1934Obs....57..238M.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A Complete Guide to Heraldry (1909), p. 289. Online texts at https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft or http://www7b.biglobe.ne.jp/~bprince/hr/foxdavies/index.htm .
- Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. 3rd Ed., pub. Griffith Institute, Oxford, 1957 (1st edition 1927), p. 486.
- ^ Tombs and Moon Temple of Hureidah, Gertrude Caton Thompson, p.76
- Ishtar (Inannato the Sumerians)". Irving L. Finkel, Markham J. Geller, Sumerian Gods and Their Representations, Styx, 1997, p71.
- ^ Bell, s.v. Selene; Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978, p. 35
- ^ British Museum 1923,0401.199; LIMC 13213 (Selene, Luna 21); LIMC 13181 (Selene, Luna 4)
- ^ Quail 1994, pp. 14–18.
- ^ Tipaldos, G. E., Great Greek Encyclopedia, Vol. XII, page 292, Athens, 1930
- ^ Oleg Grabar, "Umayyad Dome," Ars orientalis (1959), p. 50, cited after Berger (2012:164).
- ^ Pamela Berger, The Crescent on the Temple: The Dome of the Rock as Image of the Ancient Jewish Sanctuary (2012), p. 164f
- ^ 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 Archived 2016-03-22 at the Wayback Machine, 11 March 2001
- ^ "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).
- Burji dynasty) of control over the Holy Land.
- ^ 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
- ^ İslâm Ansiklopedisi (in Turkish). Vol. 4. Istanbul: Türkiye Diyanet Vakfı. 1991. p. 298.
- ^ "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.
- ^ "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.
- ISBN 978-1-932462-11-1. Retrieved 03 January 2022.
- ^ a b Arthur Charles Fox-Davies, A complete guide to heraldry (1909), p. 289.
- ^ Sara L. Uckelman, An Ordinary of Siebmacher's Wappenbuch (ellipsis.cx) (2014)
- ^ geteilt von Blau mit gestürztem goldenem Halbmond und von Gold mit zwei roten Rosen ("per fess azure a crescent reversed or and of the second two roses gules") Historisch-Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz, vol. V, p. 243.
- ^ In 2011 replaced with a logo showing a crescent engulfing the globe. "Ihsanoglu urges international community to recognize state of Palestine at the United Nations, historic change of OIC logo and name to Organisation of the Islamic Cooperation". Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. 28 June 2011. Retrieved 25 January 2016.[permanent dead link]
- ^ "History of the NOPD Badge". Archived from the original on 2013-07-24. The origin is the crescent shape of the old city, hugging the East Bank of the Mississippi River.
- MIL STD 129, FM 55-17
- ^ . It is a sign of rapidly progressive glomerulonephritis (also called crescentic glomerulonephritis). "iROCKET Learning Module: Glomerular Pathology, Case I". Archived from the original on December 12, 2012.
- ^ "Renal Pathology".
References
- Bell, Robert E., Women of Classical Mythology: A Biographical Dictionary, .
- Quail, Sarah (1994). The Origins of Portsmouth and the First Charter. City of Portsmouth. ISBN 0-901559-92-X.