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).
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".
Astrology 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 horoscopes.Neugebauer, Otto; Van Hoesen, H. B. (1987). Greek Horoscopes. pp. 1, 159, 163.
Paganism 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/Astarte and Diana is preserved in the Moon (as symbolised by a crescent) representing the female principle (as juxtaposed with the Sun representing the male principle), and (Artemis-Diana being a virgin goddess) especially virginity and female chastity.
Christianity 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.
Eastern Orthodoxy On the domes of certain Eastern Orthodox churches, particularly Russian Orthodox ones, there appears a 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'.
Shape
The crescent shape is a type of lune, the latter consisting of a circular disk with a portion of another disk removed from it, so that what remains is a shape enclosed by two circular arcs which intersect at two points. In a crescent, the enclosed shape does not include the center of the original disk.
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 crescent is derived etymologically from the present participle of the Latin verb "to grow", technically denoting the waxing moon (). 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 blazoning 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 (1909), p. 289. Online texts at https://archive.org/details/completeguidetoh00foxduoft 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 .
History Early history
The crescent shape is used to represent the Moon, and the Moon deity Nanna/Sin from an early time, visible in Akkadian cylinder seals as early as 2300 BC.
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, Egyptian Grammar: Being an Introduction to the Study of Hieroglyphs. 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 solar disk."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 Sassanian and Hellenistic iconography.
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.Bell, s.v. Selene; Roman Sarcophagi in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1978, p. 35British Museum 1923,0401.199; LIMC 13213 (Selene, Luna 21); LIMC 13181 (Selene, Luna 4)
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.
Middle Ages
The crescent remained in use as an emblem in the Sasanian Empire, used as a Zoroastrian regal or astrological symbol. In the Crusades it came to be associated with the Orient (the Byzantine Empire, the Levant and Outremer in general) and was widely used (often alongside a star) in Crusader seals and coins. It was used as a heraldic charge by the later 13th century. Isaac Komnenos of Cyprus, the claimant to the Byzantine Empire who ruled Cyprus until overthrown by the crusading King Richard I of England, used arms with "a crescent of gold on a shade of azure, with a blazing star of eight points". Later, King Richard granted the same as the coat of arms of the city of Portsmouth, in recognition of the significant involvement of soldiers, sailors, and vessels from Portsmouth in the conquest of Cyprus. This remains Portsmouth's coat of arms up to the present.
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 military 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, Tunis 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.
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.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.