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==Hellenistic and Roman== |
==Hellenistic and Roman== |
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By the late [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic]] or early [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] period, the star and crescent motif had been associated to some degree with [[Byzantium]]. For example, some Byzantine coins of the 1st century BCE and later show the head of [[Artemis]] with bow and quiver, and |
By the late [[Hellenistic civilization|Hellenistic]] or early [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] period, the star and crescent motif had been associated to some degree with [[Byzantium]]. For example, some Byzantine coins of the 1st century BCE and later show the head of [[Artemis]] with bow and quiver, and feature a crescent with what appears to be a six-rayed star on the reverse. According to accounts which vary in some of the details, in 340 BCE the Byzantines and their allies the [[Classical Athens|Athenians]] were under siege by the troops of [[Philip II of Macedon|Philip of Macedon]]. On a particularly dark and wet night Philip attempted a surprise attack but was thwarted by the appearance of a bright light in the sky. This light is occasionally described by subsequent interpreters as a meteor, sometimes as the moon, and some accounts also mention the barking of dogs. However, the original accounts mention only a light in the sky, without specifying the moon.<ref>"In 340 B.C., however, the Byzantines, with the aid of the Athenians, withstood a siege successfully, an occurrence the more remarkable as they were attacked by the greatest general of the age, Philip of Macedon. In the course of this beleaguerment, it is related, on a certain wet and moonless night the enemy attempted a surprise, but were foiled by reason of a bright light which, appearing suddenly in the heavens, startled all the dogs in the town and thus roused the garrison to a sense of their danger. To commemorate this timely phenomenon, which was attributed to Hecate, they erected a public statue to that goddess [...]" William Gordon Holmes, ''The Age of Justinian and Theodora'', 2003 p5-6; "If any goddess had a connection with the walls in Constantinople, it was Hecate. Hecate had a cult in Byzantium from the time of its founding. Like Byzas in one legend, she had her origins in Thrace. Since Hecate was the guardian of "liminal places," in Byzantium small temples in her honor were placed close to the gates of the city. Hecate's importance to Byzantium was above all as deity of protection. When Philip of Macedon was about to attack the city, according to he legend she alerted the townspeople with her ever-present torches, and with her pack of dogs, which served as her constant companions. Her mythic qualities thenceforth forever entered the fabric of Byzantine history. A statue known as the 'Lampadephoros' was erected on the hill above the Bosphorous to commemorate Hecate's defensive aid." Vasiliki Limberis, ''Divine Heiress'', Routledge, 1994, p126-127</ref> To commemorate the event the Byzantines erected a statue of Artemis (or [[Hecate]]) ''lampadephoros'' (light-bearer or bringer). This story survived in the works [[Hesychius of Miletus]], who in all probability lived in the time of [[Justinian I]]. His works survive only in fragments preserved in [[Photius]] and the tenth century lexicographer [[Suda|Suidas]]. The tale is also related by [[Stephanus of Byzantium]], and [[Eustathius]]. |
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The star and crescent was also the emblem of [[Mithradates VI Eupator]]. "His royal emblem, an eight rayed star and the crescent moon, represented the dynasty's patron gods, [[Zeus]] Stratios, or [[Ahuramazda]], and Men Pharmacou, a Persian form of the native moon goddess."<ref>Andrew G. Traver, ''From Polis to Empire, The Ancient World, c. 800 B.C.-A.D. 500'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p257</ref> |
The star and crescent was also the emblem of [[Mithradates VI Eupator]]. "His royal emblem, an eight rayed star and the crescent moon, represented the dynasty's patron gods, [[Zeus]] Stratios, or [[Ahuramazda]], and Men Pharmacou, a Persian form of the native moon goddess."<ref>Andrew G. Traver, ''From Polis to Empire, The Ancient World, c. 800 B.C.-A.D. 500'', Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002, p257</ref> |
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Later, under the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]], cities in the empire often continued to issue their own coinage. "Of the many themes that were used on local coinage, celestial and astral symbols often appeared, mostly stars or crescent moons."<ref>Michael R. Molnar, ''The Star of Bethlehem'', Rutgers University Press, 1999, p48</ref> The wide variety of these issues, and the varying explanations for the significance of the star and crescent on Roman coinage precludes their discussion here. It is, however, apparent that by the time of the Romans, coins featuring a star or crescent in some combination were not at all rare. |
Later, under the [[Ancient Rome|Romans]], cities in the empire often continued to issue their own coinage. "Of the many themes that were used on local coinage, celestial and astral symbols often appeared, mostly stars or crescent moons."<ref>Michael R. Molnar, ''The Star of Bethlehem'', Rutgers University Press, 1999, p48</ref> The wide variety of these issues, and the varying explanations for the significance of the star and crescent on Roman coinage precludes their discussion here. It is, however, apparent that by the time of the Romans, coins featuring a star or crescent in some combination were not at all rare. |
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hey this is a different person writing now. and all ive got to say is hi mom look im on the internet weeeeeeeeeewwwweeee this is so much fun |
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==Byzantine and Ottoman== |
==Byzantine and Ottoman== |
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A star (or stars) and crescent featuring in some combination form the basis of symbols widely found across the ancient world, with examples attested from the Eastern Mediterranean and Near EasttoCentral Asia and India.[1] Today it is most widely recognized as a symbol of Islam, and is often used alongside the Christian cross and the Star of David to designate Muslim nations, territory or populations.
A combined star and crescent motif is commonly found on coins minted by the Sassanids.[2] This has led some researchers to suggest that Muslims adopted the symbol in the context of its use by Sassanian rulers. After describing the crowns of a number of Sassanid kings, which featured a crescent, sphere and crescent, or star and crescent, H. Ayatollahi remarks, "Sasani coins remained in circulation in Moslem countries up to the end of the first century [Hijra]. This detailed description of Sasani crowns was presented because the motifs mentioned, particularly the crescent and star gradually changed into Islamic symbols and have often appeared in the decorative patterns of various periods of Islamic art." This author asserts that "The flags of many Islamic countries bear crescents and stars and are proof of this Sasani innovation." .[3]
The view that the Muslim crescent and star motif have their origins in a ZoroastrianorIranian symbol is not limited to Iranian scholars. For example, John Denham Parsons argued that the star and crescent in combination was first associated with Islam after the Battle of Nahāvand, which marked a turning point in the capture of Persian territory and the subsequent fall of the Sassanid monarchy, "it was as the symbol of this Zoroastrian dynasty and of the fair land of Iran, that the Moslems adopted it as their own."[4]
This symbol or association of distinct symbols, however, predates Zoroastrianism, and the Sassanids. It was used by the Parthians and earlier in Mesopotamia. "The Parthian king Mithradates I conquered Mesopotamia around 147 B.C., and Susa in about 140 B.C. A later Parthian king, Orodes II (58-38 B.C.), issued coins at Susa and elsewhere which display a star and crescent on the obverse. The succeeding ruler, Phraates IV (38-3/2 B.C.), minted coins showing either a star alone or a star with crescent moon. In representing the star and crescent on their coins the Parthians thus adopted traditional symbols used in Mesopotamia and Elam more than two millennia before their own arrival in those parts."[5]
Others have noted the antiquity of this symbol.
Nowadays, the star and crescent symbol is associated with the Muslim nation; however, the symbol was used on ancient coinage almost a thousand years before the time of Muhammad. Many scholars maintain that the Western interpretation of the symbol arose from Babylonian mythology in which the juxtaposition of Sin (moon god, father of time) and Shamash (supreme ruling sun god, judge of heaven and earth) was a metaphor for the cosmic powers given to the Babylonian king to rule.[6]
The widespread use of a star and crescent on coins (which are one of the best sources of evidence for iconography in the ancient world) is perhaps unsurprising given the often clear visibility of the moon and stars in the night sky; the astrological significance assigned to conjunctions; the association of celestial bodies with the gods of various pantheons; the association of justification for rule with divine mandate, and; the role that coins played in spreading the propaganda of specific rulers in their dominions and abroad.
By the late Hellenistic or early Roman period, the star and crescent motif had been associated to some degree with Byzantium. For example, some Byzantine coins of the 1st century BCE and later show the head of Artemis with bow and quiver, and feature a crescent with what appears to be a six-rayed star on the reverse. According to accounts which vary in some of the details, in 340 BCE the Byzantines and their allies the Athenians were under siege by the troops of Philip of Macedon. On a particularly dark and wet night Philip attempted a surprise attack but was thwarted by the appearance of a bright light in the sky. This light is occasionally described by subsequent interpreters as a meteor, sometimes as the moon, and some accounts also mention the barking of dogs. However, the original accounts mention only a light in the sky, without specifying the moon.[7] To commemorate the event the Byzantines erected a statue of Artemis (orHecate) lampadephoros (light-bearer or bringer). This story survived in the works Hesychius of Miletus, who in all probability lived in the time of Justinian I. His works survive only in fragments preserved in Photius and the tenth century lexicographer Suidas. The tale is also related by Stephanus of Byzantium, and Eustathius.
Devotion to Hecate was especially favored by the Byzantines for her aid in having protected them from the incursions of Philip of Macedon. Her symbols were the crescent and star, and the walls of her city were her provenance.[8]
It is unclear how the symbol of a particular goddess (one of many[9]) would have been transferred to the city itself. If the Byzantines adopted the crescent and star as a symbol of their city after the events of the mid 4th Century BCE, one is forced to wonder why they waited several hundred years before putting the symbol on only some of their coins.
The star and crescent was also the emblem of Mithradates VI Eupator. "His royal emblem, an eight rayed star and the crescent moon, represented the dynasty's patron gods, Zeus Stratios, or Ahuramazda, and Men Pharmacou, a Persian form of the native moon goddess."[10]
Later, under the Romans, cities in the empire often continued to issue their own coinage. "Of the many themes that were used on local coinage, celestial and astral symbols often appeared, mostly stars or crescent moons."[11] The wide variety of these issues, and the varying explanations for the significance of the star and crescent on Roman coinage precludes their discussion here. It is, however, apparent that by the time of the Romans, coins featuring a star or crescent in some combination were not at all rare.
The theory that the Ottomans simply adopted a star and crescent symbol from the Byzantines after their conquest of Constantinople is commonly advanced. However, this is difficult to conclusively establish. After the emergence of the Byzantine Empire and the rise of Constantinople as an imperial city, symbols interpreted as a 'star and crescent' appear rather infrequently on Byzantine coins.
Moreover, the question is what the symbol of Constantinople was at the time it was captured by the Turks. And an inspection of the coins issued by the Christian rulers of that city during the thousand years and more it was in their hands, will reveal to the enquirer that though the crescent with a cross within its horns appears occasionally upon the coins of the Emperors of the East, and in one or two instances we see a cross of four equal arms with each extremity piercing a crescent, it is doubtful if a single example of the so-called "star and crescent" symbol can be found upon them."[12]
However, coins are not the only source of evidence, and the star and crescent symbol was in use in the Morea prior to the Ottoman conquest in a context which makes it certain the symbol had nothing to do with Islam or Ottomans. "The earliest church in the Morea to include a saint holding a shield marked by the crescent and star may be St. John Chrysostom, which has been dated on the basis of style to ca. 1300 [...]"[13]
By 1453, when Constantinople was incorporated into the growing Ottoman Empire, the symbols most commonly associated with the city were the Byzantine imperial eagle and the cross. It is worth noting that after the fall of Constantinople, Ivan III introduced the two-headed Byzantine eagle (not a crescent or star and crescent) into the Russian state insignia in an attempt to identify his house with the fallen empire.[14] It is known that pagan practices and imagery were increasingly discouraged and eventually outlawed in the Byzantine Empire (notably by Theodosius I),[15] particularly after Julian the Apostate failed in an attempt to reintroduce paganism.[16] However, explicitly pagan symbols did occasionally continue to appear in an official context.[17]
In any case, the idea that the Ottomans simply took a Byzantine symbol for themselves after conquering Constantinople is widespread, and appears most often in publications dating from the second half of the 19th century through the first quarter of the 20th. One illustrative example among many is a study published by William Ridgeway in 1908. Therein he claimed, "when we come to examine the history of the crescent as a badge of Muhammadanism, we are confronted by the fact that it was not employed by the Arabs or any of the first peoples who embraced the faith of the prophet". He makes such a statement despite the fact that the symbol was common in ancient Mesopotamia (which was one of the first regions conquered and converted by early Muslims) and was much used by the Sassanid Persians who began to convert en masse with the conquest of Persia within just 12 years of the prophet Muhammad's death. Nevertheless, he goes on to confidently assert "The truth is that the crescent was not identified with Islam until after the appearance of the Osmanli Turks, whilst on the other hand there is the clearest evidence that in the time of the Crusades, and long before, the crescent and star were a regular badge of Byzantium and the Byzantine Emperors, some of whom placed it on their coins."[18]
Turkish scholars tend to be skeptical of the idea that the symbol was taken over by the Ottomans from the Byzantines. A passage written by Mehmet Fuat Köprülü is illustrative:
It is clear, however, that, whatever the origin, the crescent was used by Turkish states in various regions of Asia, and there is absolutely no reason to claim that it passed to the Ottomans from Byzantium.[19]
Historically, in accounting for the crescent and star symbol, Ottomans sometimes referred to a legendary dream of the eponymous founder of the Ottoman house, Osman I, in which he is reported to have seen a moon rising from the breast of a Muslim judge whose daughter he sought to marry. "When full, it descended into his own breast. Then from his loins there sprang a tree, which as it grew came to cover the whole world with the shadow of its green and beautiful branches." Beneath it Osman saw the world spread out before him, surmounted by the crescent.[20] The absence of any mention of a star in this dream does, however, seem to make it a rather unlikely explanation for the specific star and crescent symbol.
A perhaps more balanced view is offered by Franz Babinger.
It seems possible, though not certain, that after the conquest Mehmed took over the crescent and star as an emblem of sovereignty from the Byzantines. The half-moon alone on a blood red flag, allegedly conferred on the Janissaries by Emir Orhan, was much older, as is demonstrated by numerous references to it dating from before 1453. But since these flags lack the star, which along with the half-moon is to be found on Sassanid and Byzantine municipal coins, it may be regarded as an innovation of Mehmed. It seems certain that in the interior of Asia tribes of Turkish nomads had been using the half-moon alone as an emblem for some time past, but it is equally certain that crescent and star together are attested only for a much later period. There is good reason to believe that old Turkish and Byzantine traditions were combined in the emblem of Ottoman and, much later, present-day Republican Turkish sovereignty.[21]
It is certainly possible there was some cultural continuity between the pre and post-conquest populations. The Ottoman noble house should be distinguished from the population of the empire and of Byzantium itself, which was certainly mixed.
Was there, then, anything of the past that survived in Ottoman Istanbul and which would preserve memories and the culture of the past? First, it would seem that the sultan's policy of repeopling the city included provision for the return of a portion of the original population: those who had fled the city prior to the siege, as well as those who had gone into hiding in Galatia, and finally, those of the Constantinopolitans who had been taken prisoner in the final capture but who had been allowed to return either as a result of ransoming themselves or of being allowed to work toward the paying off of the ransom. These constituted the original Greek population that was allowed to return to Constantinople. They were given houses in the city and, along with Muslim and other Christian immigrants whom the sultan brought from all over the empire, constituted the original population of Ottoman Istanbul. Thus there was en element of demographic continuity, though its proportion to the total population of the new city was of course considerably diminished.[22]
A number of Muslim-majority nations, such as Algeria, Tunisia, Comoros, Mauritania, Malaysia, Pakistan, Maldives, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and non-sovereign nations such as East Turkestan use it on their national flag, inspired by the flag of Turkey officially adopted in 1844.
The predominantly Sunni Muslim ethnic Bosniaks use a similar flag, but because their native country Bosnia and Herzegovina is also homeland to two other constituent peoples, Serbs and Croats, the flag is not the official flag of the country.
InUnicode, the "star and crescent" symbol is U+262A. (☪)
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![Flag of Bosniaks-[1] (Bosnian Muslims)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Upload?wpDestFile=Aflagforbosnia.png){kind=link}
![[1]](https://akarinohon.com/text/taketori.cgi/https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/af/Bosnian_Muslim_Flag.svg){kind=link}
