Texts>Ancient Pagan Symbols

The Moon symbolises the Celestial Mother. The Crescent Moon is a symbol of virginity and is given to the "chaste Diana," and in Christian art to the Virgin Mary.

The Moon was called the "Awakener and Assembler of the stars," and a moon attended by stars is still perpetuated in the arms of Turkey and Egypt. Under the influence of the lunar cult Horns became a symbol of divinity.

The Crescent is called the horned moon. In the illustration of two lions supporting the solar disk, the disk rests upon the conventionalised sacred horns of the moon crescent.

The Egyptian god Horus as the renewed sun bears on his head the tapering horns of the crescent upon which rests the solar disk.

Later the symbolism becomes realistic and horns of animals were used. Horns of the bull or cow typified honour, power. Those of the ram or goat signified fecundity.

The Horns of Consecration are prominent in the early Minoan worship. A.]. Evans considers that these suggest the horns of the altar of the Hebrew ritual, and may relate to the sacrificial oxen whose horns were set upon the altar as a part of primitive worship, "but it is more likely to have been derived from Egypt and to represent the lunar cult-the horns of the crescent moon."¹

¹ Mycenaian Trees and Pillar Cult, A. J. Evans.

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