Moon

The contrast between the brighter highlands and the darker maria creates the patterns seen by different cultures as the Man in the Moon, the rabbit and the buffalo, among others. In many prehistoric and ancient cultures, the Moon was personified as a deity or other supernatural phenomenon, and astrological views of the Moon continue to be propagated today.

In Proto-Indo-European religion, the moon was personified as the male god *Meh1not.[250] The ancient Sumerians believed that the Moon was the god Nanna,[251][252] who was the father of Inanna, the goddess of the planet Venus,[251][252] and Utu, the god of the sun.[251][252] Nanna was later known as Sîn,[252][251] and was particularly associated with magic and sorcery.[251] In Greco-Roman mythology, the Sun and the Moon are represented as male and female, respectively (Helios/Sol and Selene/Luna);[250] this is a development unique to the eastern Mediterranean[250] and traces of an earlier male moon god in the Greek tradition are preserved in the figure of Menelaus.[250]

In Mesopotamian iconography, the crescent was the primary symbol of Nanna-Sîn.[252] In ancient Greek art, the Moon goddess Selene was represented wearing a crescent on her headgear in an arrangement reminiscent of horns.[253][254] The star and crescent arrangement also goes back to the Bronze Age, representing either the Sun and Moon, or the Moon and planet Venus, in combination. It came to represent the goddess Artemis or Hecate, and via the patronage of Hecate came to be used as a symbol of Byzantium.

An iconographic tradition of representing Sun and Moon with faces developed in the late medieval period.

The splitting of the moon (Arabic: انشقاق القمر‎) is a miracle attributed to Muhammad.[255]