الفهرس | Only 14 pages are availabe for public view |
Abstract The moon was mentioned in the holy Quran about 26 times. It played a very important role in all the ancient civilizations all over the world. In ancient Egypt the moon not only provides light at night, allowing the time to still be measured without the sun, but its phases and prominence gave it a significant importance in early astrology. The cycles of the moon also organized much of Egyptian society’s civil, and religious, rituals, and events. The moon and the sun were initially thought of as the left and right eyes of Horus. According to legend, Horus’ left eye (the moon) was injured in a fight with Seth and was restored by Thoth (the eye of Horus). However, as time progressed the moon came to be associated with Thoth, possibly because the crescent moon resembled the beak of an Ibis. Many of the Egyptians religious and civil rituals were organized according to a lunar calendar. As Thoth was associated with writing and with the moon it is perhaps unsurprising that he was also linked to the initiative usage of the calendar. As his association with the moon waned, he developed into a god of wisdom, magic and the measurement of time. Similarly he was considered to measure and record time. He was known by the epithets; ”the One who Made Calculations Concerning the Heavens, the Stars and the Earth”, ”the Reckoner of Time and of Seasons” and ”the one who Measured out the Heavens and Planned the Earth”. Thoth was thought to be the inventor of the 365-day calendar. When depicted, the moon IS most commonly represented as a combination of the full-moon disk with the crescent moon. Lunar gods \\ere almost always shown with this symbol on their heads. At times, the full-moon disk could have an Udjat eye (either the left or the right), or a lunar god depicted within it. The moon was like the sun, frequently shown traversing the sky in a boat. The most complete extant depiction of the entire lunar cycle is found inside the pronaos of the temple of Edfu. The beginning of the lunar cycle was considered to be the new moon, and it. |