The Lunula: The Crescent Moon in Ancient Traditions
The lunula, the crescent pendant worn by Roman girls: its link with the moon, Plautus, the biblical crescents and the harness of military horses.
If Roman boys wore the bulla, girls were often given the lunula, a pendant in the shape of a crescent moon with its points turned upwards. Widespread throughout the empire, this amulet was linked to female protection and the lunar cycle and, according to a common interpretation, accompanied girls until the eve of their wedding. Its history, however, is older than Rome and extends well beyond children's dress, reaching the Near East and the army.
The moon and the world of women
In Roman culture the moon was associated with Diana and with Juno Lucina, protector of births. The lunar crescent evoked growth, fertility and the rhythm of the months, and was therefore a natural image for an amulet meant for girls. Lunulae were made of gold, silver or bronze, sometimes with globular terminals or with stones set at the centre. They have been found in the graves of girls and women in many provinces, from Italy to Gaul and the East.
In Plautus's comedy Epidicus a small gold lunula and a little ring serve as recognition tokens for a lost girl, confirming that it was a familiar object in domestic life and personal enough to identify its wearer. Recognition tokens, after all, were a frequent motif in ancient comedy.
A symbol from the Near East
The lunula was not a Roman invention. Crescent pendants are attested much earlier in the ancient Near East, where the moon was worshipped as a deity, for example as the god Sin in Mesopotamia. The book of Isaiah, in its list of the ornaments of the women of Jerusalem, mentions crescents, which the Latin Vulgate translates as lunulas. The book of Judges also speaks of moon-shaped ornaments hung on the necks of the Midianites' camels, taken as booty by Gideon.
On horses and soldiers
Lunulae were not only for women. Bronze crescent pendants decorated the harness of Roman army horses, together with discs and fascina. In this context the symbol took on the general value of protection against the evil eye, suited to a valuable animal and to a soldier exposed to danger. The archaeology of military camps has yielded large numbers of them, from Britain to the Danubian provinces, often of tinned or silvered bronze so as to shine in the sun.
One name, many objects
Archaeologists also use the term lunula for the large gold crescent-shaped collars of the Bronze Age, found above all in Ireland. These, however, are objects of a different period and function, sharing only their shape. In the Christian world the crescent survived as an iconographic motif, for example beneath the feet of the Virgin in many images inspired by chapter 12 of the Book of Revelation, with an entirely new meaning.
The lunula shows how a simple image, the waxing moon, could cross different cultures while keeping a core of meaning linked to growth and protection. At the neck of a Roman girl or on the breast-strap of a horse, the lunar crescent was a reminder that time and life follow a rhythm, and that this rhythm could be invoked as a defence.