<P> The star and crescent is an iconographic symbol used in various historical contexts but most well known today as a symbol of the former Ottoman Empire and, by popular extension, the Islamic world . It develops in the iconography of the Hellenistic period (4th--1st centuries BCE) in the Kingdom of Pontus, the Bosporan Kingdom and notably the city of Byzantium by the 2nd century BCE . It is the conjoined representation of the crescent and a star, both of which constituent elements have a long prior history in the iconography of the Ancient Near East as representing either Sun and Moon or Moon and Morning Star (or their divine personifications). Coins with crescent and star symbols represented separately have a longer history, with possible ties to older Mesopotamian iconography . The star, or Sun, is often shown within the arc of the crescent (also called star in crescent, or star within crescent, for disambiguation of depictions of a star and a crescent side by side); In numismatics in particular, the term crescent and pellet is used in cases where the star is simplified to a single dot . </P> <P> In Byzantium, the symbol became associated with its patron goddess Artemis / Hecate, and it is used as a representation of Moon goddesses (Selene / Luna or Artemis / Diana) in the Roman era . Ancient depictions of the symbol always show the crescent with horns pointing upward and with the star (often with eight rays) placed inside the crescent . This arrangement is also found on Sassanid coins beginning in the 5th or 6th century CE . </P>

Meaning of the islamic crescent moon and star
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