ORIENTAL SYMBOL.
The lunar symbol of the Ottoman Empire, universally known as the Crescent, is, strictly speaking, a decrescent, representing, as it does, not the new moon., but the old moon. As a national symbol, it was in use in Constantinople by the Byzantines eighteen centuries before the Turks appropriated it, and emblazoned it on their banners when they captured the city on the Bosphorus; and its origin is said to date from B.C. 340, when a night attack on ancient Byzantium by the Macedonians was foiled by the light of the old and waning moon. The horns of the crescent and decrescent point in opposite directions, as do those of the old and new moons; and while the orescent moon increases progressively to the splendour of full moon, the decrescent slowly wanes to invisibility in the overpowering light of the sun.
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https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/STEP19130104.2.35
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Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 4 January 1913, Page 5
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142ORIENTAL SYMBOL. Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 8, 4 January 1913, Page 5
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