Editing Moon (section)

===Pre-telescopic observation (before 1609)===
It is believed by some that the oldest [[cave painting]]s from up to 40,000 [[Before present|BP]] of bulls and geometric shapes,<ref name="e093">{{cite web |last=Boyle |first=Rebecca |title=Ancient humans used the moon as a calendar in the sky |website=Science News |date=July 9, 2019 |url=https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-time-calendar-ancient-human-art |access-date=May 26, 2024 |archive-date=November 4, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104145754/https://www.sciencenews.org/article/moon-time-calendar-ancient-human-art |url-status=live}}</ref> or 20–30,000 year old [[tally stick]]s were used to observe the phases of the Moon, keeping time using the waxing and waning of [[Lunar phases|the Moon's phases]].<ref name=Burton2011/>
Aspects of the Moon were identified and aggregated in [[lunar deities]] from [[prehistoric times]] and were eventually documented and put into symbols from the very first instances of [[writing]] in the [[4th millennium BC]]. One of the earliest-discovered possible depictions of the Moon is a 3,000 BCE rock carving ''Orthostat 47'' at [[Knowth]], Ireland.<ref name="Knowth">{{cite web |url=https://www.knowth.com/lunar-maps.htm |title=Lunar maps |access-date=September 18, 2019 |archive-date=June 1, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190601184833/https://www.knowth.com/lunar-maps.htm |url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="spacetoday">{{cite web |url=http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Earth/OldStarCharts.html |title=Carved and Drawn Prehistoric Maps of the Cosmos |publisher=Space Today |date=2006 |access-date=April 12, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120305162253/http://www.spacetoday.org/SolSys/Earth/OldStarCharts.html |archive-date=March 5, 2012}}</ref> The [[#Crescent|crescent]] depicting the Moon as with the lunar deity [[Sin (mythology)|Nanna/Sin]] have been found from the 3rd millennium BCE.<ref name=BlackGreen1992/>

The oldest named astronomer and poet [[Enheduanna]], [[Akkadian Empire|Akkadian]] high priestess to the lunar deity Nanna/Sin and pricess, daughter of [[Sargon the Great]] ({{circa|2334}} &ndash; {{circa|2279}} BCE), had the Moon tracked in her chambers.<ref name="c099">{{cite magazine | last=Winkler | first=Elizabeth | title=The Struggle to Unearth the World's First Author | magazine=The New Yorker | date=2022-11-19 | url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-struggle-to-unearth-the-worlds-first-author | access-date=2025-02-10}}</ref> The oldest found and identified depiction of the Moon in an astronomical relation to other astronomical features is the [[Nebra sky disc]] from {{circa|1800–1600 BCE}}, depicting features like the [[Pleiades]] next to the Moon.<ref name="g361">{{cite web |title=Nebra Sky Disc |website=State Museum of Prehistory |url=https://www.landesmuseum-vorgeschichte.de/en/nebra-sky-disc |access-date=27 September 2024}}</ref><ref name="k874">{{cite web |last=Simonova |first=Michaela |title=Under the Moonlight: Depictions of the Moon in Art |website=TheCollector |date=January 2, 2022 |url=https://www.thecollector.com/depictions-of-the-moon-in-art/ |access-date=May 26, 2024}}</ref>

[[File:Nebra solstice 2.jpg|thumb|The [[Nebra sky disc]] ({{circa|1800–1600 BCE}}), found near a possibly [[astronomical complex]], most likely depicting the Sun or full Moon, the Moon as a crescent, the [[Pleiades]] and the summer and winter solstices as strips of gold on the side of the disc,<ref name="Meller 2021">{{cite book |url=https://www.academia.edu/80363367 |title=Time is power. Who makes time?: 13th Archaeological Conference of Central Germany |chapter=The Nebra Sky Disc – astronomy and time determination as a source of power |last=Meller |first=Harald |date=2021 |publisher=Landesmuseum für Vorgeschichte Halle (Saale). |isbn=978-3-948618-22-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite AV media |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0dlijsmVJ9c&t=760s |title=Concepts of cosmos in the world of Stonehenge |website=British Museum |date=2022}}</ref> with the top representing the [[horizon]]<ref name=":03">{{Cite book |last1=Bohan |first1=Elise |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/940282526 |title=Big History |last2=Dinwiddie |first2=Robert |last3=Challoner |first3=Jack |last4=Stuart |first4=Colin |last5=Harvey |first5=Derek |last6=Wragg-Sykes |first6=Rebecca |last7=Chrisp |first7=Peter |last8=Hubbard |first8=Ben |last9=Parker |first9=Phillip |collaboration=Writers |date=February 2016 |publisher=[[DK (publisher)|DK]] |others=Foreword by [[David Christian (historian)|David Christian]] |isbn=978-1-4654-5443-0 |edition=1st American |location=[[New York City|New York]] |page=20 |oclc=940282526}}</ref> and [[north]].]]

The [[ancient Greece|ancient Greek]] philosopher [[Anaxagoras]] ({{died-in|428 BC}}) reasoned that the Sun and Moon were both giant spherical rocks, and that the latter reflected the light of the former.<ref>{{cite web |last=O'Connor |first=J.J. |author2=Robertson, E.F. |date=February 1999 |url=http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Anaxagoras.html |title=Anaxagoras of Clazomenae |publisher=[[University of St Andrews]] |access-date=April 12, 2007 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120112072236/http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Anaxagoras.html |archive-date=January 12, 2012}}</ref><ref name=Needham1986/>{{rp|page=227}} Elsewhere in the {{nowrap|5th century BC}} to {{nowrap|4th century BC}}, [[Babylonian astronomers]] had recorded the 18-year [[Saros cycle]] of [[lunar eclipse]]s,<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.2307/1006543 |title=Saros Cycle Dates and Related Babylonian Astronomical Texts |first1=A. |last1=Aaboe |first2=J.P. |last2=Britton |first3=J.A. |last3=Henderson |first4=Otto |last4=Neugebauer |author-link4=Otto Neugebauer |first5=A.J. |last5=Sachs |journal=[[Transactions of the American Philosophical Society]] |volume=81 |issue=6 |pages=1–75 |date=1991 |quote=One comprises what we have called "Saros Cycle Texts", which give the months of eclipse possibilities arranged in consistent cycles of 223&nbsp;months (or 18&nbsp;years). |jstor=1006543}}</ref> <!--The texts discussed in that article are more recent than 490 BC and, as mentioned in the paper, the observations can have occurred no earlier than that. The earliest reference for the Metonic cycle in Neugubauer's (1957) ''The Exact Sciences in Antiquity'' is 380 BC (p. 140).--> and [[Indian astronomy|Indian astronomers]] had described the Moon's monthly elongation.<ref name="Sarma-Ast-Ind" /> The [[Chinese astronomer]] [[Shi Shen]] {{nowrap|([[fl.]] 4th century BC)}} gave instructions for predicting solar and lunar eclipses.<ref name=Needham1986/>{{rp|page=411}}

In [[Aristotle]]'s (384–322&nbsp;BC) [[On the Heavens|description of the universe]], the Moon marked the boundary between the spheres of the mutable elements (earth, water, air and fire), and the imperishable stars of [[aether (classical element)|aether]], an [[Aristotelian physics|influential philosophy]] that would dominate for centuries.<ref>{{cite book |last=Lewis |first=C.S. |author-link=C. S. Lewis |title=The Discarded Image |url=https://archive.org/details/discardedimagein0000lewi |url-access=registration |date=1964 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-521-47735-2 |page=[https://archive.org/details/discardedimagein0000lewi/page/108 108] |access-date=November 11, 2019 |archive-date=June 17, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200617181455/https://archive.org/details/discardedimagein0000lewi |url-status=live}}</ref> [[Archimedes]] (287–212 BC) designed a planetarium that could calculate the motions of the Moon and other objects in the Solar System.<ref>{{cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/science/31computer.html?hp |work=The New York Times |title=Discovering How Greeks Computed in 100 B.C. |date=July 31, 2008 |access-date=March 9, 2014 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131204053238/http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/31/science/31computer.html?hp |archive-date=December 4, 2013}}</ref> In the {{nowrap |2nd century BC}}, [[Seleucus of Seleucia]] correctly thought that [[tide]]s were due to the attraction of the Moon, and that their height depends on the Moon's position relative to the [[Sun]].<ref>{{cite journal |first=Bartel Leendert |last=van der Waerden |author-link=Bartel Leendert van der Waerden |date=1987 |title=The Heliocentric System in Greek, Persian and Hindu Astronomy |journal=[[Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences]] |volume=500 |issue=1 |pages=1–569 |pmid=3296915 |bibcode=1987NYASA.500....1A |doi=10.1111/j.1749-6632.1987.tb37193.x |s2cid=84491987}}</ref> In the same century, [[On the Sizes and Distances (Aristarchus)|Aristarchus]] computed the size and distance of the Moon from Earth, obtaining a value of about twenty times the [[radius of Earth]] for the distance.

The Chinese of the [[Han dynasty]] believed the Moon to be energy equated to ''[[qi]]'' and their 'radiating influence' theory recognized that the light of the Moon was merely a reflection of the Sun; [[Jing Fang]] (78–37&nbsp;BC) noted the sphericity of the Moon.<ref name=Needham1986/>{{rp|pages=413–414}} [[Ptolemy]] (90–168&nbsp;AD) greatly improved on the numbers of Aristarchus, calculating a mean distance of 59&nbsp;times Earth's radius and a diameter of 0.292&nbsp;Earth diameters, close to the correct values of about 60 and 0.273 respectively.<ref>{{cite book |last=Evans |first=James |title=The History and Practice of Ancient Astronomy |date=1998 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |location=Oxford & New York |isbn=978-0-19-509539-5 |pages=71, 386}}</ref> In the 2nd century AD, [[Lucian]] wrote the novel ''[[A True Story]]'', in which the heroes travel to the Moon and meet its inhabitants. In 510&nbsp;AD, the Indian astronomer [[Aryabhata]] mentioned in his ''[[Aryabhatiya]]'' that reflected sunlight is the cause of the shining of the Moon.<ref name=Hayashi08Aryabhata>Hayashi (2008), "Aryabhata I", ''Encyclopædia Britannica''.</ref><ref>''Gola'', 5; p. 64 in [https://archive.org/stream/The_Aryabhatiya_of_Aryabhata_Clark_1930#page/n93/mode/2up ''The Aryabhatiya of Aryabhata: An Ancient Indian Work on Mathematics and Astronomy''], translated by [[Walter Eugene Clark]] (University of Chicago Press, 1930; reprinted by Kessinger Publishing, 2006). "Half of the spheres of the Earth, the planets, and the asterisms is darkened by their shadows, and half, being turned toward the Sun, is light (being small or large) according to their size."</ref> The astronomer and physicist [[Ibn al-Haytham]] (965–1039) found that [[sunlight]] was not reflected from the Moon like a mirror, but that light was emitted from every part of the Moon's sunlit surface in all directions.<ref>{{cite book |location=Detroit |date=2008 |publisher=[[Charles Scribner's Sons]] |title=Dictionary of Scientific Biography |chapter=Ibn Al-Haytham, Abū ʿAlī Al-Ḥasan Ibn Al-Ḥasan |author=A.I. Sabra |pages=189–210, at 195}}</ref> [[Shen Kuo]] (1031–1095) of the [[Song dynasty]] created an allegory equating the waxing and waning of the Moon to a round ball of reflective silver that, when doused with white powder and viewed from the side, would appear to be a crescent.<ref name=Needham1986/>{{rp|pages=415–416}} During the [[Middle Ages]], before the invention of the telescope, the Moon was increasingly recognized as a sphere, though many believed that it was "perfectly smooth".<ref>{{cite web |last=Van Helden |first=A. |date=1995 |url=http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/moon.html |title=The Moon |publisher=Galileo Project |access-date=April 12, 2007 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20040623085326/http://galileo.rice.edu/sci/observations/Moon.html |archive-date=June 23, 2004}}</ref>