Pizzas galore!

Selene is beautiful, glamorous and romantic. She is the goddess of the moon and is shown as a pale faced woman, crowned by a full moon, who rides a silver chariot pulled by white horses or oxen. Her brother is the sun god, Helios. Helios passes through the sky during the day and as night falls, Selene follows him to meet her sister Eos, goddess of the dawn.. The study of the geology of the moon is called Selenology.

7) Sin aka Nanna (Mesopotamian moon God)

Sin was the most important moon god throughout the life of the civilisations of Mesopotamia. Sin rules crescent moon and Nanna rules the full moon. Sin’s name came to mean Chief God and The Father of all the Gods. He was depicted as a wise old man with a flowing blue beard, who rides on a bull. The word Nanna means ‘Illuminator’. Sin’s main temples were at Ur and Harra. The temple at Ur was called ‘The House of the Great Light’. Sin’s number was 30, which may refer to the number of days in the lunar month (29.53). His symbols are the crescent moon, the bull and the tripod. He was the father of the sun god Shamash and the goddess Ishtar, who represents the planet Venus and fertility.

8) Thoth (Egyptian moon god)

Thoth is the god of the moon and wisdom.. He was born from the head of the god Seth And is depicted variously as part human, part ibis; all ibis; or as a seated baboon. He wears a crown of a crescent moon surmounted by a moon disc. Generally benign, as the scribe of the gods he is responsible for entering the record of the souls who pass into the afterlife. He is the inventor of arts and science and the master of magic. If angered, he will decapitate the adversaries of truth and tear out their hearts.

9) Huitaca. (Native South American Moon goddess)

Huitaca is the goddess of pleasure and drunkenness for the Chibicha people. She fights all the time with her husband Bochica who represents steadfastness, sobriety and hard work. Huitaca unleashed a destructive and violent flood. As punishment her husband threw her into the sky where she became the moon.

10) Tiazolteotl. (Aztec moon goddess)

Tiazolteotl is the goddess of lust and sex. Her name means Lady of the Dirt. She encouraged and forgave those who lusted after and took part in illicit sex. Legend has it that she appears to dying men and eats their sins. She is sometimes shown riding a broomstick and her image corresponds to the four phases of the moon.

11) Chup Kamui (Japanese sun goddess)

Chup Kamui is unusual in that she started life as a moon goddess but found it too painful to look on the adultery that took place on the earth at night. She implored her brother, the sun, to change places with her and he agreed.

12) Ishtar (Meopotamian Moon Goddess)

Ishtar is the daughter of the moon god Sin. Hearing of the death of her lover Tammuz she travelled to the underworld to find him. To do this she had to shed her clothes. To preserve her modesty the moon darkened. On her return she regained her clothes and the moon brightened once more.

The Book of the Moon by Rick Stroud is published by Doubleday price £16.00