The provenance file on Selēnē
Provenance record 430 · Selēnē · one temple, fully accounted for.
Provenance
1. The attestation. Σελήνη — "Moon, light (from σέλας)". On record: LSJ, Hesiod, Theogony 371–374, Homeric Hymn to Selene (32), Theocritus, Idylls 2–3.
2. The preserved evidence. e → ē (Eta: long epsilon); e → ē (Eta: long epsilon) — absent from the ASCII form selene, present in the restoration, verifiable against the sources above.
3. The narrative record. Endymion on Mount Latmus — The fullest telling of Selḗnē's love survives in Cicero (Tusculan Disputations 1. 38. The Moon's Journey — The short Homeric Hymn to Selene gives the goddess her fixed portrait: a radiance that lifts from her immortal head and a great circle of light as she yokes her horses and travels the night, while the hymn joins her to her brother Hēlios — the two lights ruling in turn. Hesiod supplies the genealogy: Hyperion lay with Theía, 'who bore great Hēlios and bright Selḗnē and Ēōs, who brings light to mortals and to the deathless gods' (Theogony 371–374).
4. The physical record. Selḗnē's most famous fragment is a horse's head — one of the team from the east pediment of the Parthenon (British Museum), carved at the moment the moon's chariot sinks below the horizon as the sun rises opposite. Vase-paintings show her as a wing-sleeved charioteer with billowing veil, often paired with Hēlios on opposite sides of a scene. In Roman imperial art Luna rides the biga across mosaics and sarcophagi, and she flanks the tauroctony in the cult images of Mithras. No great independent sanctuary was hers; her monumental presence is sculptural, framed at the very edge of the world's most famous temple.
5. The current holding. The temple at /selene/, classified Tier 1. The restoration preserves more than the ASCII form can express — stress, length, or a letter the Latin keyboard lost — which places it, mechanically, in Tier-1.
6. The documented resonances. Space, Astronomy & Celestial Science, Women's Health & Femtech, Timekeeping & Calendar Systems — seats argued and weighted in the pattern atlas, read through the myths in this temple's Resonance File.
7. The primary sources. Theogony, Homeric Hymns, Works and Days — the library this file answers to, open at the Sacred Texts collection.
8. The continuing record. Selḗnē is the archetype of the moon as feminine, cyclical, and magical. She governs not only the night sky but the rhythms of women's bodies, the agricultural calendar, and the vocabulary of madness ('lunacy' remembers her).
At a Glance
- Restored name: Selēnē
- ASCII form: selene
- Meaning: "Moon, light (from σέλας)"
- Domain of influence: Moon, Night Light
- Pantheon: Greek
- Classification: Tier 1
- Original script: Σελήνη
- Series: The Restoration Files, No. 430 of 546
The File Continues
Read the founding dispatch for the name's full story, the Resonance File for the archetype at work — or the whole archive in one sitting.
Continue the series — previous file: Sḫmt (read it here) · next file: Seonangshin (read it here).
The Restoration Files are written from the same canonical record as the temples themselves: the lexicon, the lore catalog, the pattern atlas, and the cited scholarly sources. If a file ever disagrees with its temple, the temple is right — tell us, and the file will be corrected.