Luneta (Heb. plural í’aharônîm, “lunettes”, “little moons”). They were probably crescent-shaped pendants worn around the neck (Jdg 8:21, 26; Isa 3:18, translated “necklaces” and “lunettes”). During the excavations at Shechem (1926) a number of gold ornaments from the Late Bronze Age (1600-1200 BC) were found, including 5 crescent-shaped earrings. Mourning. See Duel.
Source: Evangelical Bible Dictionary
A chain worn as an ornament around the neck, to which pendants (Isa 3:18) or rings (Gen 38:25) could also be added. A very popular ornament in ancient times.
Source: Hispanic World Bible Dictionary
The lunette (or lunula), known in Germany as the lunula and also as the melchizedek, is a gold or silver-gilt crescent-shaped clamp used to hold the Host upright when exposed in monstrance. The crescent that holds the Host is securely attached to a small bracket or frame, and the monstrance receptacle usually has a slot into which the bracket fits so that it is held firmly in place. However, it is more common today, as a precaution against accidents, that the Host is not only fixed between two metal bands in the shape of a crescent, but is enclosed in a pyx with two faces of glass and this pyx It is inserted into the custody receptacle.
The lunette was certainly in use before the Reformation and is found on many of the fifteenth-century monstrances still extant (see list in Otto-Wernicke, “Handbuch”, I, 243). As early as 1591, Jakob Müller in his “Kirchengeschmuck” gives a detailed description of the lunette, or “mönlein”, and points out the desirability that the two metal strips that form the clip must be separable to allow them to be completely purified when they are removed. change the Host. If a glass pyx is used it should be possible to fix the Host so that it does not come into contact with the glass (Decree of the Cong. Sag. of Rites, February 4, 1871).
Bibliography: SCHROD in Kirchenlexikon, sv Monstranz; OTTO-WERNICKE, Handbuch der kirchlichen Kunst-Archäologie, I (Leipzig, 1883), 240-4; BARBIER DE MONTAULT, Traité pratique de l’ameublement des église, I (Paris, 1878), 331-3; MÜLLER, Kirchengeschmuck (Munich, 1591), 36.
Source: Thurston, Herbert. “Luette.” The Catholic Encyclopaedia. Vol. 9. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 25 Mar. 2012
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09435a.htm
Translated by Luz María Hernández Medina.
Source: Catholic Encyclopedia