A2A World · Field Guide 14 of the World’s Mythologies
Zodiac Mythology Field Guide
Babylonian · Greek · Egyptian · Roman
The ecliptic — the Sun’s yearly path through twelve constellations, seen from every land on Earth
Long before the horoscope, the zodiac was a map. Babylonian astronomers divided the Sun’s yearly path among the stars into twelve equal parts by about the 5th century BCE, each named for a constellation it passed through. Greek, Egyptian, Roman, Indian and Arabic astronomers inherited the scheme and filled it with their own stories.
The word comes from the Greek zōidiakos kyklos, the “circle of little animals.” Most of its figures are beasts — a ram, a bull, a crab, a lion, a scorpion, a goat-fish — and those that are not still carry a myth. This guide reads the twelve as a bestiary of the heavens and asks what they mirror on the ground: as above, so below.
Cover plate of A2A World Field Guide No. 14, Zodiac
Context
How the Sky Holds Its Myths
The stars were the first calendar. Farmers sowed when certain stars rose before dawn, sailors steered by them and priests timed festivals by them. The Babylonian compendium MUL.APIN, known from clay tablets copied from 686 BCE onward but older in origin, lists the constellations in the “path of the Moon” — among them the Bull of Heaven, the Great Twins, the Lion and the Scorpion — that later became the zodiac. The phrase “as above, so below” comes from the Emerald Tablet, a short Hermetic text known from medieval Arabic and Latin versions; it expresses the old belief that the heavens and the Earth mirror one another.
A Babylonian astronomer-priest records the stars from the top of a zigguratThe circle of little animals: the twelve signs around the Sun
Principal Sources
MUL.APIN, the Babylonian star compendium (earliest dated copy 686 BCE). Aratus, Phaenomena (3rd century BCE). The Catasterismi attributed to Eratosthenes. Hyginus, De Astronomia. Manilius, Astronomica (1st century CE). Ptolemy, Almagest (2nd century CE), which catalogues 48 constellations. The Dendera zodiac (1st century BCE). Johann Bayer, Uranometria (1603); Johannes Hevelius, Firmamentum Sobiescianum (1690).
The Ecliptic
Over a year the Sun appears to move once around a band of stars called the ecliptic; the Moon and planets travel close to it. Because Earth’s axis slowly wobbles, the signs no longer line up with their constellations — the Sun now stands in Pisces at the March equinox, not Aries. This drift, called precession, was described by Hipparchus in the 2nd century BCE.
The Thirteenth Constellation
The Sun also crosses Ophiuchus, the Serpent-Bearer, between Scorpius and Sagittarius, for about eighteen days each year. The zodiac keeps twelve signs because it was built as twelve equal parts of a circle, matching the months of the year.
I · Spring Signs
The Ram, the Bull and the Twins
The sky of the new year, when the Sun returned to the stars of spring.
The golden ram carries Phrixus over the sea, while Helle falls into the strait that bears her name
Name
Key Attributes
Story
Look For in the Land
Aries
The Ram · LÚ.ḪUN.GÁ, the Hired Man (Babylonian)
The golden-fleeced ram; first sign of the zodiac.
Zeus’s flying ram, with a fleece of gold, carried the children Phrixus and Helle away from their stepmother Ino. Helle fell into the strait named the Hellespont after her; Phrixus reached Colchis, sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in a sacred grove — the Golden Fleece later sought by Jason and the Argonauts. Babylonian astronomers knew these stars as the Hired Man; the Greeks made him a ram.
Sky: a short bent line of three stars led by Hamal, west of the Pleiades. Land: a curling horn in a spiral rock or ridge; a golden fleece of grass on a hillside.
Taurus
The Bull · GU4.AN.NA, the Bull of Heaven (Babylonian)
Zeus as a white bull; the Bull of Heaven.
In Greek myth Zeus became a white bull to carry the princess Europa across the sea to Crete; only the bull’s forequarters are drawn in the sky, as if it were still rising from the waves. Far older is the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sent against Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and which they slew.
Sky: the V-shaped Hyades with red Aldebaran as the bull’s eye, and long horns tipped by Elnath and Zeta Tauri. Land: a V of valleys; a horned headland rising from the sea.
Gemini
The Twins · MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL, the Great Twins (Babylonian)
Castor and Pollux, a star above each head, keep watch over sailors in the storm
Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri.
Castor was mortal and Pollux the immortal son of Zeus. When Castor was killed, Pollux begged to share his immortality, and the brothers were set in the sky together, spending alternate days on Olympus and in the underworld. Sailors saw them in the glow of St Elmo’s fire on masts in storms.
Sky: two bright stars side by side, Castor and Pollux, with two lines of stars for their bodies. Land: twin peaks; two standing stones; paired islands.
The seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, pursued by Orion, were turned into doves and then into stars. Hesiod advised farmers to begin the harvest when the Pleiades rise before dawn and to plough when they set. Almost every culture on Earth has named this cluster, and many tell of a missing or hidden seventh star.
Sky: a tiny dipper-shaped cluster of six or seven stars above Taurus. Land: seven stones in a cluster; a group of small islands; seven springs.
Orion
SIPA.ZI.AN.NA, the True Shepherd of Anu (Babylonian) · Sah (Egyptian)
Orion with his club, lion pelt and belt of three stars
The giant hunter who boasted he would kill every beast.
Orion, son of Poseidon, could walk on the sea. He boasted that he would hunt down every animal on Earth, so Gaia, the Earth, sent a scorpion that stung him to death. Zeus set both in the sky but on opposite sides, so that Orion sets in the west as Scorpius rises in the east, and the hunter flees his killer forever. In Egypt these stars were Sah, linked to Osiris.
Sky: three bright stars in a row for the belt, red Betelgeuse at the shoulder and blue-white Rigel at the knee. Land: three mounds or peaks in a line; a giant figure laid out in hills.
Aries
The Ram · LÚ.ḪUN.GÁ, the Hired Man (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The golden-fleeced ram; first sign of the zodiac.
Story
Zeus’s flying ram, with a fleece of gold, carried the children Phrixus and Helle away from their stepmother Ino. Helle fell into the strait named the Hellespont after her; Phrixus reached Colchis, sacrificed the ram and hung its fleece in a sacred grove — the Golden Fleece later sought by Jason and the Argonauts. Babylonian astronomers knew these stars as the Hired Man; the Greeks made him a ram.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a short bent line of three stars led by Hamal, west of the Pleiades. Land: a curling horn in a spiral rock or ridge; a golden fleece of grass on a hillside.
Taurus
The Bull · GU4.AN.NA, the Bull of Heaven (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
Zeus as a white bull; the Bull of Heaven.
Story
In Greek myth Zeus became a white bull to carry the princess Europa across the sea to Crete; only the bull’s forequarters are drawn in the sky, as if it were still rising from the waves. Far older is the Bull of Heaven, which the goddess Ishtar sent against Gilgamesh and Enkidu, and which they slew.
Look For in the Land
Sky: the V-shaped Hyades with red Aldebaran as the bull’s eye, and long horns tipped by Elnath and Zeta Tauri. Land: a V of valleys; a horned headland rising from the sea.
Castor and Pollux, a star above each head, keep watch over sailors in the storm
Gemini
The Twins · MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL, the Great Twins (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
Castor and Pollux, the Dioscuri.
Story
Castor was mortal and Pollux the immortal son of Zeus. When Castor was killed, Pollux begged to share his immortality, and the brothers were set in the sky together, spending alternate days on Olympus and in the underworld. Sailors saw them in the glow of St Elmo’s fire on masts in storms.
Look For in the Land
Sky: two bright stars side by side, Castor and Pollux, with two lines of stars for their bodies. Land: twin peaks; two standing stones; paired islands.
The seven daughters of Atlas and Pleione, pursued by Orion, were turned into doves and then into stars. Hesiod advised farmers to begin the harvest when the Pleiades rise before dawn and to plough when they set. Almost every culture on Earth has named this cluster, and many tell of a missing or hidden seventh star.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a tiny dipper-shaped cluster of six or seven stars above Taurus. Land: seven stones in a cluster; a group of small islands; seven springs.
Orion with his club, lion pelt and belt of three stars
Orion
SIPA.ZI.AN.NA, the True Shepherd of Anu (Babylonian) · Sah (Egyptian)
Key Attributes
The giant hunter who boasted he would kill every beast.
Story
Orion, son of Poseidon, could walk on the sea. He boasted that he would hunt down every animal on Earth, so Gaia, the Earth, sent a scorpion that stung him to death. Zeus set both in the sky but on opposite sides, so that Orion sets in the west as Scorpius rises in the east, and the hunter flees his killer forever. In Egypt these stars were Sah, linked to Osiris.
Look For in the Land
Sky: three bright stars in a row for the belt, red Betelgeuse at the shoulder and blue-white Rigel at the knee. Land: three mounds or peaks in a line; a giant figure laid out in hills.
II · Summer Signs
The Crab, the Lion and the Maiden
The long days, when the Sun burned among the stars of the Lion.
Heracles wrestles the Nemean Lion, whose golden hide no weapon could pierce
Name
Key Attributes
Story
Look For in the Land
Cancer
The Crab · AL.LUL (Babylonian)
The Crab, the Beehive Cluster glowing on its back
The crab that pinched Heracles.
When Heracles fought the many-headed Hydra in the swamp of Lerna, Hera sent a giant crab to bite his foot. He crushed it underfoot, and Hera set it among the stars as a reward. Its faint stars hold the Beehive Cluster, which ancient writers called the Manger, flanked by two stars called the Donkeys.
Sky: a faint inverted Y around a misty patch, the Beehive Cluster, between Gemini and Leo. Land: a crab-shaped rock at a tide line; a misty hollow between two hills.
Leo
The Lion · UR.GU.LA, the Great Lion (Babylonian)
The Nemean Lion, whose hide no weapon could pierce.
The first of Heracles’ twelve labours was to kill the lion of Nemea. Arrows bounced from its golden hide, so he wrestled it and strangled it with his bare hands, then skinned it with its own claws and wore the pelt as armour. Ancient writers linked the Sun’s passage through Leo with the summer flood of the Nile.
Sky: a backward question mark, the Sickle, for the lion’s mane, with bright Regulus at its heart and a triangle for the haunches. Land: a crouching lion in a rock outcrop; a sphinx-like ridge.
Virgo
The Maiden · AB.SIN, the Furrow (Babylonian)
The maiden with the ear of grain.
Babylonian astronomers saw the Furrow, holding the barley ear of the goddess Shala; its bright star is still called Spica, “ear of grain.” The Greeks saw a maiden — Demeter, her daughter Persephone, or Astraea, goddess of justice, the last of the immortals to leave the Earth when people turned to violence. Astraea rose to the sky, and the Scales beside her are said to be hers.
Sky: a wide Y of stars ending in blue-white Spica. Land: a ploughed furrow; a ripe field; a figure of a woman holding grain.
The Hydra
MUŠ, the Serpent (Babylonian)
The longest constellation, coiling beneath three signs.
The water-snake of Lerna grew two heads for every one Heracles cut off, until his nephew Iolaus burned each neck. In another story Apollo sent a crow for water; it dawdled to eat figs and blamed a water-snake, and Apollo set the crow, the cup and the snake in the sky together, the crow forever kept from the cup.
Sky: a long winding line of faint stars from below Cancer to below Libra, with lonely red Alphard, “the solitary one,” at its heart. Land: a winding river with many branches; a serpentine ridge.
The Crab, the Beehive Cluster glowing on its back
Cancer
The Crab · AL.LUL (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The crab that pinched Heracles.
Story
When Heracles fought the many-headed Hydra in the swamp of Lerna, Hera sent a giant crab to bite his foot. He crushed it underfoot, and Hera set it among the stars as a reward. Its faint stars hold the Beehive Cluster, which ancient writers called the Manger, flanked by two stars called the Donkeys.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a faint inverted Y around a misty patch, the Beehive Cluster, between Gemini and Leo. Land: a crab-shaped rock at a tide line; a misty hollow between two hills.
Leo
The Lion · UR.GU.LA, the Great Lion (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The Nemean Lion, whose hide no weapon could pierce.
Story
The first of Heracles’ twelve labours was to kill the lion of Nemea. Arrows bounced from its golden hide, so he wrestled it and strangled it with his bare hands, then skinned it with its own claws and wore the pelt as armour. Ancient writers linked the Sun’s passage through Leo with the summer flood of the Nile.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a backward question mark, the Sickle, for the lion’s mane, with bright Regulus at its heart and a triangle for the haunches. Land: a crouching lion in a rock outcrop; a sphinx-like ridge.
Virgo
The Maiden · AB.SIN, the Furrow (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The maiden with the ear of grain.
Story
Babylonian astronomers saw the Furrow, holding the barley ear of the goddess Shala; its bright star is still called Spica, “ear of grain.” The Greeks saw a maiden — Demeter, her daughter Persephone, or Astraea, goddess of justice, the last of the immortals to leave the Earth when people turned to violence. Astraea rose to the sky, and the Scales beside her are said to be hers.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a wide Y of stars ending in blue-white Spica. Land: a ploughed furrow; a ripe field; a figure of a woman holding grain.
The Hydra
MUŠ, the Serpent (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The longest constellation, coiling beneath three signs.
Story
The water-snake of Lerna grew two heads for every one Heracles cut off, until his nephew Iolaus burned each neck. In another story Apollo sent a crow for water; it dawdled to eat figs and blamed a water-snake, and Apollo set the crow, the cup and the snake in the sky together, the crow forever kept from the cup.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a long winding line of faint stars from below Cancer to below Libra, with lonely red Alphard, “the solitary one,” at its heart. Land: a winding river with many branches; a serpentine ridge.
III · Autumn Signs
The Scales, the Scorpion and the Archer
The sky of the harvest, when day and night stood balanced.
The centaur archer aims at the red heart of the Scorpion, in the brightest reach of the Milky Way
Name
Key Attributes
Story
Look For in the Land
Libra
The Scales · ZI.BA.AN.NA (Babylonian) · the Claws (Greek)
Astraea, the star-maiden, with her ear of grain and the Scales of justice
The only sign that is not a living creature.
The Greeks knew these stars as the Claws of the Scorpion. The Babylonians called them the Scales, and the Romans settled on the name Libra. In antiquity the Sun stood here at the autumn equinox, when day and night are equal, and the Scales came to be held by Astraea, the maiden of justice in the neighbouring sign.
Sky: a lopsided square of faint stars between Spica and red Antares; its two brightest are still called the southern and the northern claw. Land: a balanced rock; two equal hills on either side of a pass.
Scorpio
The Scorpion · GIR.TAB (Babylonian)
Gaia’s scorpion strikes, and the boastful hunter falls — they will never again share the sky
The scorpion that killed Orion.
Sent by Gaia to humble the boastful hunter, the scorpion stung Orion and was raised to the sky as a reward. The two were placed at opposite ends of the heavens: when the Scorpion climbs in the east, Orion sinks in the west. In Mesopotamia scorpion-men guarded the gate of the mountains where the Sun rises and sets, and Gilgamesh passed them on his journey.
Sky: a long hook of stars curving up to a raised stinger, with red Antares, “rival of Mars,” at the heart. Land: a curved ridge ending in a hooked point; red rock at a bend.
Sagittarius
The Archer · PA.BIL.SAG (Babylonian)
The centaur archer.
A centaur draws his bow, aiming at the heart of the Scorpion. Some writers named him Chiron, the wise centaur who taught Achilles; others Crotus, a satyr who invented archery. The Babylonian Pabilsag was a winged centaur-archer with a scorpion’s tail. The centre of our galaxy lies just beyond his arrow.
Sky: a teapot shape of eight stars in the thickest part of the Milky Way. Land: an arrow-shaped ridge; a horse and rider in a hill figure.
Ophiuchus
The Serpent-Bearer
Asclepius the healer grasps the great Serpent, his feet upon the Scorpion: the thirteenth figure on the Sun’s path
The healer Asclepius holding a great snake.
Asclepius, son of Apollo, grew so skilled in healing that he raised the dead. Hades complained that his realm was emptying, and Zeus struck Asclepius down with a thunderbolt, then set him among the stars grasping the serpent, emblem of healing. His feet rest on the Scorpion, inside the Sun’s path.
Sky: a large, faint, coffin-shaped figure above Scorpius, holding the stars of Serpens. Land: a staff with a coiled snake; a healing spring.
The Milky Way
Galaxias Kyklos (Greek) · Via Lactea (Latin)
The river of stars.
Hera, nursing the infant Heracles, pushed him away, and her milk sprayed across the heavens. In China, Korea and Japan it is the Heavenly River that parts the Weaver Girl from the Cowherd, who meet once a year. The Sun crosses it twice a year, near Gemini and in Sagittarius.
Sky: a faint band of light from horizon to horizon, brightest toward Sagittarius. Land: a river across a plain; a pale road; a line of white stones.
Astraea, the star-maiden, with her ear of grain and the Scales of justice
Libra
The Scales · ZI.BA.AN.NA (Babylonian) · the Claws (Greek)
Key Attributes
The only sign that is not a living creature.
Story
The Greeks knew these stars as the Claws of the Scorpion. The Babylonians called them the Scales, and the Romans settled on the name Libra. In antiquity the Sun stood here at the autumn equinox, when day and night are equal, and the Scales came to be held by Astraea, the maiden of justice in the neighbouring sign.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a lopsided square of faint stars between Spica and red Antares; its two brightest are still called the southern and the northern claw. Land: a balanced rock; two equal hills on either side of a pass.
Gaia’s scorpion strikes, and the boastful hunter falls — they will never again share the sky
Scorpio
The Scorpion · GIR.TAB (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The scorpion that killed Orion.
Story
Sent by Gaia to humble the boastful hunter, the scorpion stung Orion and was raised to the sky as a reward. The two were placed at opposite ends of the heavens: when the Scorpion climbs in the east, Orion sinks in the west. In Mesopotamia scorpion-men guarded the gate of the mountains where the Sun rises and sets, and Gilgamesh passed them on his journey.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a long hook of stars curving up to a raised stinger, with red Antares, “rival of Mars,” at the heart. Land: a curved ridge ending in a hooked point; red rock at a bend.
Sagittarius
The Archer · PA.BIL.SAG (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The centaur archer.
Story
A centaur draws his bow, aiming at the heart of the Scorpion. Some writers named him Chiron, the wise centaur who taught Achilles; others Crotus, a satyr who invented archery. The Babylonian Pabilsag was a winged centaur-archer with a scorpion’s tail. The centre of our galaxy lies just beyond his arrow.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a teapot shape of eight stars in the thickest part of the Milky Way. Land: an arrow-shaped ridge; a horse and rider in a hill figure.
Asclepius the healer grasps the great Serpent, his feet upon the Scorpion: the thirteenth figure on the Sun’s path
Ophiuchus
The Serpent-Bearer
Key Attributes
The healer Asclepius holding a great snake.
Story
Asclepius, son of Apollo, grew so skilled in healing that he raised the dead. Hades complained that his realm was emptying, and Zeus struck Asclepius down with a thunderbolt, then set him among the stars grasping the serpent, emblem of healing. His feet rest on the Scorpion, inside the Sun’s path.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a large, faint, coffin-shaped figure above Scorpius, holding the stars of Serpens. Land: a staff with a coiled snake; a healing spring.
The Milky Way
Galaxias Kyklos (Greek) · Via Lactea (Latin)
Key Attributes
The river of stars.
Story
Hera, nursing the infant Heracles, pushed him away, and her milk sprayed across the heavens. In China, Korea and Japan it is the Heavenly River that parts the Weaver Girl from the Cowherd, who meet once a year. The Sun crosses it twice a year, near Gemini and in Sagittarius.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a faint band of light from horizon to horizon, brightest toward Sagittarius. Land: a river across a plain; a pale road; a line of white stones.
IV · Winter Signs
The Sea-Goat, the Water-Bearer and the Fishes
The watery quarter of the sky, and the circle that holds all twelve.
The Sea-Goat, emblem of Ea, leaps from the waters into the winter sky
Name
Key Attributes
Story
Look For in the Land
Capricorn
The Sea-Goat · SUḪUR.MAŠ, the Goat-Fish (Babylonian)
A goat with a fish’s tail.
The goat-fish was an emblem of Ea (Enki), the Babylonian god of fresh water and wisdom, long before the Greeks. In a Greek telling the god Pan, fleeing the monster Typhon, leapt into the Nile and began to change into a fish, but only below the waist. The winter solstice once fell in this sign, which is why the southern tropic is called the Tropic of Capricorn.
Sky: a faint wide triangle, like a smiling boat, south of the Eagle. Land: a horned rock at the water’s edge; a spring where hills meet a river.
Aquarius
The Water-Bearer · GU.LA, the Great One (Babylonian)
The Water-Bearer’s stream flows into the mouth of the Southern Fish
The water-pourer.
The Babylonians drew the Great One, a god pouring streams from a vase — an image linked with Ea. The Greeks saw Ganymede, the Trojan youth whom Zeus, as an eagle, carried to Olympus to pour drinks for the gods; the Eagle flies nearby. His stream flows down into the mouth of the Southern Fish, at the bright star Fomalhaut.
Sky: a Y-shaped water jar of four stars, with a stream of faint stars cascading south to Fomalhaut. Land: a spring pouring from a rock; a waterfall; streams branching across a plain.
Pisces
The Fishes
The two Fishes, bound by a cord at the knot star Alrescha
Two fishes tied by a cord.
Aphrodite and her son Eros, fleeing the monster Typhon along the Euphrates, became fish and tied themselves together with a cord so they would not lose each other. In Babylon the two figures were a swallow and the goddess Anunitum, joined by a cord. Because of precession, the Sun now stands in Pisces at the spring equinox.
Sky: a large V of faint stars joined at the knot star Alrescha, with a small ring of stars, the Circlet, for one fish. Land: two streams meeting; two fish-shaped lakes joined by a river.
The Great Bear
MAR.GÍD.DA, the Wagon (Babylonian) · the Plough
The bear that never sets.
Callisto, a huntress of Artemis, was loved by Zeus and turned into a bear; Zeus placed her in the sky with her son Arcas nearby. Hera, still angry, asked Ocean never to let her bathe, so the Bear circles the pole and, seen from the Mediterranean, never sinks below the sea. Its seven stars point to the Pole Star, guide of travellers.
Sky: seven bright stars in a dipper or plough circling the north; the end two point to Polaris. Land: seven stones in a ladle shape; a line pointing north.
The Dendera Zodiac
Egypt, 1st century BCE
A carved map of the whole sky.
On the ceiling of a chapel in the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egyptian sculptors carved the twelve signs among Egypt’s own star figures — the hippopotamus, the bull’s foreleg and Sah — upheld by four goddesses and falcon-headed spirits. It joins Babylonian, Greek and Egyptian skies in one disc. The original is in the Louvre in Paris; a cast remains in place.
Sky: the circle of twelve, read as one disc around the pole. Land: a stone circle; a ring of twelve markers; a round carved ceiling.
Capricorn
The Sea-Goat · SUḪUR.MAŠ, the Goat-Fish (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
A goat with a fish’s tail.
Story
The goat-fish was an emblem of Ea (Enki), the Babylonian god of fresh water and wisdom, long before the Greeks. In a Greek telling the god Pan, fleeing the monster Typhon, leapt into the Nile and began to change into a fish, but only below the waist. The winter solstice once fell in this sign, which is why the southern tropic is called the Tropic of Capricorn.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a faint wide triangle, like a smiling boat, south of the Eagle. Land: a horned rock at the water’s edge; a spring where hills meet a river.
The Water-Bearer’s stream flows into the mouth of the Southern Fish
Aquarius
The Water-Bearer · GU.LA, the Great One (Babylonian)
Key Attributes
The water-pourer.
Story
The Babylonians drew the Great One, a god pouring streams from a vase — an image linked with Ea. The Greeks saw Ganymede, the Trojan youth whom Zeus, as an eagle, carried to Olympus to pour drinks for the gods; the Eagle flies nearby. His stream flows down into the mouth of the Southern Fish, at the bright star Fomalhaut.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a Y-shaped water jar of four stars, with a stream of faint stars cascading south to Fomalhaut. Land: a spring pouring from a rock; a waterfall; streams branching across a plain.
The two Fishes, bound by a cord at the knot star Alrescha
Pisces
The Fishes
Key Attributes
Two fishes tied by a cord.
Story
Aphrodite and her son Eros, fleeing the monster Typhon along the Euphrates, became fish and tied themselves together with a cord so they would not lose each other. In Babylon the two figures were a swallow and the goddess Anunitum, joined by a cord. Because of precession, the Sun now stands in Pisces at the spring equinox.
Look For in the Land
Sky: a large V of faint stars joined at the knot star Alrescha, with a small ring of stars, the Circlet, for one fish. Land: two streams meeting; two fish-shaped lakes joined by a river.
The Great Bear
MAR.GÍD.DA, the Wagon (Babylonian) · the Plough
Key Attributes
The bear that never sets.
Story
Callisto, a huntress of Artemis, was loved by Zeus and turned into a bear; Zeus placed her in the sky with her son Arcas nearby. Hera, still angry, asked Ocean never to let her bathe, so the Bear circles the pole and, seen from the Mediterranean, never sinks below the sea. Its seven stars point to the Pole Star, guide of travellers.
Look For in the Land
Sky: seven bright stars in a dipper or plough circling the north; the end two point to Polaris. Land: seven stones in a ladle shape; a line pointing north.
The Dendera Zodiac
Egypt, 1st century BCE
Key Attributes
A carved map of the whole sky.
Story
On the ceiling of a chapel in the temple of Hathor at Dendera, Egyptian sculptors carved the twelve signs among Egypt’s own star figures — the hippopotamus, the bull’s foreleg and Sah — upheld by four goddesses and falcon-headed spirits. It joins Babylonian, Greek and Egyptian skies in one disc. The original is in the Louvre in Paris; a cast remains in place.
Look For in the Land
Sky: the circle of twelve, read as one disc around the pole. Land: a stone circle; a ring of twelve markers; a round carved ceiling.
A Note on Names, Versions and Respect
The zodiac belongs to many peoples. Babylonian, Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Indian, Persian, Arabic and Chinese astronomers each read the sky in their own way, and many star names still in use are Arabic. Constellation myths vary between ancient authors; note the source a telling follows. This guide treats the zodiac as mythology and astronomy, not as prediction.
The plates in this guide are interpretive illustrations, not historical artefacts.