PLATES XV., XVI., XVII., and XVIII.
In the foregoing pages arguments have been urged in support of the view that the ecliptic circle, at the remote date (speaking in round numbers) of 6000 B.C., had been portioned by some “ancient race of men” into twelve divisions; and that the twelve constellational figures of the Zodiac had then also been imagined under forms more or less closely resembling those which we recognize in the heavens at the present day.
Most of the arguments in favour of this opinion are necessarily based on considerations connected with the phenomena of the heavens, effected in the long course of ages by a slow revolution of the earth’s axis. Astronomers during the last two thousand years have carefully observed the effects and studied the causes of this slow terrestrial movement, and they can now tell us with confidence and exactness that the space of 25,868 years is required for the accomplishment of one such revolution of the earth’s axis.
In our enquiry into the astronomy of the ancients we need not at all turn our minds to the difficult subject of the causes, or indeed even to the fact, of this slow movement of the earth’s axis, further than to realize fully that its effects have been to produce a slow but continuous change in the apparent position of the fixed stars, a change not in their position relatively to each other, but in their distances from the heavenly equator and its poles.
The effort to fully realize these effects by means of careful calculations and measurements must prove to any but an astronomer a most arduous task; but, by aid of the mechanical contrivance called a “precessional globe,” much of the difficulty of the task may be overcome. The accompanying diagrams have been drawn from a precessional globe, which can be adjusted so as to show the position of the poles and equator amongst the fixed stars, at dates distant from each other by intervals of 538 years.[109]
[109] 1800 A.D. is the date to which the globe in question originally refers; the intervals of 538 years can be reckoned backwards or forwards from this date.
I have shown in continuous outline those constellations for whose first imagining it seemed to me as early a date might be claimed as that referred to in each diagram; all others are given in dotted outline. The strange figures of the “ancient constellations” are here drawn as they are represented on the globe; but the fixed stars which mark these figures for observers of the heavens, I have not ventured to indicate, as to do so would have required great accuracy of drawing and measurement. It is not for a moment to be contended that all the ancient constellations were imagined exactly under the forms by which we have learnt to know them from classic representations, from the poem of Aratos, and from the star list of Ptolemy. Variants of many of the figures are to be met with in astronomical atlases and on the celestial globes in use to-day; and to establish the relative claims concerning the antiquity of these variant forms is a branch to itself of research.
That these constellations have indeed been well denominated “ancient” is scarcely to be denied, and our only wonder, when studying the subject, must be, not that some differences are to be met with as to the exact form under which, at different dates and by different nations, these figures were delineated in the heavens, but rather the wonder must be that (as archæological research is always more and more clearly establishing) through many thousands of years, and by nations long and widely separated, the stars, which to an unaccustomed observer seem to be scattered in wild and random profusion on the sky, should have been divided into the same distinct groups, and thought of as representing the same mysterious beings.
But though it may be impossible to maintain that the Grecians have handed down to us in an absolutely unchanged form the figures of the ancient constellations as they were first imagined in remote ages, yet many proofs may be cited in favour of the opinion, that not lightly or arbitrarily did astronomical artists venture to tamper with the Zodiacal and extra-Zodiacal figures.
Some of these proofs have already been pointed out in the foregoing Papers. Attention will be drawn to others in the consideration of the diagrams here given.
In Plates [XV.], [XVI.], [XVII.], and [XVIII.], the positions of the solstitial and equinoctial colures amongst the constellations are given at the date 5744 B.C. Had it been possible, I should have liked to have drawn these diagrams as at 6000 B.C.—not only because it is easier to deal with and to remember a round number such as that, but also because at that date the solstitial colure passed through the ecliptic only one degree distant from the initial point of the Indian Zodiac—a point which there seems good reason to believe was the initial point of many, other than Indian, ancient Zodiacs.
Owing to the mechanical restrictions of the precessional globe, it was not possible to adjust it to any more accurate date than that of 5744 B.C.
It will not be necessary here to reiterate the considerations in favour of the opinion already advanced that the calendrical importance of the constellation Aries in some nations, and its symbolical importance in the mythology of others, may best be explained by the supposition that the choice of this constellation as “Prince and Leader” of the signs was made not when its stars marked the spring equinox, but when they marked the winter solstice.
Let us rather take this opinion as a working hypothesis, and turn our attention to the importance, in ancient symbolism, of the four constellations—Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricornus—which, according to this hypothesis, marked the four seasons, and the cardinal points 6000 B.C.
Next in this order to Aries comes Cancer, The Crab (see [Plate XVI.]). In Babylonia, it seems to be established that a tortoise, not a crab, represented the fourth constellation of the Zodiac. In Egypt, as we learn from the Zodiacs of Esneh and Denderah, it was the scarabæus beetle that held the place given to the crab in the Grecian sphere.
There is a sort of outward resemblance between these three creatures, wide apart as they are anatomically from each other. They are all hard-shelled, creeping, and insignificant-looking animals. Why under any of these three forms a constellation of the Zodiac should have been depicted, it is difficult to conjecture; but if we have to admit that in Egyptian astronomy the beetle played the important part of marking as a constellation one of the quarters of the ecliptic circle, this admission will furnish us with an adequate reason for the extraordinary honour paid in Egyptian symbolic art to this lowly, and in itself unattractive, insect.
The scarabæus, according to our hypothesis, marked in ancient calendrical tradition the spring equinox when in conjunction with the sun, and the autumn equinox in opposition to it. And it was as presiding visibly in opposition that we may reasonably suppose it gained such honour in Egypt. For the autumn, not the spring, is in that land the time when vegetation begins to burst into life, and when all Egypt rejoices. I think, moreover, that facts connected with the worship of the Apis Bull will further strengthen the opinion that the Egyptians considered the constellations in opposition to the sun to be those which presided over particular seasons and months.[110]
[110] See below, [pp. 234], [235].
To trace allusions in the symbolic art of Egypt to Libra—the third in order of the constellations we are now discussing (see [Plate XVII.])—is, it must be confessed, not so simple a matter, and it is with some diffidence that I put forward the following suggestion—i.e., that we may perhaps find in the “two feathers,” so prominent in Egyptian mythologic imagery, a reference to the two scales of the Balance (Libra).
The Didû dressed.
In allegorical language we speak often of the even scales of Justice, and in art the goddess is always represented with the Balance in her hand. In Egyptian symbolism and art, I think the two feathers represented the equal weights of the scales of Justice. In the great judgment hall of Osiris, the souls of men were weighed in the balance. The soul, or heart, of the dead Egyptian was placed in one scale, while a feather—or the figure of the goddess Mait, wearing on her head a single plume or feather—occupied the other. Mait was the goddess of Justice, and we often read also of “the two Maits who preside over Justice and Truth.”
There is a woodcut in Prof. Maspero’s Dawn of Civilization, p. 130, in which the head-dress—the symbolic head-dress—so often to be met with in Egyptian mythologic representations, is very clearly drawn. It was in studying this woodcut that the idea first suggested itself to my mind, that in this head-dress we may find a reference to the four constellations which, when the Zodiac was first imagined, marked the four colures—the four quarters of the heavens—that it was in fact an astronomic monogram, combining four figures in one.
In this head-dress very plainly are to be seen the horns of a ram, and those of a goat. Less convincingly, perhaps, the disc from which spring the goat’s horns suggests “the disc enclosing a scarabæus,”[111] under which form the sun as Khophri—“He who is”[112]—was sometimes represented by the Egyptians.
[111] Maspero, p. 139.
[112] Ibid. p. 138.
The two feathers in outline clearly show themselves, but to connect these two feathers with the scales of Libra is only adventured as a possible means of giving an astronomic value to the so often repeated combination of the forms in this head-dress.
As to Capricornus (the fourth of the constellations which marked the colures 6000 B.C.), (see [Plate XVIII.]), we do not meet with any representations, so far as I know, of a goat-fish on Egyptian monuments, but on Babylonian boundary stones and engraved gems this monster is often to be seen, exactly represented in form and attitude as on the Grecian sphere. The goat’s horns are all we find portrayed in ancient Egyptian art, and when they are portrayed they appear together with the ram’s horns, and often springing out of a ram’s head. For this curt reference to the goat (Capricornus) a reason may be found by remembering that this constellation, in opposition, presided—traditionally—over the least honoured season of the Egyptian year—the arid season preceding the inundations.
It should be borne in mind that all the Egyptian mythologic symbolism we have been considering must necessarily have only embodied traditions already even under the earliest dynasties extremely ancient; for it was, as may be seen in the Plates, about 6000 B.C. that the colures touched the extreme western degrees of the constellations Aries, Cancer, and Libra—and a point some degrees to the west of Capricornus, as it is now drawn. In each succeeding century the colures moved still more to the west, through the stars, and from 6000 down to 4000 B.C. they were no longer to be observed in the four already named constellations, but in Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius.
It is curious to note that there seems to be no pronounced allusion in Egyptian art or literature to these four constellations, though there are indications (see pp. 230-238) which may lead us to believe that the astronomical phenomena of the later date, 4000 B.C., were closely observed, and seem to have formed the basis of much of the mythology of Egypt.
These facts tend to confirm the conclusion—so often advocated in this book—that the ancestors of the Egyptians, as also of all the great civilized nations of antiquity, followed through many long ages the same sidereal calendar—one based on the observation of the colures amongst the fixed stars 6000 B.C. And it would seem that not till about 4000 B.C., when the colures had traversed, from east to west, the constellations Pisces, Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius, and had arrived at the eastern degrees of Aquarius, Taurus, Leo, and Scorpio, did astronomic authorities in Egypt direct their attention to a reform of the calendar and introduce into it, and into religious observances, references to these four last-named constellations.
Turning to [Plate XVI.] we may notice that the equinoctial colure, marking out as it does the extreme western limits of the constellation Cancer, passes also through a part of the constellation Gemini. This fact may, I think, help to explain some of the legends connected with the twins Castor and Pollux in ancient lore.
A very brilliant star glitters on the head of each twin. These stars are of almost equal lustre and well deserve the name of twin stars; and so we can easily suppose how it was that the imaginative astronomers who, at the early date in question, mapped out the figures of the Zodiac, noticing that the equinoctial colure passed between these two bright stars, should have elected to represent them as marking the heads of twin figures, which they determined should symbolize the equal day and night of the season over which they presided.
These two stars, thousands of years after they had ceased to mark the equinox, were still associated by the Greeks with the twin heroes—Castor and Pollux—brothers who, according to the legend, were “possessed of an immortality of existence so divided among them, that as one dies, the other revives.” The learned Dr Barrett has pointed out that “this furnishes a complete description of Day and Night.” This remark of Dr Barrett’s becomes especially interesting if we attribute the first symbolizing of day and night by these stars to the work of astronomers at a date when the day and night these stars symbolized were of exactly equal length, and when, therefore, the equal stars and equal alternation of light and darkness might both be fitly symbolized as twins.
At [Plate XVIII.] it is to be observed that the equinoctial colure, instead of adjoining Capricornus, occupies an almost central position in the preceding constellation, Sagittarius. This fact, together with other considerations, has led me to think that originally only the bow and arrow of Sagittarius were imagined for that division of the ecliptic; and that the huge composite figure of the archer—half man and half horse—was added to the original design in later ages, by astronomers who chose the spring equinox instead of the winter solstice for the beginning of the year.
In discussing the Median calendar, the importance which seems to have been given by the ancestors of the Medes to the constellation Sagittarius, at a date when it marked the spring equinox, was dwelt upon. It will, I think, appear likely, when we come to study [Plates XIX.] and [XX.], that as early as 4600 B.C. constellations were imagined to honour and mark the equinoctial as well as the solstitial seasons.
Perhaps then, at that date the constellation Sagittarius was extended to its present dimensions; and it may be that some centuries later, when the colure of the winter solstice had passed into the constellation Aquarius, some astronomers desired—like Gudea of Lagash and Tchuen-Hio in China—to honour that season, and to make it the beginning of the year. It may be that such astronomers dealt with the eleventh constellation of the Zodiac, as earlier ones had dealt with Sagittarius, and that they added to what was possibly originally only a water jar, Amphora, the figure of the water pourer Aquarius.
These ideas are put forward very speculatively. They were partly suggested by noticing that in the Indian Zodiac the name of the constellation Sagittarius is merely Dhanus (arrow), and the name of Aquarius is Kumbha (water jar).
In the diagrams which we have been discussing, it will be observed that only the twelve figures of the Zodiac, and two of the extra-Zodiacal constellations, are given in continuous outline, one of these two is Draco—the dragon or serpent whose folds surround the Pole of the Ecliptic—the central point of the circle of the Zodiac.
That the astronomers who traced out the circle of the Zodiac on the heavens, and imagined its twelve strange figures, should also have devoted attention to, and marked out, its central point, is not improbable. The Pole of the Ecliptic, unlike the Pole of the Heavens, is immoveable amongst the fixed stars. At 6000 B.C., as at the present date, the stars of Draco surrounded this point—a point not itself marked by any conspicuous star. We have not, however, I think, at present sufficient grounds for deciding at what exact date the constellation Draco was imagined under the form it now holds. But that it is very ancient there is no doubt.
For the first depicting on the vault of heaven of the figure of Bootes, I claim with much stronger conviction the date of 6000 B.C., and the latitude of 45° north. For then and there Bootes might be seen at midnight of the summer solstice, standing upright on the northern horizon, his head reaching nearly to the Pole of the Heavens. Never since that date has he held so commanding a position in the sky, nor at any more southern latitude could his whole figure have been represented as standing on the horizon.
One further suggestion as to this constellation I am tempted to make. Not, it is true, on the same firm astronomical grounds as those put forward for the date of the first imagining of the figure, but a suggestion based on the Greek name of the constellation.
The name Bootes has been translated as ox-driver, and of him Aratos says:—
“The Bear-ward, whom mankind the Ploughman call,
Because he seems to touch the wain-like Bear.”[113]
[113] The Phainomena or “Heavenly Display” of Aratos, done into English verse by Robert Brown, Jun., F.S.A., line 92.
The seven bright stars which mark the tail and part of the body of the Great Bear are often spoken of as “the Plough,” and in the large remaining space allotted on the sphere to the constellation Ursa Major, it would not be difficult to include oxen harnessed to the brightly marked celestial plough.
I have said that at midnight of the summer solstice the constellation Bootes—if we suppose it to have been imagined at 6000 B.C.—presided visibly over the northern sky. But we have learnt from the month names in the Accadian calendar that the astronomers who instituted it always directed attention to the constellations which invisibly accompanied the sun in his daily journeyings from east to west, rather than to those which (in opposition) were visible through the hours of the night. For example—all through the mid-winter month of the sacrifice of righteousness, the stars of the Ram—the celestial symbol of that sacrifice—were invisible, hidden in the overpowering light of the sun. In like manner, I think, we may assume that at the close of the Accadian year—in the “month of the sowing of seed” or in “the dark month of sowing,” when mortal husbandmen were following on earth their ox-drawn ploughs, Bootes, the ox-driver, though invisible to the bodily eye, appeared to the mental vision of the astronomer, following unweariedly the ox-drawn plough in the sky.
The various suppositions here put forward will lead those who accept them as probably correct, to picture to themselves the existence, at the early date of 6000 B.C., in latitude 45° N., of a race of men—not savages, and not merely pastoral nomads—but a race of agriculturists who tilled the ground and reaped its fruits—a race possessed of high intellectual power—who respected law and justice, and whose religion taught them to offer to their god “sacrifices of righteousness.”