I wasn't aware the Incas not putting up a struggle due to this superstition was contentious. I'm recalling being told this about 30yrs ago at school, so I'm a bit puzzled here.

Probably whilst studying Shaffer's Royal Hunt of the Sun for A level English.

Hello Mark,

MarkC wrote:True but Sullivan's academic credentials in this field are impeccable. He is in a totally different frame from the kind of wild speculations you find in books by authors like Graham Hancock.

Oh I'd agree, Hancock is there to sell his books to the gullible New Age crowd. Of course, the interesting books don't get so well touted.

MarkC wrote: While Hamlets Mill has been criticised a lot its interesting that many researchers seem to find inspiration in the book to follow up its basic thesis. In short the notion that mythology can reveal knowledge about the process of precession.

While the idea that precession was known among ancient civilizations is important in the book, IIRC it is more focused on the idea that all of world mythology was encoded in the same fashion, i.e. animals are constellations, people, gods, etc. are the planets, and locations and geographical references are other astronomical phenomena, like the example in Incas that the river is the Milky Way, again IIRC, it's been 5 or 6 years since I read those books. All this posits that there was a 'worldwide' ur-civilization from which all others are descended, or maybe one heck of a transmission of this information worldwide. Not the craziest idea, IMO, since about 50-60K years ago, the worldwide human (homo sapiens, at least) population was all located in a portion of northern Africa.

That precession was known earlier then currently posited isn't that crazy either, all it takes is observation over a few centuries and a means of recording the information; a Neolithic tribe could do it, as long as they didn't get wiped out by a few bad seasons or some other tribe. Like everything else, this knowledge was probably discovered, lost, discovered again, lost again, over and over again across the millenia.

That Death Gods book seems definitely worth a read.

trevor wrote:I wasn't aware the Incas not putting up a struggle due to this superstition was contentious. I'm recalling being told this about 30yrs ago at school, so I'm a bit puzzled here.

Actually the Inca fought the Spanish for about, what, 50 years? Maybe you're puzzled for some other reason ...

GR wrote:

trevor wrote:I wasn't aware the Incas not putting up a struggle due to this superstition was contentious. I'm recalling being told this about 30yrs ago at school, so I'm a bit puzzled here.

Actually the Inca fought the Spanish for about, what, 50 years? Maybe you're puzzled for some other reason ...

I am even more puzzled now, are you saying Sullivan is wrong and I was misled (if my memory is correct) 30yrs ago?

AFAIK Sullivan doesn't mention it, but again it's not the point of his book. You probably got the usual condensed-to-the-point-of-misinformation that is usual for general youth education throughout the world.

GR wrote:AFAIK Sullivan doesn't mention it, but again it's not the point of his book. You probably got the usual condensed-to-the-point-of-misinformation that is usual for general youth education throughout the world.

From Mark's quote

''William Sullivan decodes the myths of the Incas to reveal an astoundingly precise record of astronomical events. The Incas accepted their fate as written in the stars''.

This last sentence is what I recall being told 30 or so yrs ago, so Sullivan is 'evidencing' this in 1996 about 15yrs later, but the review reads as though this is breaking news at the time.

It looks to me, just going over to wikipedia, that they did put up something of a struggle it's not as simple as 'oh look there's a Spanish soldier that's it then as our monumental alignments predicted ' However I also recall this from the Shaffer play, or discussions surrounding it, that they fought but underneath was this resignation to their fate. At the time the norm was to spend a term (10 weeks) on a book/play so was this condensed or not, depends on your definition.

You say you have read the Sullivan book so is the Amazon review misleading and/or do you think this astro-archao narrative is erroneous as regards the Incas? I'm struggling to follow your thinking here.

Hello Mark,

MarkC wrote: The development of the equally divided 12-constellation zodiac does not appear until after the start of the Persian Period in Babylonia (circa 500 BCE). I dont know where Weidner stood on this issue. Maybe Wolgang can elucidate on this point for us?

In the same book of Weidner (Ernst F. Weidner
"Alter und Bedeutung der babylonischen Astronomie und Astrallehre, nebst Studien ?ber Fixsternhimmel und Kalender"
Leipzig 1914) is a discussion about the right association from babyl. names of fix stars to the known fix stars. Weidner is writing, that he could look to a previous unknown table, which shows the twelves sign of the zodiac (but not complete) in Nov. 1913. He could indicate side by side virgo (a winged maiden with ear of corn) Libra and Scorpio. The Symbols base on wide parallel, vertical lines. To every Symbol belongs exact 30 lines, then it is following a small space in between, and then starts a new series.....
This means for him the 12 KAS-GID with the 30 U?, which is dividing the ecliptic...... The conclusion are, that the tables is from the beginning of the first (Jahrtausend) -1000. Not earlier than -900.
-800 is not possible because the fix-star Librae would be wrong in this time, and this fix-star is also marked in the picture, by the sixth line in the symbol of Libra.
Also concede the text with certitude, that the babylonian Astronomer used an Armillarsph?re, because the mensuration is one time from west to east and otherwise from east to west.
The basis of this part in the book is an old text called Nuppur-Text, where Kugler and Weider take different positions. The question is ( this text is about -2000, dated because of old-babylonian signs!) if it is possible from this text, - or better, are the facts in this text so precise or exact, that it is possible to consider significant astronomical cognizanses (Knowledge) from the Old Babylonian in the time (Age) about -2000.

Wolfgang

Hello Gabe,

While the idea that precession was known among ancient civilizations is important in the book, IIRC it is more focused on the idea that all of world mythology was encoded in the same fashion, i.e. animals are constellations, people, gods, etc. are the planets, and locations and geographical references are other astronomical phenomena, like the example in Incas that the river is the Milky Way, again IIRC, it's been 5 or 6 years since I read those books. All this posits that there was a 'worldwide' ur-civilization from which all others are descended, or maybe one heck of a transmission of this information worldwide. Not the craziest idea, IMO, since about 50-60K years ago, the worldwide human (homo sapiens, at least) population was all located in a portion of northern Africa.

Its been a few years since I read the book too and you are convincing me I better re-read it! I hadn't really got the impression he was emphasizing a global dissemination of the same images. The chapter that really struck me was actually about Paleolithic and Neolithic cultures and how their astral beliefs was originally integral to their hunting and gathering lifestyle.

Thus today the South African Bushmen regard the star Canopus as highly auspicious and call it the the 'Ant-Egg Star ' due to the time of appearance in the year when Ant-Eggs are readily available. Similarly, for the Tswana people , the stars of Orion's sword were `dintsa le Dikolobe', three dogs chasing the three pigs of Orion's belt. Warthogs have their litters while Orion is prominent in the sky-frequently litters of three. The Pleiades, named Khuseti or Khunuseh by the Bushmen tribe called the Khoikhoi, are called the rainstars. Their appearance indicates the rainy season is near and thus the beginning of a new year. Its interesting how so many many cultues have this same association connected to the Pleiades.

This is probably one of the strongest arguments for a 'global dissemination' theory. There was obviously a lot of cultural interaction and inevitable sharing of ideas but this theory is a bit too grand and simplistic for my liking.

The Moon would also have formed a basic marker of the months against the backdrop of fixed stars. I could go on but the point is obvious enough. .

One can imagine how the whole year was mapped out like that in the sky with the stars forming an original calendar and weather prediction system. Equally, animals that were hunted would have times of the year linked to them by star-lore. As far as I can see this kind of calendrical star-lore was the origin of all later zodiacs

This is not only a plausible theory. Its the the reality of what researchers have found studying hunter-gatherer cultures like the Southern African Bushmen and Aboriginal Australians today. When we get to the Neolithic and farming we see a sophistication of the calendar to account for the agricultural lifestyle.

Of course not everything had such an immediately practical application in terms of star-lore. Pre-Industrial, paleolithic cultures saw much more of a holistic connection between their spiritual beliefs and nature, including the sky, around them. Even today in cultures such as the Dogon, in Mali, spiritual beliefs permeate how the night sky is perceived and the astronomical cycle interpreted. Clearly, for ancient cultures animals were not just food. They saw a deep spiritual connection to the game hunted and entered into shamanistic rituals to obtain the consent and protection of the spirit realm.

_____________________________________________________________

Anyway, whatever happened to the hellenistic zodiac? I guess I have digressed a bit........

Anyone with some comments relating to the earlier part of this thread please feel welcome to come back in too.

Hi Wolgang,

The basis of this part in the book is an old text called Nuppur-Text, where Kugler and Weider take different positions. The question is ( this text is about -2000, dated because of old-babylonian signs!) if it is possible from this text, - or better, are the facts in this text so precise or exact, that it is possible to consider significant astronomical cognizanses (Knowledge) from the Old Babylonian in the time (Age) about -2000.

However, it seems to be Kugler's view that most modern scholars seem to accept as correct. Would you disagree? Certainly the Austrian scholar Hermann Hunger doesn't seem to support Weidner's position on such an early zodiac as far as I can determine. I also believe the Finnish scholar Simo Parpola writes about this period today. What are his conclusions about the origin of the zodiac?

Mark

MarkC wrote:I have seen a few posts here on skyscript suggesting that that the zodiac used by the Greeks and Romans was basically sidereal before the ideas of Hipparchus and Ptolemy became widely accepted.

As (insofar I believe) precession was unknown before Hipparchus I don't think we should think in terms of 'tropical or sidereal but rather 'tropical and sidereal'. Since precession was unknown I think both sidereal and tropical was used. In Mark's link to the article of the parapegmata many times the positions of the stars throughout the years are used as markers for the seasons. While many believed that the stars like Sirius in Canis Major caused the heat of the 'dog days'/caniculare, Geminus of the 1st century BC already rejected that view.

As the article makes clear there was considerable confusion in the classical era where the vernal equinox lay.

In fact most astrologers seem to have worked on the assumption that that the vernal point was either located at 8 or 12 degrees Aries throughout the classical era.

There no fixed star as the marker of the zodiac. In all cases the vernal equinox was the reference point for the zodiac in the Greek and Roman astrology. Hellenistic astrology was always tropical.

In Christopher Walker's 'Astronomy before the telescope' he stated that the Babylonians Beta Geminorum/Pollux in Gemini - 90? was used as starting point when the Babylonians just had made the signs equal in the 5th century BC.

According to this Astrodienst article (referring to cuneiform texts and horoscopes) http://www.astro.com/swisseph/swisseph. ... c226863952
the Babylonians used a zodiac closely related to the position of Spica-180?.

I've been thinking why the choice would have been this star. They could have chosen another not too weak star in Aries, Beta and Gamma for example or Eta Piscium.
Here some speculations:
- If a full Moon would occur in conjunction with Spica then the star too would be in opposition with the Sun, making this an easily visible event.
- The stars Aldebaran, Pollux, Spica and Antares have very interesting positions their mutual ecliptical distances are all very close to plurals of 45?, so using Spica (or another of these) as a reference would almost always give another visible reference star easy for calculations.

Equinox at 8?,10? or another degree? And why?
- Perhaps the position was set in different periods without recognizing precession and believing a mistake was made. Spica was in the autumn equinox in the 3rd century so about 7 centuries before the spring equinox was considered to be at 10? of the zodiac. .... why not using the equinox itself?
- Maybe for the conveniance of the use of the other bright stars mentioned above.
- The cause of the climate/weather may not yet have been properly understood.
- The calendar was luni-solar with intercalation every two or threee years. This makes the starting point of the year between the stars shift. It seems plausible to me to think that the earliest starting point would have been some degrees before the equinox point. Moreover this point is abstract and 'invisible' in the sky so maybe not so appealing.

Deb wrote:

MarkC wrote:Hello Wolfgang,

The subjec here is Hellenistic zodiac, but because here is also a link to the Zodiac History, I will tell you, that the old Babylon did know the Precision 1000 year before Hypparch.

Thats a very controversial view. It hasn't had the support of any academics for over 60 years as far as I am aware. I cannot say with personal authority that makes this view wrong. Academia has its fashions too. However, at present such a view is definitely very 'alternative' and not highly respected by any authorities in this field of study.

I don't think it is so controversial nowadays, and there seems to be some respect for the view that the principle of precession may have been understood by the ancient civilisations, and is suggested in the alignment of their temples.

Respecting 'controversial views' I too though tend to be very carefull and rather believe that Hipparchus was the first one to recognize precession. Here's an article I found a while ago, which happens to be of Gary Thompson http://www.members.optusnet.com.au/~gto ... age9f.html
Where it is true that in ancient times temples were built according to star(rising/setting) positions, like Teotihuacan/Mexico orientation to the Pleiades, this doesn't convince me that the people who built them knew precession. The later generations may simply have forgotten the meaning of some positions of buildings.

There is no doubt in my mind that this exists. And of course, it is just philosophically ugly that the signs of the zodiac do not relate directly with the constellations! During my frequent, bumbling attempts to identify the stars that I can see, I am often trying to imagine everything one sign away from itself, so that what I know of a chart can be related to what I see in the sky. And the worst is yet to come, because at some stage we are going to be talking about the sign of Aries roughly overlapping the constellation Libra.

Being with Kepler and paying less attention to houses and signs, I don't really have a problem with that. Even some 2000 years ago when the signs (almost) coincided the fact that the signs were 'equalized' to 30? sectors made that the Scorpion lost his tail to Sagittarius and his claws (changed in)to Libra (talking about mutilation ), one of the two fishes cut in half and even the Twins might be separated.
And to make matters worse, in say 100,000 years from Ptolemy or after four 'Platonic years' we might expect the constellations to 'click' in eachother again, but as the stars have 'proper motion' many constellations will be unrecognizable to us. Because of this I don't really feel attracted to astrology based upon the symbolism of the 'pictures' of the constellations, moreover other cultures saw different things in the stars.

I can imagine that the ideas of precession weren't accepted by some. It was revolutionary. Even 300 years after Copernicus there were astronomers who taught the geocentric Ptolemaic system at universities.

As observation proved that there was a movement, a sort of 'compromise' was proposed by Theon of Alexandria in the 4th century CE. Trepidation. this was the theory that the equinoxes went back and forth around a fixed point in the sidereal zodiac. http://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/1972JHA.....3...27P
http://articles.adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi- ... etype=.pdf (this one is in French but has some illustrations). The Indian astronomers who already had based many calculations on the sidereal year/zodiac didn't want to give that up and start all over again and accepted this theory.

trevor wrote: the Shaffer play, or discussions surrounding it, that they fought but underneath was this resignation to their fate.

That doesn't sound so crazy, but I don't know enought about their culture to say for sure. The people from my native background didn't get conquered.

trevor wrote: You say you have read the Sullivan book so is the Amazon review misleading and/or do you think this astro-archao narrative is erroneous as regards the Incas? I'm struggling to follow your thinking here.

Probably more the review then anything, if anything my thinking is at the same point as Mark's: that one should read this book again.

Being with Kepler and paying less attention to houses and signs, I don't really have a problem with that.

Hi Eddy,

This is just a side issue really, but it is something I am curious about. You have mentioned on several occasions that you follow Kepler and so you don't really use the signs or houses. But I wonder if you have actually followed the techniques that Kepler applied in his astrological work? I know that Kepler questions the the reality of, say, the houses, and speaks out against them having an objective reality, but from what I understand, when it comes down to the judgement of the charts he drew for himself and his family, he took just the same approach to the judgment of a chart that was typical of his contemporaries - houses, signs and all. My belief is that he questions the validity of signs and houses as astronomical concepts, but he simply accepts their traditional role when it comes to astrological practice. I wonder if you have any views on that?

Deb