From Aries to Capricorn
- Jun 12, 2014
- 52 min read
Urartu, Yerevan
Armenia must surely be the Armenian land (Eden, Ekur, the garden of the gods), but still it is many different cultures, which all have their roots by the Armenian Higland – the place where our civilization, including agriculture, pastoralism, knowledge about metal, and the Semitic and the Indoeuropean languages etc., were developed. From there it spread all across the world.
Aleppo, earlier Armi, is named after the sun, which in Armenian is called Arev. Ara is the sun god. Aralez, the dog, is the mens best friend. Aragil, the storks, represents Aras comming and two storks symbolizes the first Swastika ever found.
Uratri (Hurrian), Aratta (Sumerian), Urartu/Ararat (Assyrian) and Armenia is different names of the same country. Ar, Ur, Hur etc is different names of the same people, the people of fire. Haik, Khaldi, Cael, Kali, Kel, Hel is different names of the same good – Asha (aša) (corresponding to Vedic language ṛta) and druj, Maat and Isfet, Ying and Yang – two sides of the coin.
Armenia, the nation of Khaldi/Haik, is nr one, the starter and the creator. The Phrygian cap is the cap of liberty. We are strong, fighting for just, equality, freedom and peace, fighting to keep the balance between men and between men and nature, but faces today strong enemies, the encloser.
The genocide, organized by Israel Helphand and the three Pashas, and the wars of today, like them against Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria (Aram), is all connected. Russia, China and Iran is singled out as enemies, but they do nothing, but keeping their own interestes. They are not dangerous. Israel, the US, the Sunnis Saudi Arabia and Qatar …) and the different terrorists now operating in Syria is a totally different story. The Great War continues.
We need to spread information and knowledge about the transformation, the challenges we face and make unity between all people around the world. lf not the war will come. It looks like it is going to come, because all the forces is active, but we have to remember who we are and stand firm.
Yawhe (Yam), the sea creature, is attacking Baal Hadad, the thunder god. Israel, the nation of Medusa, boost its forces, and want to attack Iran, Persia, the nation of Perseus. No one of them will win, cause the bids are to high. Armenia is under treat, and we have to face the challenge – because the dark forces have collided and continue to rise. We can’t sleep at this moment!
Armenia
Aratta (Sumerian), Uratri (Hurrian), Urartu/Urartu (Assyrian) and Armenia (Persian) is different names of the the same country. Ar, Ur, Hur etc. is different names of the same people, the Armenians, the people of fire. Atari (Avestan ātar) is the Zoroastrian concept of holy fire, sometimes described in abstract terms as “burning and unburning fire” or “visible and invisible fire” (Mirza, 1987:389).
The Armenian highland
Armenia (coming from Ar, which means sun, light, create, produce etc.) must surely be the Armenian land (Eden, Ekur, the garden of the gods), but still it is many different cultures, which all have their roots by the Armenian Higland – the place where our civilization, including agriculture, pastoralism, knowledge about metal were developed. From there it spread all across the world.
Armenia, situated between the Black and Caspian Seas, lies at the junction of Turkey, Iran, Georgia, Azerbaijan and former Mesopotamia. This geographic position made it a potential contact zone between Eastern and Western civilizations.
From here all the cultures in Eurasia and Northern Africa, not at least Egypt, developed, not at least the ones connected to the Semitic and the Indoeuropean languages etc., but also cultures which is connected with other languages, as the Minoaen and Etruscan, and cultures which is developed by cultural diffusian, as the Chinese.
Portasar
The region of Upper-Mesopotamia provides a lot of sites that have the greatest importance for the understanding of the archaeology of this region. Especially the area of Southeast Anatolia within this region turns out to have an eminent position that has been revealed by the excavations and researches during the last decade.
At present, Portasar (Göbekli Tepe) raises more questions for archaeology and prehistory than it answers. We do not know how a force large enough to construct, augment, and maintain such a substantial complex was mobilized and paid or fed in the conditions of pre-Neolithic society. This is the site of the worlds currently known oldest shrine or temple complex in the world, and the planet’s oldest known example of monumental architecture. It has also produced the oldest known life-size figure of a human.
Some historians, such as Jean Bottéro, have made the claim that Mesopotamian religion is the world’s oldest religion, although there are several other claims to that title, including Portasar. However, as writing was invented in Mesopotamia it is certainly the oldest in written history.
Portasar is situated in the South of the Armenian Highlands, 15 km south-east from the old city Urha/Edessa, Urfa/ of Armenian Mesopatamia. The discovery of the cultural layers/three layers/ of Portasar shows that it was a religious-ritual centre for sedentary people for several millenniums. The territory is in Armenian cultural area.
The marvelous Gobekli tepe culture dispersed for around 9.000 years ago, and spread the agriculture into Europe, as the old european cultures, to the south and into Egypt, as the Semittes (which appears for around 8.000 years ago), to the south-east, as Tell halaf culture and the Sumerians, to the east, where they constructed the Indus civilization, and to the north, where they constructed the trans-cucasian Shulaveri Shumo and Kura Araxes cultures.
Swastika
Mezine is a place in the Ukraine having the most artifacts from the Paleolithic culture. The epigravettian site is located on a bank of the Desna river. The settlement is best known for an archaeological small find of a set of bracelets, engraved with marks considered as being possibly calendar lunar-cycles. Near to Mezine was found the earliest known example of a swastika-like form, as part of a decorative object, found on an artifact dated to 10,000 BC.
It has been suggested this swastika is a stylized picture of a stork in flight. In Armenian mythology Aragil, or Stork, is considered as the messenger of Ara the Beautiful, their main god, as well as the defender of fields. According to ancient mythological conceptions, two stork symbolize the sun. Ara the Beautiful is the god of spring, flora, agriculture, sowing and water. He is associated with Osiris, Vishnu and Dionysus, as the symbol of new life.
According to a number of scholars Ar was a shorter version of Ara or Arar(ich), which means the creator. The worship of Ar was wide spread amongst early Armenians who worshipped this deity and simply called him the Creator (Ara or Ararich). Aralez, or Aralezner, the oldest gods in the Armenian pantheon, are dog-like creatures with powers to resuscitate fallen warriors and resurrect the dead by licking wounds clean.
The Swastika is our oldest symbols, also known from the Tell Halaf culture in Syria and the Samarra culture in Iraq. The word means balance and harmony, or well being, and many symbols, like the taoist Ying and Yang, can be said to be related. The swas – ti – ka is much used in Armenia, the first Christian state, even today, just like the goodess of love, Anahit, is. Anahata is the chak – ra of love in Hinduism.
The Halaf culture, which existed just before and during the Ubaid period at around the same time, had Swastikas on their pottery and other items. These people eventually gave rise to the ancient Samarra culture and the Sumerians, who also used the Swastika symbol. The ancient Vinca culture (5500 BC) was the first appearance of the swastika in history, not what you’re reading above. The Tartaria culture of Romainia (4000 BC) had similar symbols.
Then later the Merhgarh Culture, which later became the Harappan culture of the Great Indus Valley Civilization (which is where “The Vedas” came from) also exhibited the Swastika symbolism. Then even later the legendary Xia Dynasty held the swastika symbol in high regard. Even ancient Native American Indians knew this symbol. If you’ve noticed all these cultures were exactly 1000 years apart, bringing the Swastika symbol west to east from the Balkans to China and even beyond. Look it up, do the research.
It seems that there is a connection between the similar sounding places of ‘Samarra’ and ‘Sumeru’, and that early travellers bring the Swastika to India and settle on mount Sumeru – naming the new place after their place of origination. Over-time, ‘Samarra’ could have changed in pronounciation to ‘Sumeru’.
Armenoid
Carleton Coon (1962), for example, considered the Skhul IV specimen as a proto-Caucasoid. He further argued that the Caucasoid race is of dual origin, consisting of Upper Paleolithic types (mixture of Homo sapiens and Neanderthals) and Mediterranean types (purely Homo sapiens).
The Armenoid in physical anthropology is a subtype of the Caucasian race. “The countries of the northern part of Western Asia, namely Anatolia (Turkey), the Caucasus, Iran, and the Levant are the center of distribution” of the Armenoid Race. Armenoids, also known as the “true” Caucasians, were said to be found throughout Eurasia. However, the largest concentrations occurred within Anatolia, Transcaucasia and Mesopotamia.
According to the Italian geographer and anthropologist Renato Biasutti (1878-1965) “It has long been believed by physical anthropologists that the quintessence of Near Eastern brachycephaly is to be found in the Armenians; the racial term Armenoid being named for them.
Alarodian
Some linguists — notably I. M. Diakonoff and S. Starostin — also see similarities between the Northeast Caucasian family and the extinct languages Hurrian and Urartian. The two extinct languages have been grouped into the Hurro-Urartian family. Diakonoff proposed the name Alarodian for the union of Hurro-Urartian and Northeast Caucasian.
Uratri (Hurrian/Armenian), Aratta (Sumerian), Urashtu (Babylonian), Urartu/Ararat (Assyrian), Ayrarat (Armenian) and Armenia is different names of the same country. Ar, Har, Er, Her, Yer, Hor, Khar, Khor, Ur, Hur, Khur have the same meaning. The vocal can change, just the consonant keeps on. Ar, Ur, Er, Ir etc – and that word are made by one consonant and one or two vocals, which can change their place on either side of the consonant.
Hurrian was spoken in various parts of the Fertile Crescent in the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC., while Urartian was the language of Urartu, a powerful state that existed between 1000 BC or earlier and 585 BC in the area centered on Lake Van in current Turkey.
Urartian is closely related to Hurrian, a somewhat better documented language attested for an earlier, non-overlapping period, approximately from 2000 BCE to 1200 BCE (written by native speakers until about 1350 BCE). The two languages must have developed quite independently from approximately 2000 BCE onwards.
Although Urartian is not a direct continuation of any of the attested dialects of Hurrian, many of its features are best explained as innovative developments with respect to Hurrian as we know it from the preceding millennium. The closeness holds especially true of the so-called Old Hurrian dialect, known above all from Hurro-Hittite bilingual texts.
Armenian language
The earliest testimony of the Armenian language dates to the 5th century AD (the Bible translation of Mesrob Mashtots). The earlier history of the language is unclear and the subject of much speculation. It is clear that Armenian is an Indo-European language, but its development is opaque. In any case, Armenian has many layers of loanwords and shows traces of long language contact with Hurro-Urartian, Greek and Indo-Iranian.
In his paper, “Hurro-Urartian Borrowings in Old Armenian”, Soviet linguist Igor Mikhailovich Diakonov notes the presence in Old Armenian of what he calls a Caucasian substratum, identified by earlier scholars, consisting of loans from the Kartvelian and Northeast Caucasian languages such as Udi.
Noting that the Hurro-Urartian peoples inhabited the Armenian homeland in the second millennium BC, Diakonov identifies in Armenian a Hurro-Urartian substratum of social, cultural, and zoological and biological terms such as ałaxin (‘slavegirl’) and xnjor (‘apple(tree)’).
Some of the terms he gives admittedly have an Akkadian or Sumerian provenance, but he suggests they were borrowed through Hurrian or Urartu. Given that these borrowings do not undergo sound changes characteristic of the development of Armenian from Proto-Indo-European, he dates their borrowing to a time before the written record but after the Proto-Armenian language stage. But it can, however, be that it was the other way around, that the Armenian language got mixed with and influenced the other surrounding languages.
Name of Armenia
The Armenians call them selves today for Hay, while the chechenians call them selves for nakh. Hayr means father in armenian, and heir means a person who inherits or has a right of inheritance in the property of another following the latter’s death. In other words we are talking about Noah (Noak), and heir of Noah. we are talking about the birth of our civilization. You can also say we are talking about the birth of the aryans (the sun-people), which includes both caucasian, semittic and indoeuropean peoples. This is also mentioned in our oldest epic story, the story about Gilgamesh.
Akkadian inscriptions from as early as 2400 BC mention the ‘Armani’ (aka Armani-Subartu or Arme-Shubria) near Lake Van. The Armenian hypothesis of Indo-European origins seeks to establish an ethnic Armenian identity for the Armani mentioned by Naram-Sin, for “Armani-Subari connections” and “Armani-Subari-Sumer relations”. Old Persian name ‘Armin’ meant “dweller of the garden of Eden” (Persians also used this form ‘Armin(a)’ for Armenia).
It has been suggested by early 20th century Armenologists that Old Persian Armina and the Greek Armenoi are continuations of an Assyrian toponym Armânum or Armanî. There are certain Bronze Age records identified with the toponym in both Mesopotamian and Egyptian sources.
The earliest is from an inscription which mentions Armânum together with Ibla (Ebla) as territories conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad in ca. 2250 BC identified with an Akkadian colony in the Diarbekr region. However, many historians, such as Wayne Horowitz, identify Armanî which was conquered by Naram-Sin of Akkad, with the Syrian city of Aleppo and not with the Armenian Highland.
Armin is a given name or surname, and is an ancient Zoroastrian given name, meaning Guardian of Aryan Land. ‘Armin’ means Dweller of the garden of eden. Name Armin is a Unisex name, which means both Boy and Girl can have this name. This name is shared across persons, who are either Parsi or Muslim by religion. Name Armin belongs to Mesh Rashi (Aries) with dominant planet Mars (Mangal).
Throughout long centuries Armenia, Iberia and Albania was often one political unit known as “Armina” this was so during Sassanian periods and even when Arabs took over Armenia they set up “Armina” unit of the Caliphate. This because all of this land was “Armenia”, or at least under Armenian sphere of influence, even if not all territories were populated with 100% Armenians, although most of the territory (in Iberia and Albania as well) always had a strong Armenian element amongst non-Armenians. Hence they were exclusively ruled by Armenian dynasties. Iberia has been ruled by succeeding Armenian off-shoot dynasties including Artaxiads, Arsacids and Bagratids who ruled it all the way until the Russian annexation of 1801.
Mitanni
Mitanni (Hittite cuneiform KUR URUMi-ta-an-ni, also Mittani Mi-it-ta-ni) or Hanigalbat (Assyrian Hanigalbat, Khanigalbat cuneiform Ḫa-ni-gal-bat) or Naharin in ancient Egyptian texts was an Hurrian-speaking state in northern Syria and south-east Anatolia from ca. 1500 BC–1300 BC.
Founded by an Indo-Aryan ruling class governing a predominately Hurrian population, Mitanni came to be a regional power after the Hittite destruction of Amorite Babylon and a series of ineffectual Assyrian kings created a power vacuum in Mesopotamia.
A Hurrian passage in the Amarna letters – usually composed in Akkadian, the lingua franca of the day – indicates that the royal family of Mitanni was by then speaking Hurrian as well.
At the beginning of its history, Mitanni’s major rival was Egypt under the Thutmosids. Pharaoh Thutmose III of Egypt mentions in the 33rd year of his reign (1446 BC) the people of Ermenen, and says in their land “heaven rests upon its four pillars”. Their sphere of influence is shown in Hurrian place names, personal names and the spread through Syria and the Levant of a distinct pottery type.
However, with the ascent of the Hittite empire, Mitanni and Egypt made an alliance to protect their mutual interests from the threat of Hittite domination. At the height of its power, during the 14th century BC, Mitanni had outposts centered around its capital, Washukanni, whose location has been determined by archaeologists to be on the headwaters of the Khabur River.
The Mitanni kingdom was referred to as the Maryannu, Nahrin or Mitanni by the Egyptians, which also called Mitanni “nhrn”, which is usually pronounced as Naharin/Naharina from the Assyro-Akkadian word for “river”, cf. Aram-Naharaim.
The Hittites called Hurri (Ḫu-ur-ri), while the Assyrians called the Hanigalbat. The different names seem to have referred to the same kingdom and were used interchangeably, according to Michael C. Astour.
The name Mitanni is first found in the “memoirs” of the Syrian wars (ca. 1480 BC) of the official astronomer and clockmaker Amememhet, who returned from the “foreign country called Me-ta-ni” at the time of Thutmose I.
A treatise on the training of chariot horses by Kikkuli contains a number of Indo-Aryan glosses. Kammenhuber (1968) suggested that this vocabulary was derived from the still undivided Indo-Iranian language, but Mayrhofer (1974) has shown that specifically Indo-Aryan features are present.
The names of the Mitanni aristocracy frequently are of Indo-Aryan origin, but it is specifically their deities which show Indo-Aryan roots (Mitra, Varuna, Indra, Nasatya), though some think that they are more immediately related to the Kassites.
Maryannu
Maryannu is an ancient word for the caste of chariot-mounted hereditary warrior nobility which dominated many of the societies of the Middle East during the Bronze Age. The term is attested in the Amarna letters written by Haapi.
Robert Drews writes that the name ‘maryannu’ although plural takes the singular ‘marya’, which in Sanskrit means young warrior, and attaches a Hurrian suffix.(Drews:p. 59) He suggests that at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age most would have spoken either Hurrian or Aryan but by the end of the 14th century most of the Levant maryannu had Semitic names.
Arameans
The idea of seeing a Semitic origin in the names Arma, Aram, Arim, Arime, Arme, Armani, Armina, Armeni, and the like, had become such an obsession with some authors that it prevents them from seeing the essence of the interrelationships between the Armenian Highland and Northern Mesopotamia, and creates added difficulties for the clarification of certain obscure problems related to them.
The fact is that the very name Aram has no connection of origin with those Semites who were later called Aramaeans. A careful study of the cuneiform documents of the Near East shows that the Semitic nomadic tribes that were later called Aramaeans, were previously known by the names Sutu and Ahlame.
They had come to Northern Mesopotamia and settled in the territories of Mitanni ( Naharina), which was either destroyed or about to be destroyed at that time, and they were called Aramaeans after the ancient name Arma or Aram of the land on which they settled.
A similar example is the case of the Egyptians; the name Egypt did not belong to the Arabs, but they have come and settled in the land of Egypt, and by this ancient name of the land they were (and still are) called Egyptians.
Chaldeans
Eventually, Mitanni succumbed to Hittite and later Assyrian attacks, and was reduced to the status of a province of the Middle Assyrian Empire. Chaldea was a nation extant between the 10th and 6th centuries BC, located in the marshy land of the far south eastern corner of Mesopotamia which came to rule Babylon briefly.
Unlike the Akkadian speaking Assyrians and Babylonians, the Chaldeans were certainly not a native Mesopotamian people, but were migrants to the region. They seem to have appeared there c. 1000 BC, not long after other new Semitic peoples, the Arameans and the Sutu appeared in Babylonia, c. 1100 BC. This was a period of weakness in Babylonia, and its ineffectual native kings were unable to prevent new waves of foreign peoples invading and settling in the land.
In the Hebrew Bible, the prophet Abraham is stated to have originally been from “Ur of the Chaldees” (Ur Kaśdim); if this city is to be identified with the Sumerian Ur, it would be within the original Chaldean homeland south of the Euphrates, although it must be pointed out that the Chaldeans certainly did not exist in Mesopotamia at the time of Abraham, which casts doubt on the historicity of the Abrahamic story.
On the other hand, the traditional identification with a site in Assyria would then imply the later sense of “Babylonia”, and a few interpreters have additionally tried to identify Abraham’s birthplace with Chaldia, a distinct region in Asia Minor on the Black Sea. According to the Book of Jubilees, Ur Kaśdim (and Chaldea) took their name from Ura and Kesed, descendants of Arpachshad.
Though conquerors, the Chaldeans were rapidly and completely assimilated into the dominant Semitic Akkadian Babylonian culture, as the Amorites, Kassites and Arameans before them had been, and after the fall of Babylon in 539 BC the term “Chaldean” was no longer used to describe a specific ethnicity, but rather a socio-economic class.
When the Babylonian Empire was absorbed into the Persian Achaemenid Empire, the name “Chaldean” lost its meaning as a particular ethnicity, and came to be applied only to a socioeconomic class, regardless of ethnicity. The actual Chaldean people had long ago became Akkadianized, adopting Mesopotamian culture, religion, language and customs, blending into the majority native population and wholly disappearing as a distinct people, much as other fellow migrant peoples, such as the Amorites, Kassites, Suteans and Arameans of Babylonia had also done.
The Persians found this so-called Chaldean societal class masters of reading and writing, and especially versed in all forms of incantation, in sorcery, witchcraft, and the magical arts. They spoke of astrologists and astronomers as Chaldeans; consequently, Chaldean came to mean simply astrologist rather than an ethnic Chaldean. It is used with this specific meaning in the Book of Daniel (Dan. i. 4, ii. 2 et seq.) and by classical writers such as Strabo.
By the time of Cicero, the misnomer Chaldean appears to has been disgarded when referring to Babylonian astronomers and astrologers, and Cicero refers to “Babylonian astrologers” disparagingly, Horace does the same, referring to “Babylonian horoscopes” in his famous Carpe Diem ode; Cicero views them as holding obscure knowledge, while Horace thinks that they are wasting their time and would be happier “going with the flow”, as one may say.
The terms Chaldee and Chaldean are hitherto only to be found in Biblical sources, when referring to the period of the Chaldean Dynasty of Babylon. The name was revived by the Roman Catholic Church, in the form of the Chaldean Catholic Church in the 1680s AD, as the new name for the Church of Assyria and Mosul, a church populated not by the long disappeared Chaldean tribe, but by a breakaway group of ethnic Assyrians in northern Mesopotamia who had hitherto been members of the Assyrian Church of the East before entering communion with Rome.
Astrology
In astrology, each planet and the sun have a corresponding zodiac sign that is determined by their location relative to Earth at the time of one’s birth.
There are many mnemonics for remembering the 12 signs of the zodiac in order. A traditional mnemonic:
The ram, the bull, the heavenly twins, And next the crab, the lion shines, The virgin and the scales, The scorpion, archer, and the goat, The man who holds the watering-pot, And fish with glittering scales.
A less poetic, but succinct mnemonic is the following:
The Ramble Twins Crab Liverish; Scaly Scorpions Are Good Water Fish.
Mnemonics in which the initials of the words correspond to the initials of the star signs (Latin, English, or mixed):
All The Great Constellations Live Very Long Since Stars Can’t Alter Physics.
As The Great Cook Likes Very Little Salt, She Compensates Adding Pepper.
Really Boring Teachers Can Live Very Sadly Since Apples Give Worthless Feelings.
All That Gold Can Load Very Lazy Students Since Children Are at Play
Unicode characters
In Unicode, the symbols are encoded in block Miscellaneous Symbols:
U+2648♈aries (HTML: ♈)
U+2649♉taurus (HTML: ♉)
U+264A♊gemini (HTML: ♊)
U+264B♋cancer (HTML: ♋)
U+264C♌leo (HTML: ♌)
U+264D♍virgo (HTML: ♍)
U+264E♎libra (HTML: ♎)
U+264F♏scorpius (HTML: ♏)
U+2650♐sagittarius (HTML: ♐)
U+2651♑capricorn (HTML: ♑)
U+2652♒aquarius (HTML: ♒)
U+2653♓pisces (HTML: ♓)
History of Astrology
Metsamor, Armenia
Armenian helmet
Astrology, or astromancy, consists of several systems of divination based on the premise that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. Astrological beliefs in correspondences between celestial observations and terrestrial events have influenced various aspects of human history, including world-views, language and many elements of social culture.
The word astrology comes from the early Latin word astrologia, deriving from the Greek noun ἀστρολογία, ‘account of the stars’. Astrologia later passed into meaning ‘star-divination’ with astronomia used for the scientific term.
Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Mayans developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations. Advocates have defined astrology as a symbolic language, an art form, a science, and a method of divination.
Although most cultural systems of astrology share common roots in ancient philosophies that influenced each other, many have unique methodologies which differ from those developed in the West. These include Hindu astrology (also known as “Indian astrology” and in modern times referred to as “Vedic astrology”) and Chinese astrology, both of which have influenced the world’s cultural history.
Astrology consists of a number of belief systems which hold that there is a relationship between astronomical phenomena and events in the human world. Many cultures have attached importance to astronomical events, and the Indians, Chinese, and Mayans developed elaborate systems for predicting terrestrial events from celestial observations.
Astrology, in its broadest sense, is the search for meaning in the sky. It has therefore been argued that astrology began as a study as soon as human beings made conscious attempts to measure, record, and predict seasonal changes by reference to astronomical cycles.
Early evidence of such practices appears as markings on bones and cave walls, which show that lunar cycles were being noted as early as 25,000 years ago; the first step towards recording the Moon’s influence upon tides and rivers, and towards organizing a communal calendar.
With the Neolithic agricultural revolution new needs were also met by increasing knowledge of constellations, whose appearances in the night-time sky change with the seasons, allowing the rising of particular star-groups to herald annual floods or seasonal activities.
By the 3rd millennium BC, widespread civilisations had developed sophisticated awareness of celestial cycles, and are believed to have consciously oriented their temples to create alignment with the heliacal risings of the stars.
There is speculation that astrology of some form appeared in the Sumerian period in the 3rd millennium BC, but the isolated references to ancient celestial omens dated to this period are not considered sufficient evidence to demonstrate an integrated theory of astrology.
There is scattered evidence to suggest that the oldest known astrological references are copies of texts made during this period. Two, from the Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa (compiled in Babylon round 1700 BC) are reported to have been made during the reign of king Sargon of Akkad (2334-2279 BC).
Another, showing an early use of electional astrology, is ascribed to the reign of the Sumerian ruler Gudea of Lagash (c. 2144 – 2124 BC). This describes how the gods revealed to him in a dream the constellations that would be most favourable for the planned construction of a temple.
However, controversy attends the question of whether they were genuinely recorded at the time or merely ascribed to ancient rulers by posterity. The oldest undisputed evidence of the use of astrology as an integrated system of knowledge is therefore attributed to the records that emerge from the Neo-Sumerian period (1950-1651 BC).
A form of astrology was practised in the first dynasty of Mesopotamia (1950–1651 BCE). Babylonian astrology was the first organised system of astrology, arising in the 2nd millennium BC. The history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late Old Babylonian texts (c. 1800 B.C.), continuing through the Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian periods (c. 1200 B.C.).
By the 16th century BC. the extensive employment of omen-based astrology can be evidenced in the compilation of a comprehensive reference work known as Enuma Anu Enlil. Its contents consisted of 70 cuneiform tablets comprising 7,000 celestial omens. Texts from this time also refer to an oral tradition – the origin and content of which can only be speculated upon.
At this time Babylonian astrology was solely mundane, and prior to the 7th century BC. the practitioners’ understanding of astronomy was fairly rudimentary. Because of their inability to accurately predict future celestial phenomena and planetary movement very far in advance, interpretations were done as the phenomena occurred or slightly before.
The history of scholarly celestial divination is therefore generally reported to begin with late Old Babylonian texts (c. 1800 BC), continuing through the Middle Babylonian and Middle Assyrian periods (c. 1200 BC). By the 4th century, however, their mathematical methods had progressed enough to calculate future planetary positions with reasonable accuracy, at which point extensive ephemerides began to appear.
Among Indo-European peoples, astrology has been dated to the 3rd millennium BC, with roots in calendrical systems used to predict seasonal shifts and to interpret celestial cycles as signs of divine communications.
The classical map of the sky, with the 48 Greek constellations, was derived from at least two different pre-Greek traditions. One tradition comprised the 12 signs of the zodiac, with several associated animal constellations, all of which developed over 3,200-500 BC in Mesopotamia in a religious or ritual tradition. These were taken over by the Greeks around 500 BC. However the other Babylonian constellations, their farming-calendar tradition, were not adopted.
The other tradition was not Mesopotamian; it comprised large constellations which appear to date from 2,800 BC, probably from the Mediterranean region, devised for the navigators of ships. They include huge bears and serpents which marked the celestial pole and equator at that time, and probably the four anonymous giants which we know as Hercules, Ophiuchus, Bootes, and Auriga, as well as some of the large southern ‘marine’ constellations.
The origins of some other constellations, including the Perseus tableau and various animals, are unknown. It is therefore currently concluded that among the Indo-European peoples, astrology dates to the third millennium BC.
There has been much speculation as to the origin of the constellations. Until recently it has usually been assumed that they evolved from the fancies of primitive imaginations, but research now suggests that they were designed as a pictorial scientific coordinate system. A coordinate system is a set of imaginary lines for measuring positions, like the lines of latitude and longitude for determining locations on the earth.
The constellations perform a similar function, but they employ pictures, which make it easy to identify stars without need of instruments. Moreover, this evidence points to a time and place that they originated: about 2700 BC at about 36° north latitude, which is near perfect for Sumeria (the civilization from which Babylon inherited much of its science).
Accordingly, the Sumerians are currently credited with originating the constellations. It is important to recognise that the Sumerians also divided both time and space with the Hexadecimal system resulting in a 360° division of the globe and heavens.
Having established that astrology (the 12 constellations) originated in Sumeria, it is worth investigating if this represents the true origins of the zodiac. It is known that Babylonian astrology developed within the context of divination.
A collection of 32 tablets with inscribed liver models, dating from about 1875 BC, are the oldest known detailed texts of Babylonian divination, and these demonstrate the same interpretational format as that employed in celestial omen analysis.However, we are also told that another influence can be seen in Sumeria from before that time, an influence that is suggestive of geometry, longitude and latitude.
The first official inscribed version of a Babylonian compendium is from 86 BC, but by using modern astronomical techniques an astronomer at Louisiana State University has dated the original observations to 1370 BC, give or take 100 years. He also says the observations were made within 100km of 35.1° N.
The tablets record the day of the year that certain groups of stars, or constellations, appear in the sky at dawn. These constellations are widely thought to be the precursors of the modern Signs of the Zodiac. However, Babylonian art is resplendent with images of Lions, Scorpions, Rams, and Bulls, dating back much further suggestive of a much earlier recognition of the zodiac symbols.
Metsamor Site, is the remains of the “Metsamor Castle” located to the southwest of the Armenian village of Taronik, in the Armavir Province. It has been populated from the 5th millennium BC until the 18th century AD. The site is noted for its observatory and temple complexes consisted of seven sanctuaries. Neolithic stone circles dating back to ca. 5000 BC stand within the historical site, interpreted by enthusiasts of archaeoastronomy as an astronomical “observatory”.
By the Copper-Bronze Age (5000 – 2000 BCE), pictograms at Metsamor and the Geghama Lehr record ever more sophisticated celestial iconography, including the signs of the zodiac. Two observatories found in Armenia show a developed awareness of astronomy at least around 2800 BCE, and possibly as early as the 5th millennium BCE.
Using astronomy, Ancestral Armenians developed a calendar based on 365 days, one of the first compasses, and were able to envision the shape of the world as round. The appearance of the signs of the zodiac in Armenia occurred before the Hittite and Babylonian kingdoms, which were heretofore credited with developing astronomy.
While it is traditionally claimed that the earliest reference to the zodiac originates with the Babylonians, the discovery of an observatory in Metsamor, Armenia, predating the Babylonian kingdom by almost 2,000 years has changed our perception of events as the observatory at Metsamor apparently contains the first recorded example of dividing the year into 12 sections. Using an early form of geometry, the inhabitants of Metsamor were able to create both a calendar and envision the curve of the earth.
The discovery of the astronomical ‘observatory’ at Metsamor and the presence of engravings which have been speculatively called ‘zodiac creatures’ has given credence to the assertion that the ancient figures of the constellations were probably created by ancient peoples living in the Euphrates valley and near Mount Ararat in eastern Anatolia and Armenia.
Rick Ney, the author of ‘Karahundj, The Armenian Stonehenge’, says of it: “Parsamian’s discovery at Metsamor, and the stones at Sissian give concrete credence to Maunder’s and Olkott’s theories, especially when coupled with ca. 4,000–3,000 BC stone carvings of zodiac figures on rocks on the Geghama Mountain Range in Armenia.”
Hindu astrology originated with western astrology. In the earliest Indian astronomy texts, the year was believed to be 360 days long, similar to that of Babylonian astrology, but the rest of the early astrological system bears little resemblance. Later, the Indian techniques were augmented with some of the Babylonian techniques.
Hindu astrology is oriented toward predicting one’s fate or destiny. Hindu astrology relies on the sidereal zodiac in which the signs of the zodiac are aligned to the position of the corresponding constellations in the sky. In order to maintain this alignment, Hindu astrology uses an adjustment, called ayanamsa, to take into account the gradual precession of the vernal equinox (the gradual shift in the orientation of the Earth’s axis of rotation).
In Hindu astrology the equinox occurs when the Sun is 6 degrees in Pisces. Western astrology places the equinox at the beginning of Aries, about 23 degrees after the equinox in the Hindu system. Hindu astrology also includes several sub-systems of zodiac division, and employs the notion of bandhu: connections that, according to the Vedas link the outer and the inner worlds.
Sri Lankan astrology is largely based on Hindu astrology with some modifications to bring it in line with Buddhist teachings. Tibetan astrology also shares many of these components but has also been strongly influenced by Chinese culture and acknowledges a circle of animal signs similar to that of the Chinese zodiac.
The system of Chinese astrology was elaborated during the Zhou dynasty (1046-256 BC) and flourished during the Han Dynasty (2nd century BC to 2nd century AD), during which all the familiar elements of traditional Chinese culture and philosophy were brought together to formalise the philosophical principles of Chinese medicine and divination, astrology and alchemy.
Chinese astrology has a close relation with Chinese philosophy (theory of the three harmonies: heaven, earth and man) and uses concepts such as the Yin-Yang philosophy, theory of the 5 elements, Heaven and Earth, Confucian morality, the 10 Celestial stems, the 12 Earthly Branches, and shichen a form of timekeeping used for religious purposes).
The early use of Chinese astrology was mainly confined to political astrology, the observation of unusual phenomena, identification of portents and the selection of auspicious days for events and decisions.
The Korean zodiac is identical to the Chinese one. The Vietnamese zodiac is almost identical to Chinese zodiac except that the second animal is the Water Buffalo instead of the Ox, and the fourth animal is the Cat instead of the Rabbit. The Japanese zodiac includes the Wild Boar instead of the Pig.
The Thai zodiac includes a Naga in place of the Dragon and begins, not at Chinese New Year, but at either on the first day of fifth month in Thai lunar calendar, or during the Songkran festival (now celebrated every 13Ð15 April), depending on the purpose of the use.
Alexander the Great’s conquest of Asia allowed astrology to spread to Ancient Greece and Rome. Hellenistic astrology after 332 BCE mixed Babylonian astrology with Egyptian Decanic astrology in Alexandria, creating horoscopic astrology. In Rome, astrology was associated with “Chaldean wisdom”.
After the Arabic conquest of Alexandria in the 7th century, and the founding of the Abbasid empire in the 8th century, astrology was taken up by Islamic scholars, and Hellenistic texts were translated into Arabic and Persian.
The second Abbasid caliph, Al Mansur (754-775) founded the city of Baghdad to act as a centre of learning, and included in its design a library-translation centre known as Bayt al-Hikma, “Storehouse of Wisdom”, which continued to receive development from his heirs and was to provide a major impetus for Arabic-Persian translations of Hellenistic astrological texts.
The early translators included Mashallah, who helped to elect the time for the foundation of Baghdad, and Sahl ibn Bishr, (a.k.a. Zael), whose texts were directly influential upon later European astrologers such as Guido Bonatti in the 13th century, and William Lilly in the 17th century. Knowledge of Arabic texts started to become imported into Europe during the Latin translations of the 12th century, the effect of which was to help initiate the European Renaissance.
Other important Arabic astrologers include Albumasur and Al Khwarizmi, the Persian mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, who is considered the father of algebra and the algorithm. The Arabs greatly increased the knowledge of astronomical cycles, and many of the star names that remain in common use today, such as Aldebaran, Altair, Betelgeuse, Rigel and Vega retain the legacy of their language.
In the 12th century, Arabic texts were imported to Europe and translated into Latin, helping to initiate the European Renaissance, when major astronomers including Tycho Brahe, Johannes Kepler and Galileo practised as court astrologers. Astrological references appear in literature in the works of poets such as Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer, and of playwrights such as Christopher Marlowe and William Shakespeare.
Until the 17th century, astrology was considered a scholarly tradition, and it helped drive the development of astronomy. It was commonly accepted in political and cultural circles, and some of its concepts were used in other traditional studies, such as alchemy, meteorology and medicine.
By the end of the 17th century, emerging scientific concepts in astronomy, such as heliocentrism, called astrology into question, and subsequent controlled studies failed to confirm its predictive value. Astrology thus lost its academic and theoretical standing.
Western Astrology
In the 20th century astrology gained broader consumer popularity as part of a general revival of spiritualism and later New Age philosophy, and through the influence of regular mass media products, such as newspaper horoscopes and astrology software.
Early in the twentieth century psychologist Carl Jung developed some concepts concerning astrology, which led to the development of psychological astrology. Other new developments included Uranian astrology, Astrocartography and Financial astrology.
In the West, astrology most often consists of a system of horoscopes that claim to explain aspects of a person’s personality and predict future events in their life based on the positions of the sun, moon, and other planetary objects at the time of their birth. It is a form of divination based on the construction of a horoscope for an exact moment, such as a person’s birth. It uses the tropical zodiac, which is aligned to the equinoctial points. The majority of professional astrologers rely such systems.
In Western astrology, astrological signs are the twelve 30º sectors of the ecliptic, starting at the vernal equinox (one of the intersections of the ecliptic with the celestial equator), also known as the First Point of Aries. The order of the astrological signs is Aries, Taurus, Gemini, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricorn, Aquarius and Pisces.
Western astrology is founded on the movements and relative positions of celestial bodies such as the Sun, Moon, planets, which are analyzed by their movement through signs of the zodiac (spatial divisions of the ecliptic) and by their aspects (angles) relative to one another. They are also considered by their placement in houses (spatial divisions of the sky).
Astrology’s modern representation in western popular media is usually reduced to sun sign astrology, which considers only the zodiac sign of the Sun at an individual’s date of birth, and represents only 1/12 of the total chart. The names of the zodiac correspond to the names of the constellations originally within the respective segment and are in Latin.
Along with tarot divination, astrology is one of the core studies of Western esotericism, and as such has influenced systems of magical belief not only among Western esotericists and Hermeticists, but also belief systems such as Wicca that have borrowed from or been influenced by the Western esoteric tradition.
Tanya Luhrmann has said that “all magicians know something about astrology,” and refers to a table of correspondences in Starhawk’s The Spiral Dance, organized by planet, as an example of the astrological lore studied by magicians.
Astrology is rejected by the academic and scientific communities. Some scientific testing of astrology has been conducted, and no evidence has been found to support any of the premises or purported effects outlined in astrological traditions.
Furthermore, there is no proposed mechanism of action by which the positions and motions of stars and planets could affect people and events on Earth that does not contradict well understood, basic aspects of biology and physics.
Astrology is a pseudoscience whose predictions are open for personal interpretation by the astrologer reading a chart. Our lives are not just influenced by the plants in our solar system, but by the collective uncounciousnes in which we experience this reality.
Astrology taken as a guide can be helpful, but is not perfect. An astrological system written long ago, may not take into account the way we live our lives in the 21st century. As with all oracles of divination, it is subjective based on the chart and the astrologer.
The Zodiac
The zodiac was in use by the Roman era, based on concepts inherited by Hellenistic astronomy from Babylonian astronomy of the Chaldean period (mid-1st millennium BC), which, in turn, derived from an earlier system of lists of stars along the ecliptic. The construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemy’s vast 2nd century AD work, the Almagest.
The term zodiac derives from Latin zōdiacus, which in its turn comes from the Greek zōdiakos kyklos, meaning “circle of animals”, derived from zōdion, the diminutive of zōon “animal”. The name is motivated by the fact that half of the signs of the classical Greek zodiac are represented as animals (besides two mythological hybrids).
In both astrology and historical astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude that are centered upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year.
The term “zodiac” may refer to the region of the celestial sphere encompassing the paths of the planets corresponding to the band of about eight arc degrees above and below the ecliptic. However, although the zodiac remains the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system in use in astronomy besides the equatorial one, the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with horoscopic astrology.
The paths of the Moon and visible planets also remain close to the ecliptic, within the belt of the zodiac, which extends 8-9° north or south of the ecliptic, as measured in celestial latitude. Because the divisions are regular, they do not correspond exactly to the twelve constellations after which they are named.
The twelve sector division of the ecliptic constitutes astrology’s primary frame of reference when considering the positions of celestial bodies, from a geocentric point of view, so that we may find, for instance, the Sun in 23º Aries (23º longitude), the Moon in 7º Scorpio (217º longitude), or Jupiter in 29º Pisces (359º longitude).
Historically, these twelve divisions are called signs. Essentially, the zodiac is a celestial coordinate system, or more specifically an ecliptic coordinate system, which takes the ecliptic as the origin of latitude, and the position of the sun at vernal equinox as the origin of longitude.
The zodiac of a given planet is the band that contains the path of that particular body; e.g., the “zodiac of the Moon” is the band of five degrees above and below the ecliptic. By extension, the “zodiac of the comets” may refer to the band encompassing most short-period comets.
The concept of the zodiac originated in Babylonian astrology, and was later influenced by Hellenistic culture. The division of the ecliptic into the zodiacal signs originates in Babylonian (“Chaldean”) astronomy during the first half of the 1st millennium BC, likely during Median/”Neo-Babylonian” times (7th century BC).
According to astrology, celestial phenomena relate to human activity on the principle of “as above, so below”, so that the signs are held to represent characteristic modes of expression, or primary energy patterns indicating specific qualities of experience, through which planets manifest their dimension of experience.
The classical zodiac is a modification of the MUL.APIN catalogue, which was compiled around 1000 BC., is the conventional title given to a Babylonian compendium that deals with many diverse aspects of Babylonian astronomy and astrology. The earliest copy of the text so far discovered was made in 686 BC; however the majority of scholars now believe that the text was originally compiled around 1000 BC.
Some of the constellations can be traced even further back, to Bronze Age (Old Babylonian) sources, including Gemini “The Twins”, from MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL “The Great Twins”, and Cancer “The Crab”, from AL.LUL “The Crayfish”, among others.
Babylonian astronomers at some stage during the early 1st millennium BC divided the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude to create the first known celestial coordinate system: a coordinate system that boasts some advantages over modern systems (such as the equatorial coordinate system).
The Babylonian calendar as it stood in the 7th century BC assigned each month to a sign, beginning with the position of the Sun at vernal equinox, which, at the time, was depicted as the Aries constellation (“Age of Aries”), for which reason the first sign is still called “Aries” even after the vernal equinox has moved away from the Aries constellation due to the slow precession of the Earth’s axis of rotation.
Because the division was made into equal arcs, 30º each, they constituted an ideal system of reference for making predictions about a planet’s longitude. However, Babylonian techniques of observational measurements were in a rudimentary stage of evolution and it is unclear whether they had techniques to define in a precise way the boundary lines between the zodiacal signs in the sky. Thus, the need to use stars close to the ecliptic (±9º of latitude) as a set of observational reference points to help positioning a planet within this ecliptic coordinate system.
Constellations were given the names of the signs and asterisms could be connected in a way that would resemble the sign’s name. Therefore, in spite of its conceptual origin, the Babylonian zodiac became sidereal.
In Babylonian astronomical diaries, a planet position was generally given with respect to a zodiacal sign alone, less often in specific degrees within a sign. When the degrees of longitude were given, they were expressed with reference to the 30º of the zodiacal sign, i.e., not with a reference to the continuous 360º ecliptic.
To the construction of their mathematical ephemerides, daily positions of a planet were not as important as the dates when the planet crossed from one zodiacal sign to the next.
Knowledge of the Babylonian zodiac is also reflected in the Hebrew Bible. E. W. Bullinger interpreted the creatures appearing in the books of Ezekiel and Revelation as the middle signs of the four quarters of the Zodiac, with the Lion as Leo, the Bull is Taurus, the Man representing Aquarius and the Eagle representing Scorpio.
Some authors have linked the twelve tribes of Israel with the twelve signs. Martin and others have argued that the arrangement of the tribes around the Tabernacle (reported in the Book of Numbers) corresponded to the order of the Zodiac, with Judah, Reuben, Ephraim, and Dan representing the middle signs of Leo, Aquarius, Taurus, and Scorpio, respectively.
Such connections were taken up by Thomas Mann, who in his novel Joseph and His Brothers attributes characteristics of a sign of the zodiac to each tribe in his rendition of the Blessing of Jacob.
Various approaches to measuring and dividing the sky are currently used by differing systems of astrology, although the tradition of the Zodiac’s names and symbols remain consistent. Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points (points relating to longest, equal and shortest days of the tropical year), while Jyotiṣa or Vedic astrology measures along the equatorial plane (sidereal year).
Precession results in Western astrology’s zodiacal divisions not corresponding in the current era to the constellations that carry similar names, while Jyotiṣa measurements still correspond with the background constellations.
In Western and Asian astrology, the emphasis is on space, and the movement of the Sun, Moon and planets in the sky through each of the zodiac signs. In Chinese astrology, by contrast, the emphasis is on time, with the zodiac operating on cycles of years, months, and hours of the day.
A common feature of all three traditions however, is the significance of the Ascendant – the zodiac sign that is rising (due to the rotation of the earth) on the eastern horizon at the moment of a person’s birth.
A sidereal period is the time required for a celestial body within the solar system to complete one revolution with respect to the fixed stars(as observed from some fixed point outside the system.)
The sidereal period of a planet can be calculated if its synodic period (the time for it to return to the same position relative to the Sun and Earth) is known; the sidereal period of the moon or artificial satellite of Earth is the time needed for it to return to the same position against the background of stars. If earth were spinning over a fixed place on the sun, rather than revolving around it, then every star would rise and set at the same times throughout the year.
There is a group of constellations known as the zodiacal constellations that make a ring around the Earth. To astronomers, this band is called the Ecliptic, and is the path the Sun and Moon both appear to take around the Earth.
To Astrologers, this imaginary band is what governs many of our personal traits. When an astrologer says that your Sun is in Cancer, this means that at the time you were born, the Sun appeared to be in the constellation Cancer. Because of this, you cannot see the constellation representing your birth sign on your birthday. Instead, you have to wait a few months until the Sun has moved a sufficient number of signs away.
These constellations are different at different times of the year because on the autumnal equinox each year, the Sun is in the constellation Virgo. As seen from Earth, that part of the sky is in daylight and we see stars only on the other half of the sky, centered around the constellation Pisces. Six months later, the Sun is in Pisces. The side of the sky is then bright, while the side centered on Virgo is in darkness.
Beyond the celestial bodies, other astrological points that are dependent on geographical location and time (namely, the Ascendant, the Midheaven, the Vertex and the houses’ cusps) are also referenced within this ecliptic coordinate system.
Planets in astrology
Planets in astrology have a meaning different from the modern astronomical understanding of what a planet is. Before the age of telescopes, the night sky was thought to consist of two very similar components: fixed stars, which remained motionless in relation to each other, and “wandering stars”, which moved relative to the fixed stars over the course of the year.
To the Greeks and the other earliest astronomers, this group comprised the five planets visible to the naked eye, and excluded the Earth. Although strictly the term “planet” applied only to those five objects, the term was latterly broadened, particularly in the Middle Ages, to include the Sun and the Moon (sometimes referred to as “Lights”), making a total of seven planets. Astrologers retain this definition today.
To ancient astrologers, the planets represented the will of the gods and their direct influence upon human affairs. To modern astrologers the planets represent basic drives or urges in the unconscious, or energy flow regulators representing dimensions of experience. They express themselves with different qualities in the twelve signs of the zodiac and in the twelve houses. The planets are also related to each other in the form of aspects.
The seven classical planets are those easily seen with the naked eye, and were thus known to ancient astrologers. They are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Sometimes, the Sun and Moon were referred to as “the lights” or the “luminaries”. Ceres and Uranus can also just be seen with the naked eye, though no ancient culture appears to have taken note of them.
The astrological descriptions attached to the seven classical planets have been preserved since ancient times. Astrologers call the seven classical planets “the seven personal and social planets”, because they are said to represent the basic human drives of every individual.
The personal planets are the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. The social or transpersonal planets are Jupiter and Saturn. Jupiter and Saturn are often called the first of the “transpersonal” or “transcendent” planets as they represent a transition from the inner personal planets to the outer modern, impersonal planets. The outer modern planets Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are often called the collective or transcendental planets.
The sun
The Sun, the star at the center of the Solar System, is the planetary ruler of Leo and is exalted in Aries. In Greek mythology, the Sun was represented by the Titans Hyperion and Helios (Roman Sol, and later by Apollo, the god of light).
The Sun is the star at the center of our solar system, around which the Earth and other planets revolve and provides us with heat and light. The arc that the Sun travels in every year, rising and setting in a slightly different place each day, is therefore in reality a reflection of the Earth’s own orbit around the Sun.
This arc is larger the farther north or south from the equator latitude, giving a more extreme difference between day and night and between seasons during the year.
The Sun travels through the twelve signs of the zodiac on its annual journey, spending about a month in each. The Sun’s position on a person’s birthday therefore determines what is usually called his or her “sun” sign.
However, the sun sign allotment varies between Western (sign change around 22-23 of every month) and Hindu astrology (sign change around 14-15 of every month) due the different systems of planetary calculations, following the tropical and sidereal definitions respectively.
Astrologically, the Sun is usually thought to represent the conscious ego, the self and its expression, personal power, pride and authority, leadership qualities and the principles of creativity, spontaneity, health and vitality, the sum of which is named the “life force”.
The 1st-century poet Marcus Manilius in his epic, 8000-verse poem, Astronomica, described the Sun, or Sol, as benign and favorable. In medicine, the Sun is associated with the heart, circulatory system, and the thymus.
In Ayurveda, it rules over life-force (praan-shakti), governs bile temperament (pitta), stomach, bones and eyes. In modern astrology, the Sun is the ruler of the fifth house and the zodiac sign of Leo.
The Sun is associated with Sunday. Dante Alighieri associated the Sun with the liberal art of music. In Chinese astrology, the Sun represents Yang, the active, assertive masculine life principle.
The moon
The Moon is the ruling planet of Cancer and is exalted in Taurus. In Roman mythology, the Moon was Luna, at times identified with Diana. The Moon is large enough for its gravity to affect the Earth, stabilizing its orbit and producing the regular ebb and flow of the tides.
The lunar day syncs up with its orbit around Earth in such a manner that the same side of the Moon always faces the Earth and the other side, known as the “far side of the Moon” faces towards space.
The moon is used to characterise the inner child within us, as well as the past and how we have been as individuals rather than how we are now. It is also used to represent the perception one has of one’s mother, so someone with a Pisces Moon would be more likely to see their mother as a Piscean type, even if in reality that was not the case.
In the horoscope the aspects the moon makes with other planets and the transits the slower moving planets make to the moon are all said to have a strong impact on how our lives unfold.
Astrologically the Moon is associated with a person’s emotional make-up, unconscious habits, rhythms, memories, moods and their ability to react and adapt to those around them. It is also associated with the mother, maternal instincts or the urge to nurture, the home, the need for security and the past, especially early experiences and childhood.
The 1st-century poet Manilius, described the Moon or Luna, as melancholic. In medicine, the Moon is associated with the digestive system, stomach, breasts, the ovaries and menstruation (which does occur on a monthly cycle) and the pancreas.
Despite Manilius’ assignation, the Moon is commonly associated with the phlegmatic humor; it ruled the animal spirits. In modern astrology, the Moon is the ruler of the fourth house, Cancer.
The Moon or Luna is associated with Monday, the word Monday comes from the Old English word for Moon day or Moon’s day, and in Romance languages, the name for Monday comes from luna (e.g., luni in Romanian, lundi in French, lunes in Spanish and lunedi in Italian).
In Chinese astrology, the Moon represents Yin, the passive and receptive feminine life principle. In Indian astrology, the Moon is called Chandra or Soma and represents the mind, queenship and mother.
The north lunar node (called Rahu) and the south lunar node (called Ketu) are considered to be of particular importance and are given an equal place alongside the seven classical planets as part of the nine navagraha.
Mercury
Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini and Virgo and is exalted in the latter; it is the only planet with rulership and exaltation both in the same sign (Virgo). In Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness.
Mercury rules over Wednesday. In Romance languages, the word for Wednesday is often similar to Mercury (miercuri in Romanian, mercredi in French, miercoles in Spanish and mercoledì in Italian).
In Indian astrology, Mercury is called Budha, a word related to Buddhi (“intelligence”) and represents communication. In Chinese astrology, Mercury represents Water, the fourth element, therefore symbolizing communication, intelligence and elegance.
Venus
Venus is the ruling planet of Libra and Taurus and is exalted in Pisces. In Roman mythology, Venus is the goddess of love and beauty, famous for the passions she could stir among the gods. Her cults may represent the religiously legitimate charm and seduction of the divine by mortals, in contrast to the formal, contractual relations between most members of Rome’s official pantheon and the state, and the unofficial, illicit manipulation of divine forces through magic.
The ambivalence of her function is suggested in the etymological relationship of the root *venes- with Latin venenum (poison, venom), in the sense of “a charm, magic philtre”.
Venus is the planet of Friday. In languages deriving from Latin, such as Romanian, Spanish, French, and Italian, the word for Friday often resembles the word Venus (vineri, viernes, vendredi and “venerdì” respectively).
In Chinese astrology, Venus is associated with the element metal, which is unyielding, strong and persistent. In Indian astrology, Venus is known as Shukra and represents wealth, pleasure and reproduction. In Norse Paganism, the planet is associated to Freyja, the goddess of love, beauty and fertility.
Mars
Mars is the ruling planet of Aries and Scorpio and is exalted in Capricorn. Mars is the Roman god of war and bloodshed, whose symbol is a spear and shield. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions.
Mars is associated with Tuesday and in Romance languages the word for Tuesday often resembles Mars (in Romanian, marţi, in Spanish, martes, in French, mardi and in Italian “martedì”). The English “Tuesday” is a modernised form of “Tyr’s Day”, Tyr being the Germanic analogue to Mars.
In Chinese astrology, Mars is ruled by the element fire, which is passionate, energetic and adventurous. In Indian astrology, Mars is called Mangala and represents energy, confidence and ego.
Jupiter
Jupiter is the ruling planet of Sagittarius and Pisces and is exalted in Cancer. In Roman mythology, Jupiter is the ruler of the gods and their guardian and protector, and his symbol is the thunderbolt.
The Romans believed that Jupiter granted them supremacy because they had honored him more than any other people had. Jupiter was “the fount of the auspices upon which the relationship of the city with the gods rested.” He personified the divine authority of Rome’s highest offices, internal organization, and external relations. His image in the Republican and Imperial Capitol bore regalia associated with Rome’s ancient kings and the highest consular and imperial honours.
Jupiter is associated with Thursday, and in Romance languages, the name for Thursday often comes from Jupiter (e.g., joi in Romanian, jeudi in French, jueves in Spanish, and giovedì in Italian).
In Chinese astrology, Jupiter is ruled by the element wood, which is patient, hard-working, and reliable. In Indian astrology, Jupiter is known as Guru or Brihaspati and is known as the ‘great teacher’.
Saturn
Saturn is the ruling planet of Capricorn and is exalted in Libra. Before the discovery of Uranus, Saturn was regarded as the ruling planet of Aquarius. Many astrologers still use Saturn as the planetary ruler of both Capricorn and Aquarius. Saturn is associated with Saturday, which was named after the deity Saturn.
In Roman mythology, Saturn is the god of agriculture, founder of civilizations and of social order, and conformity. The glyph is most often seen as scythe-like, but it is primarily known as the “crescent below the cross”, whereas Jupiter’s glyph is the “crescent above the cross”.
In Chinese astrology, Saturn is ruled by the element earth, which is warm, generous, and co-operative. In Indian astrology, Saturn is called Shani or “Sani”, and represents career and longevity. It is also the bringer of bad luck and hardship.
Modern planets
Since the invention of the telescope, Western astrology has incorporated Uranus, Neptune, Ceres, Pluto, and other bodies into its methodology. The Indian and Chinese astrologies have tended to retain the ancient seven-planet system. Meanings have had to be assigned to them by modern astrologers, usually according to the major events that occurred in the world at the time of their discovery.
As these astrologers are usually Western, the social and historical events they describe have an inevitable Western emphasis. Astrologers consider the “extra-Saturnian” planets to be “impersonal” or generational planets, meaning their effects are felt more across whole generations of society. Their effects in individuals depend upon how strongly they feature in that individual’s birth-chart. The following are their characteristics as accepted by most astrologers.
Cardinal signs
The word “cardinal” originates from the Latin word for “hinge,” since they each mark the turning point of a temperate season. They were called moveable by traditional astrologers because, as Bonatti says, the “air” changes when the Sun enters each of these signs, bringing a change of season.
Only Aries (the Sun’s passage through which begins the spring in the northern hemisphere), and the autumn in the southern hemisphere), Cancer ( which begins the summer in the northern hemisphere, and the winter in the southern hemisphere), Libra (which begins the autumn in the northern hemisphere, and the spring in the southern hemisphere) and Capricorn (which begins the winter in the northern hemisphere, and the summer in the southern hemisphere) are cardinal signs.
Angular signs
Sometimes the word cardinal is confused with the word angular. In astrology, an angular house, or cardinal house, is one of four cardinal houses of the horoscope, which are the houses in which the angles of the chart (the Ascendant, the Midheaven, the Imum Coeli and the Descendant) are found.
Angular signs are those signs which are located on the astrological angles of any given natal chart, a stylized map of the universe with the “native” (the individual or subject to be studied) at the center. Angular houses may be cardinal, fixed or mutable, depending on the birth time of the chart.
The angular houses of the horoscope are considered to be the most ardent, or forceful, and are considered to have the greatest impact in the chart. The influential 17th-century astrologer William Lilly states simply: “Planets in angles do more forcibly show their effects.” Angular houses rule those critical things in our life, such as our appearance and how we behave, our family life, our married life or partnerships, and our career.
Aries
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Aries (meaning “ram”) is the first astrological sign in the Zodiac, spanning the first 30 degrees of celestial longitude (0°≤ λ <30º). Under the tropical zodiac, the Sun transits this sign between March 21 and April 20 each year. This time duration is exactly the first month of Solar Hejri calendar (Farvardin). Under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits Aries from 15 April to 15 May (approximately).
According to the Tropical system of astrology, the Sun enters the sign of Aries when it reaches the northern vernal equinox, which occurs around March 21. Due to the fact that the Earth takes approximately 365.25 days to go around the Sun, the precise time of the equinox is not the same each year, and generally will occur about 6 hours later each year, with a jump of a day (backwards) on leap years. Since 1900 the vernal equinox date ranged from March 20 at 08h (2000) to March 21 at 19h (1903) (all times UTC).
Individuals born during these dates, depending on which system of astrology they subscribe to, may be called Arians or Ariens. Aries is the first sign of the zodiac, and that’s pretty much how those born under this sign see themselves: first. Aries are the leaders of the pack, first in line to get things going. Whether or not everything gets done is another question altogether, for an Aries prefers to initiate rather than to complete. Do you have a project needing a kick-start? Call an Aries, by all means.
The leadership displayed by Aries is most impressive, so don’t be surprised if they can rally the troops against seemingly insurmountable odds — they have that kind of personal magnetism. An Aries won’t shy away from new ground, either. Those born under this sign are often called the pioneers of the zodiac, and it’s their fearless trek into the unknown that often wins the day.
Aries is a bundle of energy and dynamism, kind of like a Pied Piper, leading people along with its charm and charisma. The dawning of a new day — and all of its possibilities — is pure bliss to an Aries.
Aries is ruled by Mars. Taking a peek at Roman mythology, we find that Mars was the God of War. Our man Mars was unafraid to do battle, and much the same can be said for Aries. These folks are bold, aggressive and courageous. They can summon up the inner strength required to take on most anyone, and they’ll probably win.
Enki
Enki (Sumerian: EN.KI(G)) is a god in Sumerian mythology, later known as Ea in Akkadian and Babylonian mythology. He was originally patron god of the city of Eridu, but later the influence of his cult spread throughout Mesopotamia and to the Canaanites, Hittites and Hurrians. He was the deity of crafts (gašam); mischief; water, seawater, lakewater (a, aba, ab), intelligence (gestú, literally “ear”) and creation (Nudimmud: nu, likeness, dim mud, make beer).
Beginning around the second millennium BCE, he was sometimes referred to in writing by the numeric ideogram for “40,” occasionally referred to as his “sacred number.” The planet Mercury, associated with Babylonian Nabu (the son of Marduk) was in Sumerian times, identified with Enki.
A large number of myths about Enki have been collected from many sites, stretching from Southern Iraq to the Levantine coast. He figures in the earliest extant cuneiform inscriptions throughout the region and was prominent from the third millennium down to Hellenistic times.
The exact meaning of his name is uncertain: the common translation is “Lord of the Earth”: the Sumerian en is translated as a title equivalent to “lord”; it was originally a title given to the High Priest; ki means “earth”; but there are theories that ki in this name has another origin, possibly kig of unknown meaning, or kur meaning “mound”.
The name Ea is allegedly Hurrian in origin while others claim that his name ‘Ea’ is possibly of Semitic origin and may be a derivation from the West-Semitic root *hyy meaning “life” in this case used for “spring”, “running water.” In Sumerian E-A means “the house of water”, and it has been suggested that this was originally the name for the shrine to the god at Eridu.
He was associated with the southern band of constellations called stars of Ea, but also with the constellation AŠ-IKU, the Field (Square of Pegasus). His symbols included a goat and a fish, which later combined into a single beast, the goat Capricorn, recognised as the Zodiacal constellation Capricornus (Unicode ♑), the tenth astrological sign in the zodiac, originating from the constellation of Capricornus. He was accompanied by an attendant Isimud. He was also associated with the planet Mercury in the Sumerian astrological system.
Mercury
Mercury is the ruling planet of Gemini and Virgo and is exalted in the latter; it is the only planet with rulership and exaltation both in the same sign (Virgo). In Roman mythology, Mercury is the messenger of the gods, noted for his speed and swiftness.
Echoing this, the scorching, airless world Mercury circles the Sun on the fastest orbit of any planet. Mercury takes only 88 days to orbit the Sun, spending about 7.33 days in each sign of the zodiac. Mercury is so close to the Sun that only a brief period exists after the Sun has set where it can be seen with the naked eye, before following the Sun beyond the horizon.
Astrologically, Mercury represents the principles of communication, mentality, thinking patterns, rationality and reasoning and adaptability and variability. Mercury governs schooling and education, the immediate environment of neighbors, siblings and cousins, transport over short distances, messages and forms of communication such as post, email and telephone, newspapers, journalism and writing, information gathering skills and physical dexterity. The 1st-century poet Manilius described Mercury as an inconstant, vivacious and curious planet.
In medicine, Mercury is associated with the nervous system, the brain, the respiratory system, the thyroid and the sense organs. It is traditionally held to be essentially cold and dry, according to its placement in the zodiac and in any aspects to other planets. It is linked to the animal spirits.
Today, Mercury is regarded as the ruler of the third and sixth houses; traditionally, it had the joy in the first house. Mercury is the messenger of the gods in mythology. It is the planet of day-to-day expression and relationships. Mercury’s action is to take things apart and put them back together again. It is an opportunistic planet, decidedly unemotional and curious.
Mercury rules over Wednesday. In Romance languages, the word for Wednesday is often similar to Mercury (miercuri in Romanian, mercredi in French, miercoles in Spanish and mercoledì in Italian). Dante Alighieri associated Mercury with the liberal art of dialectic.
In Indian astrology, Mercury is called Budha, a word related to Buddhi (“intelligence”) and represents communication. In Chinese astrology, Mercury represents Water, the fourth element, therefore symbolizing communication, intelligence and elegance.
Capricornus
Capricornus is named “horned goat” or “goat horn” in Latin, and it is commonly represented in the form of a sea-goat: a mythical creature that is half goat, half fish. The Encyclopedia Britannica states that the figure of Capricorn derives from the half-goat, half-fish representation of the Sumerian god Enki.
Despite its faintness, Capricornus has one of the oldest mythological associations, having been consistently represented as a hybrid of a goat and a fish since the Middle Bronze Age. First attested in depictions on a cylinder-seal from around the 21st century BC, it was explicitly recorded in the Babylonian star catalogues as SUḪUR.MAŠ “The Goat-Fish” before 1000 BC. The constellation was a symbol of the god Ea and in the Early Bronze Age marked the winter solstice.
It is one of the 88 modern constellations, and was also one of the 48 constellations listed by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy. Under its modern boundaries it is bordered by Aquila, Sagittarius, Microscopium, Piscis Austrinus and Aquarius.
The constellation is located in an area of sky called the Sea or the Water, consisting of many water-related constellations such as Aquarius, Pisces and Eridanus. It is the second faintest constellation in the zodiac after Cancer, and it is the smallest constellation in the zodiac.
Capricorn spans the 270–300th degree of the zodiac, corresponding to celestial longitude. Under the tropical zodiac, the sun transits this area from December 22 to January 19 each year, and under the sidereal zodiac, the sun currently transits the constellation of Capricorn from approximately January 15 to February 14.
Due to the precession of the equinoxes the December solstice no longer takes place while the sun is in the constellation Capricornus, as it did until 130 BCE, but the astrological sign called Capricorn begins with the solstice. The solstice now takes place when the Sun is in Sagittarius.
The sun’s most southerly position, which is attained at the northern hemisphere’s winter solstice, is now called the Tropic of Capricorn, a term which also applies to the line on the Earth at which the sun is directly overhead at noon on that solstice. The Sun is now in Capricorn from late January through mid-February.
In Greek mythology, the constellation is sometimes identified as Amalthea, the goat that suckled the infant Zeus after his mother Rhea saved him from being devoured by his father Cronos (in Greek mythology).
The goat’s broken horn was transformed into the cornucopia or horn of plenty. Capricornus is also sometimes identified as Pan, the god with a goat’s head, who saved himself from the monster Typhon by giving himself a fish’s tail and diving into a river.
The planet Neptune was discovered in Capricornus by German astronomer Johann Galle, near Deneb Algedi (δ Capricorni) on September 23, 1846, which is appropriate as Capricornus can be seen best from Europe at 4:00am in September.
As of 2002, the Sun appears in the constellation Capricornus from January 19 to February 15. In tropical astrology, the Sun is considered to be in the sign Capricorn from December 22 to January 20, and in sidereal astrology, from January 15 to February 15.
In astrology, Capricorn is considered an earth sign, introvert sign, and one of the four cardinal signs, also called by older astrologers as moveable signs, because it is signs of the zodiac that initiates a change of temperate zone season when the Sun makes its annual passage into them.
Saturn
In astrology, a planet’s domicile is the zodiac sign over which it has rulership. The planet said to be ruler of Capricorn is Saturn, exalted in Libra. The glyph is primarily known as the “crescent below the cross”, whereas Jupiter’s glyph is the “crescent above the cross”.
Astrologically, Saturn is associated with the principles of limitation, restrictions, boundaries, practicality and reality, crystallizing, and structures. Saturn governs ambition, career, authority and hierarchy, and conforming social structures.
It concerns a person’s sense of duty, discipline and responsibility, and their physical and emotional endurance during hardships. Saturn is also considered to represent the part of a person concerned with long-term planning.
The Return of Saturn is said to mark significant events in each person’s life. According to the 1st-century poet Manilius, Saturn is sad, morose, and cold, and is the greater malefic.
According to Claudius Ptolemy, “Saturn is lord of the right ear, the spleen, the bladder, the phlegm, and the bones.” Saturn symbolized processes and things that were dry and cold, and therefore inimical to life. It governed the melancholic humor.
Before the discovery of Uranus, Saturn was regarded as the ruling planet of Aquarius. Many astrologers still use Saturn as the planetary ruler of both Capricorn and Aquarius; in modern astrology it is accordingly the ruler of the tenth and eleventh houses. Traditionally, however, Saturn was associated with the first and eighth houses.
In Chinese astrology, Saturn is ruled by the element earth, which is warm, generous, and co-operative. In Indian astrology, Saturn is called Shani or “Sani”, and represents career and longevity. It is also the bringer of bad luck and hardship.
Saturn – The god
In Roman mythology, Saturn is the god of agriculture, founder of civilizations and of social order, and conformity. In December, he was celebrated at what is perhaps the most famous of the Roman festivals, the Saturnalia, a time of feasting, role reversals, free speech, gift-giving and revelry.
Saturn, the planet, and Saturday are both named after the god. Dante Alighieri associated Saturn with the liberal art of astronomia (astrology and astronomy).
The Romans identified Saturn with the Greek Cronus, whose myths were adapted for Latin literature and Roman art. In particular, Cronus’s role in the genealogy of the Greek gods was transferred to Saturn. As early as Livius Andronicus (3rd century BC), Jupiter was called the son of Saturn.
Saturn had two consorts who represented different aspects of the god. The name of his wife Ops, the Roman equivalent of Greek Rhea, means “wealth, abundance, resources.” The association with Ops though is considered a later development, as this goddess was originally paired with Consus.
His consort in archaic Roman tradition was Lua, sometimes called Lua Saturni (“Saturn’s Lua”) and identified with Lua Mater, “Mother Destruction, dissolution, loosening”, a goddess who received the weapons of enemies destroyed in war and in whose honor the bloodied weapons of enemies killed in war were burned, perhaps as expiation. H.S. Versnel, however, proposed that Lua Saturni should not be identified with Lua Mater, but rather refers to “loosening”; she thus represents the liberating function of Saturn.
Under Saturn’s rule, humans enjoyed the spontaneous bounty of the earth without labor in a state of social egalitarianism, in the “Golden Age” described by Hesiod and Ovid. Saturn is associated with a major religious festival in the Roman calendar, Saturnalia. Saturnalia celebrated the harvest and sowing, and ran from December 17–23. During Saturnalia, the social restrictions of Rome were relaxed. The figure of Saturn, kept during the year with its legs bound in wool, was released from its bindings for the period of the festival.
The revelries of Saturnalia were supposed to reflect the conditions of the lost “Golden Age” before the rule of Saturn was overthrown, not all of them desirable except as a temporary release from civilized constraint. The Greek equivalent was the Kronia.
Macrobius (5th century AD) presents an interpretation of the Saturnalia as a festival of light leading to the winter solstice. The renewal of light and the coming of the new year was celebrated in the later Roman Empire at the Dies Natalis of Sol Invictus, the “Birthday of the Unconquerable Sun,” on December 25.
It was customary for the Romans to represent divine figures as kings of Latium at the time of their legendary origins. Macrobius states explicitly that the Roman legend of Janus and Saturn is an affabulation, as the true meaning of religious beliefs cannot be openly expressed. In the myth Saturn was the original and autochthonous ruler of the Capitolium, which had thus been called the Mons Saturnius in older times and on which once stood the town of Saturnia.
He was sometimes regarded as the first king of Latium or even the whole of Italy. At the same time, there was a tradition that Saturn had been an immigrant god, received by Janus after he was usurped by his son Jupiter and expelled from Greece.
In Versnel’s view his contradictions – a foreigner with one of Rome’s oldest sanctuaries, and a god of liberation who is kept in fetters most of the year – indicate Saturn’s capacity for obliterating social distinctions.
The Golden Age of Saturn’s reign in Roman mythology differed from the Greek tradition. He arrived in Italy “dethroned and fugitive,” but brought agriculture and civilization for which things was rewarded by Janus with a share of the kingdom, becoming he himself king.
As the Augustan poet Vergil described it, “He gathered together the unruly race” of fauns and nymphs “scattered over mountain heights, and gave them laws … . Under his reign were the golden ages men tell of: in such perfect peace he ruled the nations.”
He was considered the ancestor of the Latin nation as he fathered Picus, the first king of Latium, who married Janus’ daughter Canenes and in his turn fathered Faunus.
Saturn was also said to have founded the five Saturnian towns of Latium: Aletrium (today Alatri), Anagnia (Anagni), Arpinum (Arpino), Atina and Ferentinum (Ferentino, also known as Antinum) all located in present day Ciociaria, province of Frosinone. All these towns are surrounded by cyclopical walls; their foundation is traditionally ascribed to the Pelasgians.
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