ANCIENT CALENDARS AND CONSTELLATIONS By the Hon. EMMELINE M. PLUNKET WITH ILLUSTRATIONS LONDON JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 1903...

The Papers here collected and reprinted, with some alterations, were not originally written as a series; but they do, in fact, form one, inasmuch as the opinions put forward in each Paper were arrived at, one after the other, simply by following one leading clue. This clue was furnished by a consideration of statements made by Professor Sayce in an article contributed by him in 1874 to the Transactions of the Society of Biblical Archæology . At page 150 he thus wrote:— “The standard astrological

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, January 1892 ] Epping and Strassmaier, in their book Astronomisches aus Babylon , have lately translated three small documents, originally inscribed on clay tablets in the second century B.C. From these tablets, we learn that the Babylonians of the above date possessed a very advanced knowledge of the science of astronomy. Into the question of the extent of that knowledge we need not here enter further than to say that it ena

In the January number of the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology for last year, under the title The Accadian Calendar , two propositions were advanced:— I. The Accadian year was counted as a sidereal year. II. The Accadian calendar was first thought out and originated at a date not later than 6,000 B.C. The fact that the sun’s entry into the constellation Aries appears to have marked through many millenniums the beginning of the Accadian year, was cited in support of the first prop

In the astronomical tablets (of the 1st and 2nd cent. B.C. ) translated by Epping and Strassmaier, the twelve constellations of the Babylonian Zodiac are constantly referred to. Their names appear under very abbreviated forms in the tablets, and are as follows: [22] — [22] Zeitschrift für Assyriologie , v Band, 4 Heft, Oct. 1890, p. 351. Also in Epping and Strassmaier’s work, Astronomisches aus Babylon , under the heading Die Zeichen des Thierkreises , pp. 170, 171, and Namen der Sterne , pp. 17

In a former number [32] of these Proceedings I contrasted as follows, what I believed to be the calendar of the Accadians with that of the inhabitants of Lagash:— “In Accad the calendar makers clung to the originally instituted star-mark for the year, and made it begin with the sun’s entry into [the constellation] Aries; therefore by degrees the beginning of their year moved away from the winter solstice, and in the first century B.C. coincided very closely with the spring equinox. “In Lagash, o

Not much more than a hundred years ago the Sanscrit language began to yield to the study of Europeans some of its literary treasures. Almost on the moment, a controversy arose as to the antiquity of the science of astronomy in India; for scholars were amazed to find in this already long dead language many learned astronomical treatises, besides complete instructions for calculating, year by year, the Hindu calendar, as also for calculating horoscopes. Some then proclaimed the wonderful facts rev

Professor Hommel in the March number for 1899 of these Proceedings calls attention in his Assyriological Notes to the name “Assara Mazas” appearing in a list of Assyrian gods. The section of the list in which this name appears contains “a number of foreign sounding names” belonging to gods honoured, presumably, in out-lying portions of the Assyrian dominions. Professor Hommel claims “that this god (Assara Mazas) is no other than the Iranian Ahura Mazda,” and he thus concludes his arguments in fa

It is only on Talmudic authority, I think, that astronomy can be denied a place, and indeed an important place, in researches connected with Biblical Archæology. On Talmudic authority we are told that, as a protest against the sun-, moon-, and star-worship of surrounding nations, the Hebrews were not permitted to calculate in any way beforehand, or by scientific methods based on the movements of the heavenly bodies, their days, their months, or their years. The end of the day and beginning of th

[Reprinted from the Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Archæology, December 1901 ] The Chinese Lunar Zodiac is divided into 28 star groups named Siou. Gustav Schlegel in his Uranographie Chinoise having enumerated these 28 siou—or as he translates that term, “domiciles”—says: “La première chose qui nous frappe en voyant la liste des 28 domiciles, c’est qu’elle commence par le domicile Kio , ou la Vierge , preuve positive que c’était avec ce domicile que l’année a dû commencer primitivement,”

In the foregoing pages arguments have been urged in support of the view that the ecliptic circle, at the remote date (speaking in round numbers) of 6000 B.C. , had been portioned by some “ancient race of men” into twelve divisions; and that the twelve constellational figures of the Zodiac had then also been imagined under forms more or less closely resembling those which we recognize in the heavens at the present day. Most of the arguments in favour of this opinion are necessarily based on consi

In Plate XIX., fig. 1 , it is the constellation known in the Grecian sphere as Hercules that claims our attention. At the date and latitude above named, this constellation, if then it had already been imagined, culminated gloriously on the northern meridian at midnight of the spring equinox. The head of the hero, or demi-god, touched the very zenith, and with his club brandished aloft he must have seemed well fitted to triumph over, not only the dragon coiled beneath his feet, but over every opp

[117] The figures in this Plate have been drawn from the globe adjusted to the date, 4128 B.C. , Lat. 40° N. In The Median Calendar and the Constellation Taurus I have put forward considerations drawn from Median and Assyrian sources, which seemed to me to lead to the conclusion that at about the date 4000 B.C. very close attention was given to the position of the colures amongst the fixed stars, and that at that date very special honour was given by the ancestors of the Medes to the constellati

In Grecian legend Cepheus, Cassiopeia, Andromeda, the sea-monster (Cetus), and Perseus are associated together, and on the Grecian sphere five neighbouring constellations represent the actors of the legend. Studying these constellations as they must have appeared to observers of the heavens at different dates, we shall, I think, see some reason to attribute the imagining of the figure of the hero Perseus to a later age than that of the other members of the group, and, on the other hand, there ar

The probable dates for the first imagining of four constellations are here given—namely, for the Centaur, Ophiuchus, Auriga, and Perseus. For the Centaur the date in round numbers of 3500 B.C. ( fig. 1 ) is suggested: at that date his huge figure would have well marked, in opposition, the beginning of the calendrical Aries-year; or, in conjunction with the sun, the beginning of the seventh month of the same year. It is not necessary, at that date, to attribute a low latitude to the astronomers w

It will be seen that by consulting the precessional globe it has been possible to suggest dates at which the various simple and composite human figures, represented on the (Grecian) sphere could have been originally imagined in an upright position, either on the northern or southern meridian at some well-marked time of the year—that is of either a cosmical or a calendrical year. That many other of the remaining ancient constellations—Canis Major and Canis Minor, Aquila, Cygnus, &c., were