Abstract
III.
WHEN names had to be given to stars, the Babylonians naturally took them from the objects around themselves. The heavenly host was compared to an immense flock, and several stars were grouped together to form the imaginary figure of either a bull, or a ram, or a goat, &c. It is too often taken for granted that the constellations have received certain names, and that the march of the sun through these signs has given birth to various legends, but those who see everywhere solar myths do not say why the constellations were so named. The names given to them must have some connection with what took place at their appearance, mark the seasons, or indicate the work, agricultural or other, of the seasons. The stars of the ecliptic, placed on the path of the planets, were associated with the monthly motion of the moon, and divided accordingly into thirty groups. Each of these constellations was one of the houses of the moon, and marked in the sky the course followed by it in one day.
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Babylonian Astronomy.1. Nature 40, 285 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040285a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040285a0