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Cancer (Constellation): Difference between revisions
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Cancer is said to have been the place for the Akkadian Sun of the South, perhaps from its position at the summer solstice in very remote antiquity. But afterwards it was associated with the fourth month Duzu (June–July in the modern western calendar), and was known as the Northern Gate of Sun. Showing but few stars, and its brightest stars being of only 4th magnitude, Cancer was often considered the "Dark Sign", quaintly described as black and without eyes. | Cancer is said to have been the place for the Akkadian Sun of the South, perhaps from its position at the summer solstice in very remote antiquity. But afterwards it was associated with the fourth month Duzu (June–July in the modern western calendar), and was known as the Northern Gate of Sun. Showing but few stars, and its brightest stars being of only 4th magnitude, Cancer was often considered the "Dark Sign", quaintly described as black and without eyes. | ||
Cancer was the location of the Sun's most northerly position in the sky (the summer solstice) in ancient times, though this position now occurs in Taurus due to the precession of the equinoxes, around June 21. This is also the time that the Sun is directly overhead at 23.5°N, a parallel now known as the Tropic of Cancer. In Greek mythology, Cancer is identified with the crab that appeared while Hercules was fighting the many-headed Hydra. The crab bit Hercules on the foot, Hercules crushed it and then the goddess Hera, a sworn enemy of Hercules, placed the crab among the stars.<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_%28constellation%29 Cancer]</ref> | Cancer was the location of the Sun's most northerly position in the sky (the summer solstice) in ancient times, though this position now occurs in Taurus due to the precession of the equinoxes, around June 21. This is also the time that the Sun is directly overhead at 23.5°N, a parallel now known as the Tropic of Cancer. In Greek mythology, Cancer is identified with the crab that appeared while Hercules was fighting the many-headed Hydra. The crab bit Hercules on the foot, Hercules crushed it and then the goddess Hera, a sworn enemy of Hercules, placed the crab among the stars. | ||
The modern symbol for Cancer represents the pincers of a crab, but Cancer has been represented as various types of creatures, usually those living in the water, and always those with an exoskeleton. | |||
In the Egyptian records of about 2000 BC it was described as Scarabaeus (Scarab), the sacred emblem of immortality. In Babylonia the constellation was known as MUL.AL.LUL, a name which can refer to both a crab and a snapping turtle. On boundary stones, the image of a turtle or tortoise appears quite regularly and it is believed that this represents Cancer as a conventional crab has not so far been discovered on any of these monuments. There also appears to be a strong connection between the Babylonian constellation and ideas of death and a passage to the underworld, which may be the origin of these ideas in later Greek myths associated with Hercules and the Hydra.[9] In the 12th century, an illustrated astronomical manuscript shows it as a water beetle. Albumasar writes of this sign in Flowers of Abu Ma'shar. A 1488 Latin translation depicts cancer as a large crayfish,[10] which also is the constellation's name in most Germanic languages. Jakob Bartsch and Stanislaus Lubienitzki, in the 17th century, described it as a lobster. | |||
<ref>[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_%28constellation%29 Cancer]</ref> | |||
==Galactic Zodiac== | ==Galactic Zodiac== | ||