Guest guest Posted March 25, 2003 Report Share Posted March 25, 2003 BEGINNINGS OF THE BABYLONIAN SIGNS Cyril Fagan was fond of saying that there was only one ancient zodiac, and this zodiac was marked by Aldebaran-Antares at 15 Taurus-Scorpio, Regulus at 5 Leo and Spica at 29 Virgo. But a star list in Hunger and Pingree's ASTRAL SCIENCES IN MESOPOTAMIA (Brill, 1999) seems to put this statement to rest. This list also clearly shows that the measurement of sidereal signs was imprecise, even up to 110 B.C. The star list makes it abundantly clear that the signs of the zodiac were measured in relation to various fixed stars, the 'Normal Stars' used in Mesopotamia rather than from an equinox point. My notes below include the current positions of the relevant stars and don't take into consideration proper motion that might have occurred over the centuries. I have compared the Fagan-Bradley positions with the Krishnamurti degrees because there are 59 minutes between the two, which rounds off nicely to one degree. Page 148: THE NORMAL STARS " The Normal Stars are stars near the ecliptic--about 30 in number--whose " conjunctions " with the Moon and the planets are recorded in the Diaries and in the Normal Star Almanacs... " Page 150: " A study by Huber [1958] of some Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs of -122/1 to -110/09 deomonstrated the following beginnings of the zodiacal signs to be in use at that time: " [Here I have excerpted a few stars from the list.] Beginning of Gemini: " 30 minutes before or after Normal Star 7 " (zeta Tauri-Al Hecka) Today's positions: K= 1Ge01 F-B= 0Ge02 (Perfect hit for F-B) Beginning of Cancer: " With Normal Star #12 " (Beta Gem-Pollux) Today's positions: K= 29Ge28 F-B= 28Ge29 (K is within approx. half a degree) Beginning of Libra: " ca. 2 degrees after Normal Star 23 " (Alpha Virginis, Spica) This puts Spica at 28 degrees of Virgo rather than the 29 claimed by western siderealists or zero Libra as used in India.) Beginning of Aquarius: " 35 minutes before or after Normal Star 32 " (Delta Cap-Deneb Algedi) Today's positions: K=29Cp47 F-B=28Cp48 (K is definitely closer to zero degrees of Aquarius.) The difficulty of zeroing in on a precise ancient zodiac is shown by the position of the norhern balance pan of Libra (Beta Libra), which is listed as 25 Libra in the Mesopotamian Catalogue fragment BM 46083 (page 150 in Astral Sciences). Today's position of that star is K= 25Li37 and F-B= 24Li38. '25 Libra' could refer to either position. I think it is rather foolish to claim that a very precise ancient zodiac existed. The positions listed above and others in the list of sign beginnings aren't spaced exactly 30 degrees from each other. Nevertheless, the positions indicate that today's sidereal zodiacs are very close to the somewhat imprecise Mesopotamian sidereal zodiac in terms of marking stars. Perhaps Ken Bowser or someone else will counter this conclusion, but this is my understanding at this time. Therese Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 29, 2003 Report Share Posted March 29, 2003 Therese Hamilton <eastwest@s...> Tue Mar 25, 2003 6:15 pm Beginnings of the Babylonian Signs BEGINNINGS OF THE BABYLONIAN SIGNS Cyril Fagan was fond of saying that there was only one ancient zodiac, and this zodiac was marked by Aldebaran-Antares at 15 Taurus-Scorpio, Regulus at 5 Leo and Spica at 29 Virgo. But a star list in Hunger and Pingree's ASTRAL SCIENCES IN MESOPOTAMIA (Brill, 1999) seems to put this statement to rest. This list also clearly shows that the measurement of sidereal signs was imprecise, even up to 110 B.C. The star list makes it abundantly clear that the signs of the zodiac were measured in relation to various fixed stars, the 'Normal Stars' used in Mesopotamia rather than from an equinox point. My notes below include the current positions of the relevant stars and don't take into consideration proper motion that might have occurred over the centuries. I have compared the Fagan-Bradley positions with the Krishnamurti degrees because there are 59 minutes between the two, which rounds off nicely to one degree. Hello Terese, I'm glad to see you posting. I need your expertise to explore some predictive methods. Currently I interpreted mundanely a sidereal solar return for the Capricorn S. ingress to my own satisfaction. I used the Fagan-Bradly ayanamsha built into Astrolog. It allows arbitrary ayanamshas. Is the Krishnamurti ayanamsha greater or lesser than the FB? What is it currently? I would like to compare them for mundane event activity in the same ingress. Page 148: THE NORMAL STARS " The Normal Stars are stars near the ecliptic--about 30 in number--whose " conjunctions " with the Moon and the planets are recorded in the Diaries and in the Normal Star Almanacs... " Page 150: " A study by Huber [1958] of some Almanacs and Normal Star Almanacs of -122/1 to -110/09 deomonstrated the following beginnings of the zodiacal signs to be in use at that time: " [Here I have excerpted a few stars from the list.] Beginning of Gemini: " 30 minutes before or after Normal Star 7 " (zeta Tauri-Al Hecka) Today's positions: K= 1Ge01 F-B= 0Ge02 (Perfect hit for F-B) Beginning of Cancer: " With Normal Star #12 " (Beta Gem-Pollux) Today's positions: K= 29Ge28 F-B= 28Ge29 (K is within approx. half a degree) Beginning of Libra: " ca. 2 degrees after Normal Star 23 " (Alpha Virginis, Spica) This puts Spica at 28 degrees of Virgo rather than the 29 claimed by western siderealists or zero Libra as used in India.) Beginning of Aquarius: " 35 minutes before or after Normal Star 32 " (Delta Cap-Deneb Algedi) Today's positions: K=29Cp47 F-B=28Cp48 (K is definitely closer to zero degrees of Aquarius.) The difficulty of zeroing in on a precise ancient zodiac is shown by the position of the norhern balance pan of Libra (Beta Libra), which is listed as 25 Libra in the Mesopotamian Catalogue fragment BM 46083 (page 150 in Astral Sciences). Today's position of that star is K= 25Li37 and F-B= 24Li38. '25 Libra' could refer to either position. I think it is rather foolish to claim that a very precise ancient zodiac existed. The positions listed above and others in the list of sign beginnings aren't spaced exactly 30 degrees from each other. Nevertheless, the positions indicate that today's sidereal zodiacs are very close to the somewhat imprecise Mesopotamian sidereal zodiac in terms of marking stars. Perhaps Ken Bowser or someone else will counter this conclusion, but this is my understanding at this time. It seems to me that any zodiacs chosen will ultimately have to be tested against events. I refer for example to angular or house division contacts of planets simultaneous with events. That would be a matter of least-squares or statistical fitting, as far as science goes. These fits may always be fuzzy due to the shape of the correlation curves. But usually the more approximate results are known well in advance from simple observation. With today's computers, it should be possible to decide on zodiacs in a short time and without any particular reliance on ancient texts. TIA, Jerry Therese Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted March 29, 2003 Report Share Posted March 29, 2003 At 12:17 AM 3/29/03 -0800, Gerald wrote: > Hello Terese, > Is the > Krishnamurti ayanamsha greater or lesser than the > FB? What is it currently? I would like to compare > them for mundane event activity in the same ingress. Hi Jerry, I will have to reply to your post in detail later when there is time. But in answer to your question, any Fagan-Bradley planetary position will be 59 minutes later in the Krishnamurti zodiac and 53 minutes later in the Lahiri zodiac. Thus a F-B planet at 1Ge0 will be 1Ge59 with K and 1Ge53 with Lahiri. You can work out the ayanamsas from there. Most computer programs do this automatically. You would subtract the differences (53 and 59 minutes) from the F-B ayanamsa to get the current ayanamsas for the other zodiacs. A K. table I have from an older book gives 23 47 40 as the 2003 ayanamsa. I'll be interested in the results of your research! Then, for mundane events, there is the parallax Moon question, which is being discussed on the NCGR astrology board. Therese Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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