The Constellations How today's 88 constellations came to be Part 1: Ancient Origins

At any given night, humans can see up to 2,500 stars in the sky with the naked eye. for as long as there have been humans, there have been myths and legends about those stars and many societies organized groups of stars (called asterism) together in constellations. The primary focus of this site is not astronomy, but Star Lore, which is folklore based upon stars and star patterns. We try to create a collection of mythical stories about stars and constellations from all over the world. However, the stories needed to be sorted in a certain order, and the universal order human astronomy agreed upon about 100 years ago is the system of 88 constellations designated by the International Astronomical Union in 1922. To better understand the myths and legends of stars and constellations, a brief history of the development of our modern constellations might be helpful. This is by no means a scientific paper on the history of astronomy, but merely an illustrated collection of highlights of that history, along with some links to what we think are reliable sources on the subject. For a detailed history we recommend Ian Ridpath's excellently written Star Tales.

Bits of the history of our constellations

Oral Tradition of the Cosmic Hunt (ca. 13 000 BC) The Cosmic Hunt, an old and widely distributed family of cognate myths evolved in Northern Europe and Siberia. The story is about a large animal that is pursued by hunters, wounded, and transformed into a constellation (the Big Dipper). From Siberia, the story was carried with the first humans to settle in the Americas. The original prototype of the myth must have been invented at least 15,000 years ago for it to have diffused across the Bering land bridge. Sources: Enn Ernits: On the Cosmic Hunt in North Eurasian Rock Art, Yuri Berezkin: The Cosmic Hunt: Variants of a Siberian – North-American Myth, Wikipedia

Late Stone Age ocher rock drawing of a hunting scene at the Maia River in Central Siberia Source: Okladnikov & Mazin, 1979

The first Zodiac Constellations (ca. 3200 BC) Three early zodiac constellations, lion, bull and scorpion were found on cylindrical seals in Sumer and Elam, dating back to 3200 BC. At that time, these constellations marked three of the four cardinal points (both solstices and the spring equinox). Source: J. H. Rogers

Cylindrical seal from the Elamite capital Susa, ca. 2500 BC; click image for description Source: J. H. Rogers

The Nebra Sky Disk Dating back to 1600 BC and to the Unetice culture of the European Bronze Age, the Nebra sky disk is the oldest concrete depiction of the cosmos yet known from anywhere in the world. The bronze disk is inlaid with gold symbols that are interpreted as the Sun (or a full moon), a lunar crescent, and stars, including a cluster of seven stars interpreted as the Pleiades. At the time the disk was manufactured, the Heliacal rising of the Pleiades occured arround the halfway point between the autumn equinox and the winter solstice, a date that became later known as Halloween in Celtic culture. Source: Wikipedia

Nebra sky disk Source: Wikipedia

MUL.APIN (686 BC) The MUL.APIN star catalog was a Babylonian listing of 66 stars and constellations and five planets. The table is named after the first word on it (mul.API stands for today's constellation Triangulum). The oldest copy of the MUL.APIN table discovered so far has been dated to 686 BC. It is widely believed, that the original table was developed around 1000 BC. Many of today's constellations, including all twelve Zodiacs as well as Orion, Andromeda and Ursa Major date back to this tablet. J. H. Rogers and Gary D. Thompson provide detailed listings and interpretations of the MUL.APIN tables. Sources: Wikipedia, J. H. Rogers and Gary D. Thompson

MUL.APIN tablet Source: Wikipedia

Eudoxus (ca. 390 - 337 BC) and Aratus (ca. 315 – 240 BC) Encouraged by Plato, mathematician Eudoxus of Cnidus introduced geometry into the calculation of the movement of celestial bodies. He also developed a first comprehensive star catalogue, containing a full set of the classical constellations. During Eudoxus' lifetime, knowledge of the Babylonian MUL.APIN star catalogue had spread through the ancient world and Eudoxus reputedly learned about the Mesopotamian constellations from priests in Egypt and introduced them to Greece. While his original writing, called Phaenomena is lost, his catalogue was rewritten between 275 and 250 BC by Aratus of Soli. Aratus’s rewriting of Phaenomena provided a complete list of the constellations known in ancient Greece. The names of some of the brightest stars in the northern Sky, among them Sirius, Procyon and Arcturus, can also be traced back to Aratus. Source: Wikipedia

Ancient Greek constellations of the northern hemisphere by Johann Buhle (1793-1801) Source: David Thompson

Hipparchus (ca 190 – 120 BC) Hipparchus of Nicaea is considered the founder of trigonometry. His greatest achievements in the field of astronomy are the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes and a star catalogue containing the positions of at least 850 stars. Based on his observations, he constructed a celestial globe depicting the constellations. Whe Hipparchus compared his observations with earlier star charts, he discovered that the longitude of the stars had changed over time, which led him to determine the first value of the precession of the equinoxes. Hipparchus's star catalogue has gotten lost, but in the first century BC it was used by Ptolemy, who extended it to 1,022 stars.

The Dendera Zodiac (ca. 50 BC) The Dendera Zodiac is a ceiling relief in the Hathor Temple at Dendera. It displays a merge of Greek, Mesopotamian and Egyptian Zodiac symbols, showing familiar Greek symbols such as Ram, Taurus, Libra, Scorpio, and Capricorn but also others like the Egyptian flood god Hapy standing in for Aquarius. There have been several attempt to date the Dendera Zodiac, ranging from 50 BC (Sylvie Cauville of the Centre for Computer-aided Egyptological Research) to the fourth century AD (famous Egyptologist J. F. Champollion). John H. Rogers refers to the Dendera Zodiac as "the only complete map that we have of an ancient sky."

The Dendera zodiac as displayed at the Louvre Source: Wikipedia

Sources: Wikipedia, John H. Rogers: Origins of the ancient constellations, Jonathan Powell: From Cave Art to Hubble

The Farnese Atlas (2nd century AD) The Farnese Atlas is named after Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, who later became Pope Paul III. He acquired the sculpture in the early 16th century and exhibited it in the Farnese Palace in Rome. The 2.1 meters tall statue carries a celestial globe 65 cm in diameter. Historians believe the sculpture was probably made in Rome around the second century AD as a copy of a Greek original from the second or third century BC, around the time that Aratus wrote his Phaenomena. The globe depicting 41 of the 48 classical Greek constellations distinguished by Ptolemy, making it, as Ian Ridpath puts it, "our only firsthand look at the star pictures that the ancient Greeks imagined in the sky." Antike Himmelsbilder by Georg Thiele shows eight detailed images of the globe. Sources: Wikipedia, Ian Ridpath, Jonathan Powell: From Cave Art to Hubble

The Farnese Atlas Source: italianways.com

Ptolemy (ca 90 – 186 AD) Compiling the observations of previous Mesopotamian and Greek astronomers, Claudius Ptolemy compiled a comprehensive treatise on astronomy, called Almagest, which became the most influential scientific text on astronomy for centuries to come. It cemented the geocentric model of the Universe for the next fourteen centuries and contained a catalogue of 1,022 stars that remained the standard star catalogue in the Western and Arab worlds for over eight centuries. Ptolemy's star catalogue covered the entire sky as it was visible from Alexandria in the second century AD. His list of forty eight constellations laid the foundation to the modern system of constellations. Source: Wikipedia and Ian Ridpath

Ptolemy's constellations of the northern hemisphere by Albrecht Dürer (1515) Source: Ian Ridpath

Ptolemy's 48 Constellations

Andromeda Andromeda	Aquarius Water-Carrier	Aquila Eagle	Ara Altar	Argo Navis Ship	Aries Ram
Auriga Charioteer	Boötes Herdsman	Cancer Crab	Canis Major Greater Dog	Canis Minor Lesser Dog	Capricornus Horned Goat
Cassiopeia Cassiopeia	Centaurus Centaur	Cepheus Cepheus	Cetus Whale	Corona Australis Southern Crown	Corona Borealis Norhern Crown
Corvus Raven	Crater Goblet	Cygnus Swan	Delphinus Dolphin	Draco Dragon	Equuleus Foal
Eridanus Eridanus	Gemini Twins	Hercules Hercules	Hydra Water Snake	Leo Lion	Lepus Hare
Libra Scales	Lupus Wolf	Lyra Lyre	Ophiuchus Serpent Bearer	Orion Orion	Pegasus Pegasus
Perseus Perseus	Pisces Fish	Piscis Austrinus Southern Fish	Sagitta Arrow	Sagittarius Archer	Scorpius Scorpion
Serpens Snake	Taurus Bull	Triangulum Triangle	Ursa Major Great Bear	Ursa Minor Little Bear	Virgo Virgin

Links lead to the respective Wikipedia sites for each constellation. 47 of Ptolemy's 48 constellations have been adopted by the IAU; 45 of them without change. Ptolemy's version of Leo included the asterism Coma Berenices, which was first listed as an individual constellation in 1536. Ptolemy's version of Centaurus included the asterism Crux, which was first reported as a constellation by European sailors in the 16th century and was first listed as an individual constellation in 1603. Argo Navis was originally accepted by the IAU in 1927 but was split into Carina, Puppis, and Vela by in 1930.

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