Chapter III
Africa and Asia prove the existence of a highly developed civilization that was strongly
influenced by astronomical and astrological knowledge.
In a museum in Peru, a rock shows the engraving of a human figure looking through a
telescope to the sky. This piece of art is estimated to be more than 30,000 years old. This
is just one of the many archeological treasures that shows that there must have been
other cultures before our culture was born less than 1,000 years ago.
The Greek historian Solon claimed that astronomical observations and calculations
were made nine thousand years B.C. (or 11,000 years ago).
Oracle bones from the Shang dynasty (17th to 11th century B.C.) mention astronomi-
cal observations of stars more than 4000 years ago, which were then interpreted as being
lucky or unlucky. In many parts of the 9 Chinese Classics and certainly in the 5 canons or
“Ching books” astronomical/astrological observations are described as coming from this
same period.Differences between Chinese and Western Astrology............................................
The main differences between Chinese and western astrology are their reference points.
In western astrology, stellar positions are found and calculated in the ecliptic. The ecliptic
is the trajectory the sun apparently makes around the earth, through the Milky Way. The
plane of the ecliptic is inclined at an angle of 23 ½ degrees to the plane of the equator.
The ecliptic is also known by
Chinese astrologists as the yel-
low route, but they also work
with the North Star as the cen-
tral reference point in the sky
and the celestial equator or red
route as the base line. In this
context the lunar zodiac is used
where the moon cycle around
the earth (28 days) is divided
into parts of 1 day (thus, 28 seg-
ments). This is also related with
the 28 years it takes Saturn to
turn around the sun. The Chi-
nese zodiac or 12 animal cycle
also refers to the 12 years it
takes planet Jupiter to move
around the sun.Fig. 3.2 Diagram shows the Red Path and
Yellow Path (the celestial equator and the ecliptic).