Australian Sky & Telescope - April 2018

40 AUSTRALIAN SKY & TELESCOPE April 2018

SEAL: CM DIXON / HULTON ARCHIVE / GETTY IMAGES; TEMPLE PHOTO: LEEMAGE / UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP / GETTY IMAGES; TEMPLE DRAWING:

DE AGOSTINI / BIBLIOTECA AMBROSIANA / GETTY IMAGES

Enlil,andtheparamountdeityoftheSumerianpantheon.

Thus the title Pa-bil-sag for the stars of Sagittarius can be

read as a residual of early 3rd millennium BCE Sumerian

astro-nomenclature.

It is, however, doubtful that Pa-bil-sag was originally

envisioned as an archer-centaur: Centaurs do not appear

in Mesopotamian art until the late 2nd millennium BCE,

and centaur-archers even later. However, there’s absolutely

no doubt that the classical Sagittarius figure did originate

in Mesopotamia, because the archer-centaurs that appear

on the Egyptian zodiacs carved in the temples at Dendera

and Esna on the Nile during the final two centuries BCE

under Hellenistic Greek influence are exactly the same as

archer-centaurs that appeared on Neo-Assyrian cylinder seals

around 800 BCE.

The ‘watery’ zodiac

As to the origins of the ‘watery’ constellations of the zodiac

— Capricornus, Aquarius, and Pisces — briefly, the celestial

Goat-Fish seems to have been invented around 2100 BCE

as the descendant of a celestial goat-prowed Boat that had

previously occupied these stars; and the Water-Jar and

Streams of Aquarius probably go back at least to the early

4th millennium BCE as they were the special icons of Enki,

whose city Eridu was the cultural centre of Mesopotamia at

that time. In any case, the Water-Pourer figure appears on

Mesopotamian cylinder seals as early as 2300 BCE. Pisces,

however, was likely a late addition to the ‘watery’ part of the

Mesopotamian heavens because: 1) there’s no clear mention

ofcelestial‘Fishes’inthetextsofthe2ndmillenniumBCE;

2)evenanamelikeMUL.APIN’sKunmeš (‘Tails’), is indirect;

and 3) at least one part of the classical Pisces, the asterism

of the Circlet, had a separate name in Sumerian — Ším-mah

(‘Great Swallow’), which goes back to the 3rd millennium

BCE. Taken together, these facts suggest that the zodiacal

Fishes were an afterthought inspired by the presence of the

more ancient ‘watery’ constellations near it.

MORNING HARVEST This impression, made from a seal dating to

c. 2300 BCE, shows a winged Ishtar/Inanna holding her date cluster

(Coma Berenices) over the rising Sun-god, Utu. The water-god Enki, his

Streams replete with fish, steps over a crouched Bull. A Raven (Corvus)

perches on Enki’s hand. To Enki’s right stands the two-faced vizier,

Isimud. At left, a Lion (Leo) roars at a figure carrying a bow (possibly the

war-god Ninurta). This seal illustrates the heavens just before sunrise

at the time of the southern-Mesopotamian date harvest during the 3rd

millennium BCE.

HALF HORSE WARRIOR The archer-centaur, a familiar concept in Mesopotamian art, was associated with the Sumerian deity Pa-bil-sag, whose

name was given to the star pattern that became Sagittarius. The Greek-influenced archer-centaurs that appear on the Egyptian zodiacs in the

temples at Dendera, such as the one circled above, are identical to those found on Neo-Assyrian cylinder seals engraved c. 800 BCE.

ZODIAC HISTORY