Did the Pre-Indo-Europeans Influence the Formation of the Western Zodiac?, Гурштейн Александр Аронович, Год: 2005

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Did the Pre-Indo-Europeans Influence the Formation of the Western Zodiac?

Alexander A. Gurshtein
Mesa State College, Colorado, USA 1

1Currently, President, Commission on History of Astronomy, International Astronomical Union.
Journal of Indo-European Studies. Volume 33, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2005.

Abstract

As a result of astronomical considerations and an analysis of certain sets of zodiacal names as symbolic entities, the author develops a working hypothesis concerning the genesis of the Western Zodiac. Since the relative positions of stars remain practically unchanged for millennia, they are indispensable as markers for the movements of the roving celestial bodies — the Sun, the Moon, and the planets. The movements of the Sun in its annual cycle are very regular, and, for archaic observers, the Zodiac was used to mark its path. Four groups of stars served as ‘dwellings’ for the Sun on especially meaningful days of its voyage across the sky: the equinoxes and the solstices. At some point, these four special groups of stars (constellations) received cognomens infused with the symbolism of the seasons to which they belonged. Due to the conservatism of cultural traditions, the antiquated pagan ‘quartets’ were preserved in their original locations and with names close to the original, eventually comprising the twelve-strong Zodiac.
Based on the decoding of the zodiacal symbolism and its dating using the astronomical phenomenon of precession, the author contests the routine claim that the Western Zodiac originated in the time of the most ancient written data on this subject, which came down from the Mesopotamian cuneiform texts of the 1st millennium BCE. The author argues that the roots of the Zodiac go back to preliterate cultures. It was developed gradually in three stages. The earliest stage (6,000 to 4,300 BCE) dates back to the first herders and agriculturists soon after the Neolithic Revolution. Domestication of plants and animals required a solar calendar, and, accordingly, the first four seasonal markers on the track of the Sun were instituted. The names of these markers—modern Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces—were symbolic brainchildren of the period. It seems likely that they reflected the interests and world views of Pre- and/or Proto-Indo-Europeans.
The concept of zodiacal evolution was published in a number of magazines for astronomical audiences (see References) and was also received positively by researchers in various Humanities fields in several institutes within the Russian Academy of Sciences (History of the Zodiac in the History of Culture, 1995). So far, these publications and discussions remain practically unknown among English- speaking prehistorians in the West. This publication is an invitation to a critical discussion of the given problem among the Western scholars in the field ofIndo-European studies.

Introduction: Domestication of the Heavens

Before preliterate man could start on the path toward settled existence with domesticated animals and crops, he needed, in order to survive, to familiarize himself with his environment: the mountains, hills, valleys, forests, and rivers that surrounded him. He had, if you will, to domesticate it. When he migrated over vast areas in search of food and favorable living conditions, the nomad needed to have the means of orienting himself in space. As he watched the change of seasons, he would have inevitably had to learn to orient himself in time, as well (Clark, 1992). Terrestrial markers are not sufficient for these purposes. In order to locate himself in both space and time, the nomad would have to rely on the sky. Thus the ‘domestication’ of the immediate living space went hand in hand with the ‘domestication’ of the heavens.
The sky had two kinds of occurrences to offer man. The first were the rare and irregular events that instilled fear: solar and lunar eclipses, wandering planets, the appearance of comets, etc. To the list of such irregular and portential events were added atmostpheric occurences such as thunder and lightning, shooting stars and meteor showers, rainbows, haloes around the Sun or Moon, St. Elmo’s fire, etc. In the end, such celestial happenings, which continued to be considered remarkable well into written history, became omens for divination, a means for communicating with supernatural forces and looking into the future.
The second kind of occurrence were the regular ones, remarkable in their constancy, which allowed for the understanding and development of certain governing rules. Among these occurences were the cyclical change in the Moon’s appearance (lunations), the rotation of the entire celestial dome, the movement of the Sun relative to the horizon. Certainly for their practical purposes, the preliterate nomads chose the simplest of the regular celestial occurences: the changing phases of the Moon and the movement of the Sun relative to the horizon. Ancient science was engendered not so much by the experience on the turbulent Earth as by the collecting of knowledge about the sky. As a French/Russian historian of science Alexander Coyre (1892-1964) wittily remarked, science stepped down onto Earth from the heavens (Coyre 1985).

Lunar Month: The Firstborn of Archaic Astronomy

Nature gave all living creatures two natural cycles which govern their being: the day and the solar year. The use by ancient man of the lunar month can be considered a ‘historical mishap.’ It was developed and used solely on the basis of simplicity and convenience. The Moon in its various phases hangs as a giant clock in the sky, visible to anyone in reasonably clear weather.
We have little material evidence from the deepest strata of prewritten history in respect to the lunar month. It is, however, highly likely, as Daniel M. McDonald has mentioned in his The Origins of Metrology (1992), that not solar years with their uncertain duration, but the rigid, defined lunar phases (lunations) were utilized to establish the first well-known calendric system. This was a lunar month with its one-fourth portion, a seven-day subset now known as a week.
Traces of the inseparable connection between the Moon and calendar time units are apparent in most Indo-European languages, e.g., Lithuanian mnuo ‘moon, month’, OCS ms ‘moon, month’ and Sanskrit ms-moon, month’ from a root *meh1— ‘to measure’. We can say with a high degree of certainty that in everyday life a lunar appearance was used as a unit for time keeping. But this evidence is only a few thousand years old.
The most ancient substantive proof is acquired from petroglyphs on cave walls and markings on some portable artifacts. Thanks to persuasive parallel and independent research by Alexander Marshack (1918-2004) in the USA and Boris A. Frolov (1939-2005) in Russia, it was credibly demonstrated that certain systematic astronomical observations of the Moon date back to the Upper Palaeolithic. Both Marshack (1972 and 1991) and Frolov (1974 with an English translation as of 1977-79, 1981, 1992) agree that ancient hunters used a kind of a ‘pre-arithmetical system’ and conducted regular observations of the Sun and the Moon. A modern encyclopedia (Macey 1994: 75) dates the earliest uses of the Moon as a time-measuring device back to 28,000-30,000 years ago.

Constellating the Stars

Having started to domesticate the sky, ancient man found it necessary to learn how to mark the areas of the sky where certain events took place. Let us remind the reader that during Earth’s daily rotation, the stars move around like silver nails fastened to the dome of the sky: their positions relative to each other remain almost entirely constant. Stars and only stars could be used by ancient man as mnemonic devices to remember the locales of important celestial events. Naturally, at first, individual bright stars would do, but their number in the sky is extremely limited and, therefore, insufficient for regular practical use.
The more logical manner was obvious: to unite dimmer stars into groups, which today we know as the constellations. Thus, the ancients projected onto the sky a rudimentary reference system. They may not have thought of it in those terms, but the results, nevertheless, served the same purpose. As an aside, one can also conjecture that the same starry groups enabled migratory peoples to navigate in an open topographic landscape and carry the knowledge of certain constellations long distances. The unification of the stars into constellations with meaningful names marked the second mindstep of celestial ‘domestication’: the conceptualization of the sky.
Our information on the earliest constellations is no richer than on the lunar month. Publications of A. Scherer (1953) and Eric P. Hamp (1974) demonstrated how little we can reconstruct from linguistic analysis. Nevertheless, even cautious evaluations of the constellation age lead us again back to the Upper Paleolithic. In this respect, the case of special interest is the highly noticeable, seven-star Great She-Bear (Ursa Major). For a long time many historians of astronomy thought the Great She-Bear to be among the most archaic constellations of the world. It is possible to point out the reasons:
1) the name of this constellation circulated in many different corners of the Earth among many different cultures,
2) the main part of this constellation has a very characteristic outline with seven bright, sharp structured stars,
3) in the moderate latitudes of the Earth’s Northern hemisphere, this circumpolar constellation can be observed on every serene night, without any exceptions, in all seasons.
To the best of my knowledge, Owen Gingerich, of Harvard University, was the first to introduce the correct approach for estimating the age of the Great She-Bear on the absolute time scale and date it as far as the Ice Age (1984, 1992). He drew attention to the fact that—as well as in many other regions of the Earth—this name exists among some native people of Siberia, as well as among the native people of Alaska. Gingerich proposed that
‘a celestial bear crossed the Bering Straits with ancient migrants, especially… the same identification is found across Siberia, as has been pointed out to me by Alexander Marshack. Such an early tradition could well have diffused throughout the world from the ancient cave dwellers of Europe. In the widespread mythological connection of the dipper stars with a Great Bear (Ursa Major) we have a hint that a few of the constellations may date back as far as the Ice Ages’ (1984).
Consider the geological situation in this part of the Earth by the end of the last Ice Age, known as the Wurm Glaciation. Siberia and Alaska were covered with a common glacial shield, in pertinent scientific literature, this geological formation is named either Beringia (after the Bering Strait) or Arctida. It seemed to have a cold, dry climate, with a serene sky very suitable for stargazing. Upon the ice shield there was a thin layer of soil with good grass in summer. There were many different herbivores, which were not afraid of cruel frosts— herds of mammoths, wooly rhinoceroses, bison, and bears, whom Palaeolithic hunters hunted. The Bering Strait did not exist yet, and Palaeolithic tribes moved freely back and forth from Siberia to Alaska, spreading around common linguistic sources and worldviews.
This situation changed radically due to global warming, tundra with permafrost appeared in the place of Arctida, the fleecy herbivores died off, the sky was covered with low clouds, and the seas were tied together throughout the new-born Bering Strait.
It is obvious that linguistic commonalities were much more likely to appear before and not after the appearance of the Bering Strait, and this last date is known well enough geologically, the opening of the Bering Strait occurred 15 thousand years ago (Svitich and Taldenkova 1993), consequently, the Great She-Bear is not younger than this figure. Michael A. Rappenglueck in his dissertation (1999) did not hesitate to date the first constellation even earlier.
It is impossible to imagine that once the ancients began to combine stars into groups that they would limit themselves only to the Great She-Bear. Of course, there had to be several groups with bright distinguishable stars in their midst. Among the more obvious candidates to be the earliest are Orion, Canis Major, and Taurus. Due to their startling uniqueness in the sky, the Seven Sisters—the Pleiades—also must have been among the most ancient asterisms. It is important for us to emphasize yet again the fact that in investigating the origins of the constellations, as well as the question of the lunar month, we encounter datings that preceed the birth of literacy and the very possibility of these events being mentioned in writing by several millennia.

The Movement of the Sun Relative to the Horizon

Aside from the acquisition of the lunar month and constellating the stars, the other foundational landmark of archaic astronomy was the understanding of the characteristic movement of the Sun relative to the horizon. Such an understanding can be easily achieved using the earliest scientific instrument in the history of humanity—a rod inserted vertically into the ground (or a standing stone, e.g., an obelisk). There existed two similarly easy and effective solutions. A watcher of the sky could either mark the length of the shadow in the course of the day and compare the the length of the midday shadow from day to day, or he could mark from day to day the points on the horizon at which the sun rose or set. Naturally, these methods work only in the temporate latitudes of the Northern hemisphere, but that is only an argument in favor of their use since the great cultures of the Old World with the best known early grasp of atronomy—Mesopotamia, Egypt, China, and India—all flourished in the temporate latitudes of the Northern hemisphere.
Every day the Sun rises somewhere in the Eastern section of the horizon, reaches its highest point exactly in the South, and sets symmetrically at its culmination somewhere in the West. In the course of any given day, the shortest shadow is cast by the Sun at exactly midday, when the Sun is at its southernmost point. If one compares the lengths of the Sun’s midday shadows over the course of a year, he can easily spot four special days which today we call the solstices and the equinoxes. The longest and the shortest midday shadows mark days of solstices. On the day of an equinox the Sun rises exactly in the East. While actual weather conditions in any locale can cause uncertainty as to what season it is, the coming of the solstices and equinoxes can be used as an absolute and impeccable indicator of the change of the time of year.
The second method I mentioned is just as simple. All one needs to do is note from the same point every day the direction in which the Sun either rises or sets. The place where the Sun rises will swing over the course of the year to the right and left of exact East, and the most extreme points of deviation will mark the longest and shortest days of the year, the two solstices. The middle point between the two extremes would then denote the exact geographic East and would be the location of the Sun’s rise two times during the year during the two equinoxes.
The fact that early astronomical observations of the Sun’s position on the horizon were, indeed, performed has been confirmed numerous times by modern archaeoastronomy (see, for example, Aveni’s Archaeoastronomy in Macey 1994, or Walker 1996). Not yet having the ability to make positional observations of the entire span of the sky, the ancients reverted to the astronomy available on the horizon.
The use of either method described above would inevitably lead to two discoveries. The first would be the existence of four cardinal points of the horizon: South, West, North, and East. This discovery would account for the universal belief in the four corners (or four ‘pillars’) of the world. In terms of its age, one can only guess that it dates to the same time as the introduction of the lunar month. The positioning of the bodies of the ancient dead in accordance with the cardinal points of the horizon is unimpeacheable proof that they were widely known (for more details, see the article by Lawrence H. Robbins, Astronomy and Prehistory, in Selin 2000).
The second discovery would be the knowledge of the four special days of the year which mark the arrivals of the four seasons. Since both discoveries are connected to the same set of stargazing and have a bearing on each other, we have to acknowledge that the discovery of ‘openers’ for spring, summer, autumn, and winter may be as ancient as the discovery of the four corners of the world. The starting points of the seasons, equinoxes and solstices, correspond to certain positions of the Sun among the stars. As to the dating of their first use, the Encyclopedia of Time (Macey 1994: 75) notes:
‘a bone plaque dating from about 9000 B.C. is believed to show lunations extending to three and a half years, engraved in a format that may be interpreted as indicating the equinoxes and solstices‘.
The date given here, 9000 BCE, is much younger than the cited datings of the earliest lunar calendars, but even so, it is much older than any existing written sources. There can be absolutely no doubt that astronomical observations were performed long before the existence of written memory.

The Path of the Sun with Four Seasonal Points

Having united the stars into several groups, the ancient could not fail to notice that some of the newly-created groups were located close to the immobile point around which the entire celestial sphere revolves—the celestial pole. These groups, known as the non-setting, never in the course of the year dip below the horizon. All other stars, which make up the seasonal constellations, are only visible in the sky during a certain season of the year. Any practitioner of astronomy will know that once they put the stars into constellations, the ancient observers would grasp the idea of the celestial pole and a celestial equator which circumscribes the entire sky. The next mental leap after this, though not necessarily an easy or fast one, would be to understand that all the wandering celestial luminaries—the Sun, the Moon, and planets—always roam within a certain span of the sky which does not correspond to the celestial equator but is, in fact, tilted relative to it by 23.5 degrees, to be precise.
During the course of a year the Sun circumnavigates on the background of ordinary stars, which, as you remember, are practically fixed in the sky in relation to each other. The visible path of the Sun among the ‘fixed’ stars is called the ecliptic. This scientific term is derived from the Greek word and relates closely to the English eclipse due to the fact that solar and lunar eclipses can only take place when the Moon passes the ecliptic.
Especially important is the fact that the Moon and the planets also move close to the Sun’s path, sometimes dipping below it, sometimes floating above it. We can say that the Moon and the planets move through an ecliptic belt, whereas the Sun itself moves strictly along the ecliptic, never deviating below or above it. Only the path of the Sun among the stars is strictly fixed and easily predictable. The Romans called this path the via solis. This solar ‘road’ is marked today with the twelve zodiacal constellations, and so the problem at hand which we have only prefaced so far is to determine when and why the zodiacal constellations were instituted.
Currently, we know neither when archaic people started to distinguish, however roughly, the Sun’s path in the sky nor how many starry groups initially stood on this path. Nevertheless, knowledge of astronomical regularities allows us to reach certain conclusions unequivocally.
As we have demonstrated above, ancient observers could not have had any trouble following the Sun against its starry background. Speaking in modern terms, we understand that if you wish to pinpoint the position of a moving object, you have to mark it in a recognizable reference system. Dealing with the sky, the pattern of star groups—constellations—plays the same role as geographical features on the surface of the Earth.
For any astronomy practitioner, it would be evident that the positions of the Moon and the planets in the sky can be coordinated only by relating them to the starry background. For the positions of the Sun, it is not so evident. Nevertheless, we presume that the position of the Sun in the sky could be recognized by comparing it to the adjacent starry surroundings, as well.
The only possible objection to the conjecture that ancient man used the stationary stars to track the Sun is that there are no stars in the sky visible simultaneously with the Sun due to its brightness. But the ancient sky-watchers could easily distinguish the position of the Sun, for example, either with the first constellation in its track after sunset or with the last one before sunrise.
I have no facts at my disposal to allay reasonable doubts as to which of the possible methods was actually used. But we have a historic precedent: we do know for sure that in the first millennium BCE in Egypt, for example, the priests recognized the position of the Sun even during the night (Wells 1985, 1996). For daily morning prayers and offerings, they organized a procession at night, long before sunrise. This procession had to reach a holy place for worship exactly at the moment of sunrise. So, they had to predict the moment of sunrise with great accuracy and had to coordinate the position of the Sun in accordance with their view of the starry sky very carefully. Obviously, they possessed the knowledge necessary to do that. And this practice may really be much older. Thus, I am positive that the position of the Sun was referenced with the help of the starry background because astronomically no other method is available.
As it was demonstrated, the ancient stargazers must have known at an even earlier stage of their work about the four special days of the year (two solstices and two equinoxes). With observation over the span of generations they would sooner or later discover that on these days the Sun, for hundred of years, consistently remained in the same constellations. Eventually, all of these constellations took their place in the circle of the Zodiac.
It is evident for any astronomy practitioner that systematic observations of the starry sky clearly could have established a direct connection between the appearance of the night sky and the seasons of the solar year. At the same time, the correlation of the Sun’s maximum height over the horizon with the duration of daylight and darkness (i.e., the rising and setting points of the Sun at the horizon), should have inevitably led to the identification of not more than four special points on the ecliptic lying in the belt of the Zodiac. Marking the four special days of the year (or the four seasonal points of the ecliptic) required an introduction of four groups of stars.
Here, I would like to underline that—as a result of the routine astronomical observations of the Sun’s movement along the ecliptic in very archaic times—there should have been an identification not of one, two, three, or five, but exactly four, and only four, distinct points on the ecliptic. These points should have inevitably been introduced and fixed right after the discovery of the fact that the sequence of the four natural seasons (spring, summer, autumn and winter) was firmly connected with the annual motion of the Sun on the celestial sphere among the stars and could be forecast precisely thanks to the Sun’s movements.
Let me, then, stress two important conclusions. At first, we assume that, together with the observation of the phases of the Moon and the Sun’s movement in respect to the horizon, the Sun’s position on the ecliptic against the starry background had also been adopted at the earliest stages of astronomical observations. Secondly, we assume that the astronomical observation of the Sun’s movement along the ecliptic led in time to the identification of the four special points of the ecliptic (or four special groups of stars).
The same thought can be expressed in reverse order. The calendar was essential for ancient people because of the existence of four different seasons of the solar year. Seasons were determined by the location of the Sun in the sky. To distinguish seasons, the movement of the Sun along the ecliptic played a central role. Along the ecliptic, four special ecliptic points determined the location of the Sun, and, therefore, the features of the solar calendar.

The Phenomenon of Precession and the Head of the Zodiac

In its spatial motion, Earth’s rotational axis describes a cone about the axis of the ecliptic, causing the positions of the four seasonal ecliptic points (spring, summer, autumn, winter) all together to move along the circle of the ecliptic with a period of about 26 thousand years. Meanwhile, the plane of the ecliptic, as if glued to the stars, remains practically unchanged in the sky.
Concerning the Zodiac, one consequence of this phenomenon, known as precession, is that the positions of the equinoxes and solstices gradually move along the ecliptic. That is, the four seasonal points shift westward (counterclockwise in the Northern hemisphere) along the zodiacal insignias. It is not difficult to calculate that if the precessional period over which the four distinct points as a set circumnavigate a 360R circle is about 26,000 years, then they pass through each zodiacal constellation on average every ~ 2,160 years. To start with, we can consider it a sufficiently accurate value for each of seasonal points to remain within one zodiacal constellation for about 2 thousand years.
From a purely geometric point of view, the Zodiac is a belt which has neither a beginning nor an end. But ancient man, naturally, would have understood the correlations between zodiacal labels and the months of the solar year, and for him, not all of the labels had equal significance, they would have differed greatly in their relative meaning.
Ancient man felt in full force the rhythms of Nature. The calendar was for him not just a piece of paper, but a living testament to his unbreakable bond with Nature. So when did the new year begin for ancient man: winter, spring, summer, or autumn? As it was once decided in the Roman Senate, for Westerners the new year begins in the peak of the winter season, on January 1. In China this day jumps around within the confines of a month. For Arabs and Jews, the beginning of the new year constantly moves around, falling in different seasons of the solar year. Many other variants exist. So whose tradition should we honor?
Step back for a moment from the calendrical peculiarities of modern peoples and try to give a clear and unbiased answer to the question above: when does the new year begin according to common sense? Let us first agree that the ‘year’ is a real solar period determined by the Sun’s movement in the sky, i.e., the complete cycle of the seasons. In this case, the beginning of each natural cycle is the spring. Spring is the rebirth of Nature after the metaphorical and literal ‘death’ of Winter. It’s a time when new energy flows into all things living, a warm morning after the cold darkness of night. Easter is to this day consider the most important day in the Christian calendar because it preserves the symbolism of resurrection, the return of life from death. Spring is the obvious starting point for a new yearly cycle, and ancient spring rituals preserved to this day are well-known in various cultures.
The importance of spring’s symbology is indisputable, and the positioning of the point of the vernal equinox among the stars could reflect that importance. In the first century CE, this fact was repeatedly emphasized in the writings of the Roman astrologer Marcus Manilius (1977). By his time, the point of vernal equinox was located in Aries, and he wrote repeatedly, ‘Resplendent in his golden fleece the Ram leads the way.’ (1, 263), ‘The Ram who leads the signs.’ (2, 34), ‘The Ram as chieftain of them all.’ (2, 457), ‘The Ram’s distingiushed sign, which leads the rest.’ (3, 278).
Spring was the beginning of the new calendrical year in republican Rome and, as far as we can tell by the available data, this was typical of most archaic tribes and nations. From this, it is fair to say that the origin of the zodiacal circle was also the beginning of springtime. This belief is confirmed in all the sources available to us today.
If one concedes that the solar year must begin in spring, then surely one will not object to the naming of a lengthy period of time—the so-called astronomical world-age—also being given by the Sun’s position among the stars during the vernal equinox.

The Time Odometer: Astronomical Imprints of Historic Epochs

The names of the lengthy periods of time—Geminean, Taurean, Ariean, Piscean, Aquarean world-ages—were invented not by us and not today. They were known to astrologers at least at the dawn of our calendrical era because of the enormous role spring played and the corresponding symbolism of the vernal equinox.
As the song from the 1960’s musical Hair goes, ‘This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius’! Go to any Internet search engine, and you will immediately find not thousands, but tens of thousands of references to this momentous event. Both astrologers and astronomers inform us of the coming of the world-age of Aquarius. And these dispatches, strange as it may seem, are not antiscientific mystical rubbish. To switch to the prosaic language of dry facts, some time soon, as a consequence of the phenomenon of precession, the vernal equinox will leave the bounds of Pisces, where it was located since the time of Jesus Christ, and enter the territory of Aquarius. The Piscean Age will give place to the world-age of Aquarius. During different epochs, the coming of spring occurred in different constellations not as a result of human understanding, but as a consequence of the empirical observations of the location of the vernal equinox.
As was mentioned above, an average world-age lasts ~ 2,160 years. For today, the world-age of Pisces is about to be over, waiting to be replaced by the world-age of Aquarius. Prior to the Age of Pisces, there were the Age of Aries, Age of Taurus, Age of Gemini, etc. So, the world-age denotes about two millennia when seasons are marked by a certain set of four zodiacal groupings. From one world-age to another, such a set is different.
I do not think that the idea of world-ages dates very far back. Most likely not. For our purposes, however, this is of little import. What is essential is that precession influenced the position of the vernal equinox and three other distinctive points on the ecliptic regardless of whether the phenomenon itself was understood by the observers or not.

Each World-age Displays Four Seasonal Symbols

It seems obvious but bears repetition: for the moderate lattitudes of the Northern hemisphere a year is divided into four distinct seasons with varying climatic conditions. The importance of the division of the year into four parts is underscored even in the first lines of Genesis:
‘And God went on to say: ‘Let luminaries come to be in the expanse of the heavens to make a division between the day and the night, and they must serve as signs and for seasons [emphasis added] and for days and years…‘ (Genesis, 1, 14).
Thus, we have every reason to believe that each world-age was characterized not by one, but four celestial symbols, which corresponded to spring, summer, autumn, and winter. This thought is also underscored by Manilius. He speaks of the astrological signs of the four seasons:
‘These four signs have great power in the art of which I tell, for as they mark the changing seasons, so do they alter this issue of affairs or that, suffering naught to persist in its initial state’ (1977, 3, pp. 666-668).
So, each world-age is characterized by four seasonal symbols and, as it turns out, Claudius Ptolemy, working almost two thousand years ago, already showed interest in these symbols (Ptolemeus 1940). By measuring the Zodiac from the solstices and equinoxes, in the 2nd century CE, Ptolemy derived a system of three ‘qualities.’ In his astrological treatise Tetrabiblos (Quadripartitum), he considered that there are three very important quartets (tetragons) of the Zodiac: Cardinal signs, Fixed, or Solid, signs, and Mutable, or Common, signs. Claudius Ptolemy’s astrological classification will be practical and priceless in my forthcoming considerations.
Let us summarize. The world-age of Aries is characterized by four distinct points on the ecliptic which are in Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn. In Ptolemy’s classification, they are Cardinal (or, for his time, Solstitial/Equinoctial) Signs.
The world-age of Taurus is characterized by four seasonal points of the ecliptic which are Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius. In Ptolemy’s classification, they are Fixed (or Solid) Signs.
The world-age of Gemini is characterized by four seasonal points of the ecliptic which are Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. In Ptolemy’s classification, they are Mutable (or Bicorporeal) Signs.

Dedication to the Older Traditions

Before introducing our working hypothesis, it needs to touch on the extremely important problem of preserving the older traditions. This point is probably clear for historians but poorly understandable for my colleagues astronomers.
An opposition of two trends constantly molds the lifestyle of any given society: the knack for innovation vs. conservatism. By conservatism I do not mean ignorant phobia against any innovations. Conservatism in the cultural context is a force of habit, or the natural instinct of every man to preserve the best of his ancestors’ traditions: for example, the habit of men to dress almost exclusively in pants and women to dress almost exclusively in skirts, to protect the beliefs of predecessors, their symbolic rites, and so on. Tradition provides people with the comfort of predictability and security.
It is hard to address the question which of the stated trends—the tendency to innovate or the conservative dedication to traditions—weighs more on the scales of history. It depends. There have been peoples and times in history particularly sensitive to innovations. There have been exactly opposite situations. History has observed both. In a nutshell, I would like to point out here just one fact: healthy traditionalism in the life of society is as important as the love of innovations. Without conservative traditionalism, any society will become a horse without a bridle, carrying its rider in an unknown direction. Untested innovations could lead to a dead end, and sometimes could even turn out to be harmful and dangerous, while following set traditions always seems to be more cautious and safe.
The process of counteraction between conservatism and new ideas is well known in science. Science is completely aimed at novelties, and, even so, it is science that is marked by incredible conservatism intended to keep the boat from being rocked without necessity. Conservatism, or, to state it differently, dedication to traditions, has always played a major role in the lives of different peoples, particularly in ancient societies. This premise forms the basis for the science of ethnography.
Formed in the 19th century as a scientific discipline, ethnography is based on the outstanding steadiness of the officially adopted and unadopted traditional rituals and creeds. In its application to archaic man, this is the point as a scientist sees it:
‘The extreme slowness of change, as is borne out by the archaeological record, shows how closely early men clung to tradition in all fields. This was possibly because they felt implicitly the unity of all their culture and the danger of straying from tradition in any part of it. How could they know that any failure to carry out the customary rituals and to say the magic words would not result in the sudden overturning of the whole order of Nature: that it would not cut off the sources of food or bring decease? It was safer not to vary anything unless circumstances made it absolutely impossible to maintain the old tradition’ (Bernal, 1954, cited from 1965, Vol. I, 81).
In this regard, the general tendency of historical cultural transmission to retain names through the generations is valuable. This seems to be true of the constellations also, which have held their names with a tenacity comparable to that of place-names on the Earth (such as landmarks and bodies of water). Among many other examples, the names and images of the twelve zodiacal constellations are convincing evidence of the stability of cultural traditions.
Indeed, many attempts have been made to rename radically the pagan zodiacal constellations. For example, Christian authors at various times have sought to alter the names of celestial figures to ones drawn from sacred history and its interpretation. In England, the Venerable Bede, in the 7th century CE, substituted the eleven apostles for eleven of the early signs, as the Corona seu Circulus sanctorum Apostolorum (Allen 1963). It was Gregory of Tours who applied Biblical names in France (McCluskey 1990). On the Julius Schiller’s map entitled Coeli stellati Christiani haemisphaerium posterius (see, Cellarius 1661), the zodiacal signs had been replaced as follows: S. Petrus, S. Andreas, S. Iacobus major, S. Ioannes, S. Thomas, S. Iacobus minor, Philippus, S. Bartholomae, S. Matthaes, S. Simon, S. Iudas Thaddaeus, and S. Matthias.
In certain other astronomical publications, in place of the pagan names one can find names from the Old and New Testaments (Flammarion 1872). Sir William Drummond, in the 17th century, turned his constellations into a dozen Biblical patriarchs (Allen 1963). Around the same time, a certain professor from Jena University in Germany, E. Weigelius, sought to introduce a Coelum heraldicum, in which the ancient zodiacal signs were substituted with the coats-of-arms or insignia of European dynasties and by symbols of commerce (Encyclopedia Britannica, see the entry Constellation). All the endeavors described above suffered failures.
The information we possess on the Zodiac embraces almost two and a half millennia, including the final stage of the Mesopotamian culture, the Antiquity period, the epoch of Hellenism, the birth of Christianity, the rise of Islam, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, and modern times. The original reasons for adopting the signs of the Zodiac were completely forgotten at least as far back as Antiquity, nevertheless, the appearance and names of these ancient pagan constellations, despite all the changes of the socio-cultural context, have remained practically inviolable up to now.
It is correct to conclude that the astronyms (the names of the celestial objects) are characterized by a high degree of stability equal to that of toponyms and hydronyms. In fact, the assumption that the constancy of zodiacal designation is meaningful can be used in the analysis of the most ancient epochs because the most ancient civilizations were oriented primarily not towards innovation, but assimilation and transmission of the features that preserved social structure. The Russian historian, I. P. Weinberg (1986: 50), notes in this connection:
‘The orientation on traditions dominated ancient Oriental society and the culture of the ancient Near East. It was conditioned by the specificity of many of… the premises of cultural development but, most of all, by the essence of mythological mentality, in accordance with which the traditions of the Past and the experience of ancestors were evaluated as the absolute truth and as the model for the following generation. The domination of absolute truth. is connected with. the adherence to the standards that express and reflect this truth, to stable stereotypes of behavior, idioms of speech and formulae, motives and forms of imitative arts. A man possessing a mythological mentality felt himself calm and assured in his familiar environment and usual conditions. That is why his house and utensils, dress and meal barely changed for thousands of years, and that is why the literature and art genres are so stable, each of them having permanent plots, formulae, methods, and this is the reason why new temples were not only constructed in the places of former ones, but also imitated their exterior, hence, the general canonicity and the aspiration to repeat the experience of predecessors.’
In cases where pre-written societies have survived into historically recorded or modern times due to the conservatism of cultural traditions and their likely similarity on equal stages of progress, ethnographically collected data could be used as the model for the reconstruction of human history before literacy emerged. In Central America, for example, the aboriginal written records were analyzed in conjunction with early European records, archaeological information, and oral traditions. The comparison allowed to recognize and recreate certain features of prehistoric life in both areas.
The postulate of the constancy of traditional astronyms is one of the important pillars in the system of premises to support my forthcoming proposed archaeoastronomical reconstruction, the case of the Chinese sky being a unique exception (Xiaochun and Kistemaker 1997).

An Everlasting Merry-go-round in the Sky

As Eric P. Hamp commented, ‘in reconstructing earlier cultural configurations we must recover the structure-points and pattern of the earlier cultural sub-system and we must seek the contemporary phase of natural world, where applicable, to which those earlier systems were referred’ (1974: 1047). He insisted we have to include into consideration the ‘contemporary realia.’ Following this appeal, this author now wants to offer to you his working hypothesis based on the astronomical approach.
Some time during the world-age of Gemini (roughly between 6,000 and 4,300 BCE), ancient astronomers highlighted the path of the Sun with four star groupings, which corresponded to spring, summer, autumn, and winter. These four star groupings were the precursors for modern constellations of Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces. There is a good chance that some of these groupings already existed in those locations. In that case, due to an unconscious desire to perpetuate tradition, the older preexisting configurations were disturbed as little as possible. We cannot, however, rule out the possibility that some groups were freshly arranged to serve specifically the purposes of plotting the Sun’s path. This is probably most relevant for Pisces, which, despite its huge area, contains virtually no noticeable stars and thus would be unlikely to have been among the earliest constellations, which tended to grow around bright stars.
If at one time, the changing outward appearance of the Moon before people’s eyes was used to serve as the clock face for a lunar calendar, now the Sun’s arrival in one of the designated areas of its path signaled that a new season of the solar year was starting. The four designated areas on the ecliptic became the clock face for the solar calendar. After this innovation, ancient astronomers’ duties became easier because the need to observe regularly the length of the Sun’s shadow or the position of the Sun’s rise on the horizon vanished. The beginnings of yearly seasons could be determined in one day as a result of a direct observation, just like the beginnings of lunar months.
If some starry groupings existed in the re-utilized locations in an earlier epoch, it is difficult to say what their names were. In any case, the names of all four of the newly acquired celestial emblems were adjusted and made interconnected in such a way that they could be considered as a unified symbolic entity. This was necessary both to provide an appropriate way to remember the names and create a meaningful sequence that could be transmitted orally from generation to generation. Since that ancient time, the location of these four constellations and their names—at least the symbolic essence of those names—have not undergone any major changes in the European tradition. For the sake of convenience, in the ensuing pages, we shall call the four constellations of a given world-age a ‘quartet’ and distinguish the quartets from each other by naming them after the spring constellation. Thus, for example, the world-age of Gemini in our terminology is denoted by the quartet of Gemini.
As we already demonstrated, from a practical point of view, even for ancient man, there was absolutely no problem to locate the four distinct ecliptic areas for spring, summer, fall, and winter. According to our modern archaeoastronomical understanding, it was as easy as putting a stick in the ground and measuring its shadow (Ruggles 1999). In this context, the possibility that four markers on the ecliptic could be instituted as early as the world-age of Gemini should not provoke any arguments.
Due to the unceasing influence of precession, by the start of the world-age of Taurus (approximately between 4,300 and 1,800 BCE), the positions of spring, summer, autumn, and winter shifted together like a rigid system into the modern constellations of Taurus, Leo, Scorpio, and Aquarius (the Taurus quartet). In order to recognize that the previous four markers were no longer accurate, ancient astronomers needed a sufficiently long time, no less than several centuries, which can be characterized as a transitional period. We can say the same things about the four new symbolic groups of stars as we said about the previous four. Their function remained the same: to serve as the clock face of the solar calendar. As with the first quartet, there is a possibility that certain starry groups had already existed in the needed locations, but we cannot rule out that some of them were newly instituted. Their names were edited or introduced so as to create a novel symbolic succession which reflected the socio-cultural context of the new historic era.
It is important to note that through the power of conservation of traditions and the specificities of the transfer of knowledge, none of the ancient astronomers could have even thought of erasing the previous four constellations on the Sun’s path. Doubtless, the constellations of the previous quartet remained in their places, which brought the total number of meaningful groups on the ecliptic to eight, although in all likelihood the overall number of starry groups on the ecliptic could have been even larger. One extra group, for instance, was the small but very characteristic stellar cluster known as the Pleiades, which was most likely included in the constellation of Taurus much later than the described epoch.
Lastly, already after the invention of writing, due to precession, the world-age of Aries (1800 BCE — the brink of our era) arrived. The positions of spring, summer, autumn, and winter had once again shifted, this time into the modern constellations of Aries, Cancer, Libra, and Capricorn (the Aries quartet). As far as this quartet goes, we know for certain that it was subject to modifications. First of all, there had previously been no constellation in the sky for the new autumnal position, this place had been occupied by the claws of Scorpio. They were dismembered so as to form a new independent starry group under the symbolic title of the equilibrium—the Balance. Someone also conceived the idea of renaming the already existing Mesopotamian starry group, the Hireling (hired farm-hand), which was now located in the new spring position, into an appropriate spring symbol—the Ram (or the Lamb), a sacrificial spring animal (Gleadow 1968).
Groups of stars that did not directly interfere with the positioning of the solar calendar markers on the ecliptic were left unharmed. Thus, Ophiuchus, the mighty Serpent-holder, was left untouched on the ecliptic despite its sizeable area. More importantly, with the addition of a third quartet, the total number of meaningful starry groups on the ecliptic now reached twelve—the same as the number of lunar months in a solar year. These twelve groups are in fact what we inherited as the zodiacal constellations, which even later were turned into twelve geometrically equal signs of the Zodiac.

World-ages: Meaningful and Not

From an astronomical standpoint, the zodiacal constellations form a circle with twelve theoretically possible quartets. Thus, we can also extrapolate the possible quartets that could have predate the quartet of Gemini, which, as it was mentioned, was valid between 6,000 and 4,300 BCE. These include the quartet of Cancer (8,000 — 6,000 BCE), the quartet of Leo (10,800 — 8,000 BCE), etc. We should once again reiterate that the boundaries in time between the quartets are very fuzzy. They depend on how we measure the spring’s position: by its factual location in the real constellation or by its theoretical location in the corresponding geometrically regular zodiacal sign. Discrepancies occuring between the different approaches can reach several centuries.
One can easily object that the aforementioned zodiacal constellations did not even exist in the days we are talking about, and I would agree. For example, I am absolutely positive that Cancer did not exist in 6,000 BCE. What is necessary to remember, though, is that despite the non-existence of this constellation, the vernal equinox of the time was still located in the area, which later became the constellation of Cancer.
Now let us state that if the four constellations of each quartet served as seasonal labels to indicate four distinct ecliptic points, they had to be used simultaneously as an ensemble. In this case, we can compile the data formally in Table 1, where every line reflects the quartet for marking the distinctive points in a certain period of time.

Table 1: The Zodiacal Quartets in Various Epochs Due to Precession

Approximate time

Spring

Summer

Autumn

Winter

10,800-8,000 BCE

Leo

Scorpio

Aquarius

Taurus

8,000-6,000 BCE

Cancer

Libra

Capricorn

Aries

6,000-4,300 BCE

Gemini

Virgo

Sagittarius

Pisces

4,300-1,800 BCE

Taurus

Leo

Scorpio

Aquarius

1,800 BCE- 1 CE

Aries

Cancer

Libra

Capricorn

1 — 2,600 CE

Pisces

Gemini

Virgo

Sagittarius

2,600-4,500 CE

Aquarius

Taurus

Leo

Scorpio

I have already drawn attention to the fact that highlighting the Sun on the ecliptic requires a simultaneous distinction of exactly four special points. So, a further consideration requires a collective analysis of the ecliptic constellations within the limits (and only within the limits) of the quartets that are designated. In ancient times, when one world-age changed to another because of precession, sky-seers could empirically determine a new unity of four constellations for the seasonal points of the ecliptic and also had the possibility of proposing new symbolic labels which preserved the integrity of the concept within the limits of the new quartet.
The changing quartets are the direct result of precession and the everlasting movement of the four special points along the ecliptic, regardless of whether or not ancient observers comprehended the cause of the difference between their observations and those of their predecessors. Having no idea of the existence of the precession, they might have thought that the difference between their observations and the canon of their predecessors derived either from the inaccuracy of their predecessors’ data or from the will of the gods. Each time, the placement of the distinct points would have been determined by a purely empirical method from direct visual observations. Other known physical results of such observations—the accuracy of the pyramids’ orientation, for instance—speak to the accuracy of these results.

The Core of the Working Hypothesis

So far, our working hypothesis has been based on astronomical considerations and deals with only three quartets. Its primary supposition consists of the idea that ancient observers utilized the quartets of ‘seasonal’ constellations as labels of the corresponding seasons of the year. Having already structured the sky with starry groups, they noticed that four of the constellations served as ‘dwellings’ for the Sun on especially meaningful days of its voyage across the sky: the equinoxes and the solstices. Whether immediately or not, these four special constellations received cognomens infused with the symbolism of the seasons to which they belonged. Through the influence of precession, approximately every two thousand years, the skywatchers were faced with the problem of changing the quartets. The observers could not have understood what caused the quartets to become outdated. In any case, due to the conservative cultural traditionalism, the antiquated quartet was of course preserved while a new quartet was added to it, updated with current symbolism once again reflective of the change of the solar seasons. We do not dare to guess whether the constellations of the new quartet were named anew or if the observers restricted themselves to corrections and adjustments of preexisting names.
Moving on to a more rigorous formulation, our working hypothesis suggests that the twelve-strong zodiacal belt along the ecliptic was elaborated gradually in three stages. Each quartet of zodiacal constellations was the product of astronomical observations of the behavior of the ancient celestial god—the deified Sun. The necessity of the ecliptic constellations was determined by their value for calendrical purposes. These constellations were heavenly ‘lodges’ —the icons to garnish the celestial areas that included the vernal, summer, autumnal, and winter points. To fulfill this aim, not only bright but also faint stars were included into the ecliptic constellations.
A key precept in our working hypothesis is that the cognomens of the constellations had absolutely nothing to do with their outward appearances, they metaphorically mirrored prevailing views on the rhythmic development of natural events in context with the religious-mythological mentalities of the epochs when they served as labels. They mimicked such metaphorical progressions as ascent — height — descent — depth, or morning — noon — evening — midnight.
So, our working hypothesis is about interpretation of a quartets’ symbolism. The analysis of Cancer’s quartet for the epoch from about 8,000 to about 6,000 BCE (or all others before it) makes no sense from the viewpoint of its symbolism since the archaeological artifacts do not back up the use of such symbols from the corresponding eras. In Table 1 these early quartets are mentioned merely as a formal possibility that aids in explaining the effects of precession. Only three lines of Table 1—the quartets of Gemini, Taurus, and Aries— provide substantiated and self-consistent symbolic results. This means that they were the only three quartets that were instituted as interconnected symbolic assemblages. As for the quartets that were used after the dawn of the common era, they were still necessary for astronomical purposes but would have lost the symbolic meaning which their constituent constellations had in the original quartets during their institution in the sky. As a result, the original cause of quartets was soon fogotten forever.
Analysis of the symbolism of the second zodiacal quartet (the quartet of Taurus) will lead us to ancient Egypt at the time of the Great Pyramids. Analysis of the third quartet (the quartet of Aries) will lead us to ancient Egypt at the time of Akhenaten the Heretic. But those times move outside the scope of this paper, and that is why we shall restrict ourselves to the first quartet only, the one that most closely approximates the dates generally ascribed to Proto-Indo- European.

The Validity of Symbolism

Being a professional astronomer, I feel I must clarify my view on the problems, which are distant from normal astronomy and are not evident to some of my colleagues: the problems of symbols at large. A symbol is not merely a picture displayed on paper or carved on rock. Symbols are the condensed articulation of beliefs, aspirations, and abstract ideas in visible form. Symbols rarely reveal their full depth of meaning, rather, their destiny is to inspire the imagination. In the broadest sense, a symbol could be an agreed-upon graphic sign, a verbal formula, or even a gesture.
There is no conventional definition of symbolism. One can consider it to be the art of thinking in images. Another way of viewing it is as a more precise and crystallized mode of expression through indirect means. In the author’s mind, a rather observant consideration of symbols belongs to Erwin Ramsdell Goodenough (1893-1965) who wrote:
‘A symbol is an image or design with a significance, to the one who uses it, quite beyond its manifest content. Or. we may say that a symbol is an object or a pattern which, whatever the reason may be, operates upon men, and causes effect in them, beyond mere recognition of what is literally presented in the given form‘ (1988, p.40).
An important corollary to the definition of symbols is that they are never frozen in time. In fact, symbols are quite often polysemantic, possessing complex and richly multivalent significations. They can have multiple meanings with unforeseen transmutations in time, and decoding the meanings of symbols may be accomplished only in the frame of their associated epochs.
It is vital for the research at hand that the extensive use of symbolism be recognized as a dominant major component of ancient mentality, but the author must concede that not all scholars are willing to grant this recognition. In denying the symbolic approach to the decoding of constellation names, for example, the prolific astronomical writer Ed Krupp ridicules the relevance of celestial symbols. In one of his recent explanatory reviews of archaeoastronomy (2000), he writes:
‘While both the Bull and Bear offer an engaging opportunity for investment in a truly archaic constellation, the validity of these identifications is no more certain than the stock market.
Of course, neither the Bear nor the Bull is an inconsistent element of the Paleolithic landscape, and the same logic liberates from any cultural restrictions recognition of a Lion and Scorpion in the stars. Paleolithic hunters, Neolithic farmers and herders, and urbanized Bronze Age priests all could have been receptive to celestial zoology‘ (p.51).
I am forced to disagree with the cited attack. The writer’s declaration is actually a call to think of all celestial symbols regardless of time and space. Moreover, he does not distinguish between the receptiveness of symbols and their fitness for utilization as novel ones.
The subtle but fundamental premise of Krupp’s argument is that all of the celestial animals (and other labels) had equal symbolic valence from the Paleolithic on simply by virtue of inhabiting ancient humans’ surrounding. This, however, is both simplistic and inaccurate. The analysis of zodiacal signs as symbols is appropriate to justify the given timing not because we know bears and bulls to have physically existed in the Palaeolithic landscape but because we have cultural (rather than natural) evidence that certain of these animals during certain periods took on a larger significance than the fact of their mere existence for the humans who shared their world. And because we know certain animals (as well as other elements of the natural world) to occupy the human imagination more than others at various points in time, we can utilize the cultural evidence, written or not, of the use of these labels as one form of proof to suggest a likely time and place when these subject were turned into symbols, in our case celestial.
In the 21st century, we modern people are also receptive to celestial zoology. This does not matter, however, because we have to analyze not so much receptiveness as the appropriateness of mental patterns to be addressed as symbols. Symbols are outcomes of a certain time and a certain land. They are the brainchildren of their respective historical epochs and they are ultra-sensitive to alterations in the social climate. To assume that there was no distinction in the use of symbols by ‘Paleolithic hunters, Neolithic farmers and herders, and urbanized Bronze Age priests’ is no better than, for instance, to declare that there are no differences between symbols born in the Roman Empire, the Christian Medieval times, and the epoch of the Industrial Revolution.
In developing of the working hypothesis, it was necessary to demonstrate:
1) the radical differences in the symbolism of the three zodiacal quartets,
2) the interconnectedness of the symbols in each quartet which constitute a single meaningful simplegma,
3) the exactitude with which the symbols in each quartet correspond to the respective symbolic systems of the eras to which we date them using astronomical data.
Omitting all other arguments, in this paper we shall focus on the four symbols of the quartet of Gemini that, in accordance with its astronomical timing, overlaps with the periods of Pre-Indo-European (Lehmann, 2002) and Proto- Indo-European (Mallory, 1989, Mallory and Adams, 1997) cultures. The big question, then, is ‘Does symbolism of this quartet really fit into its time and the culture of the early Indo- Europeans as we understand it?’

Cherishing Anthropomorphism: the Gemini Quartet

The quartet of Gemini was a functional calendrical tool during the world-age of Gemini, which lasted from about 6,000 to 4,300 BCE. Looking at the Near East (Anatolia, Mesopotamia, Syro-Palestine, Egypt) and the adjacent so-called Old Europe (Aegean and Adriatic areas extending to the Czech Republic and Slovakia, southern Poland and the western Ukraine), in line with modern archaeologists, we have to state that the era of nomadic hunters had already passed by this time in those areas. The inhabitants of these territories led a primarily settled way of life in villages reliant upon domesticated plants and animals. The inhabitants of these villages numbered in the hundreds. The new food-producing lifestyle manifested itself in the emergent artistic tradition of the Neolithic (Feder 1995). The world-age of Gemini certainly falls into the period of history after the Neolithic revolution when minor sedentary and matrilineal communities flourished (Fagan 1996).
In his overview of archaeoastronomy in traditional areas of Eurasia, the Polish archaeologist, Stanislaw Iwaniszewski (1999:92) comes to conclusions that are very supportive of our own:
‘This Mesolithic-Neolithic transition appears to be a very interesting epoch of cultural transformations. Obviously, one can expect that a series of changes in traditional patterns of life, such as gradual acquisition of sedentarism (associated with the intensive exploration of maritime resources), and the development of social stratification and social division of labor could have resulted in more elaborate conceptions of temporal strategies and models. Obviously, if the substitution of lunar tallies with the solar calendars is proved, then the implication is that around that time, the formal arithmetic and structural bases for calendars were transformed‘.
Despite the introduction of numerous novelties by the Neolithic people, the settled population that skillfully domesticated plants and animals inherited many views and cultural traditions of its Paleolithic ancestors. The work of one of the most influential and controversial archaeologists of the 20th century, Marija Gimbutas (1921-1994), helps one to understand the state of affairs in greater detail:
‘In art and mythical imagery it is not possible to draw a line between two eras, Palaeolithic and Neolithic, just as it is not possible to draw a line between wild and domestic plants and animals. Much of the symbolism of the early agriculturists was taken over from the hunters and fishers. Such images as the fish, snake, bird, or horns are not Neolithic creations, they have roots in Paleolithic times. And yet, the art and myths of the first farmers differed in inspiration and hence in form and content from those of the hunters and fishers‘ (Gimbutas 1982: 11).
Keeping in mind the remarks of both authors, let us consider the Gemini quartet, which is comprised of Gemini (Spring), Virgo (Summer), Sagittarius (Fall), and Pisces (Winter). Of the three world-ages (Geminean, Taurean, and Ariean) that immediately antedate the oldest known record of the twelve-strong Zodiac, the Gemini quartet stands out because it contains three of the four existing anthropomorphic (humanlike) constellations in the Zodiac (Gemini, Virgo, and Sagittarius), and thus actually constitutes a sort of Anthropodiac—a circle of humanlike creatures. Of all the anthropomorphic figures of the Zodiac, only Aquarius remains outside this quartet. No other anthropomorphic personages exist in the Zodiac. Are you not curious as to why practically all of them, with only one exception, are concentrated in a single quartet? After all, anthropomorphic images are common among the artifacts of the Neolithic (and older) peoples, so it seems consistent that such images would be placed in the sky, as well.

Paired Deities Who Appear at Dawn

In analyzing the symbolism of the names of the Gemini quartet’s constellations, we start with the head of the quartet, Gemini. Would this duo have been known and significant in the Neolithic world? Our current knowledge point to the fact that yes, twins were one of the central cultic figures in Proto- Indo-European culture (Mallory 1989).
The birth of twins seemed for ancient peoples to be an unexplainable mystery of Mother Nature, and the image of twins was commonplace in the ancient world. Without a doubt, the Divine Twins were pagan gods. They played a significant role in many cultures and held a unique and important place.
In a much later epoch, for instance, during the time of Homer, the twins’ myth was presented in the form of a story about the Dioscuri. In Greek mythology, the Dioscuri were the two divine brothers, Castor and Polydeuces (Castor and Pollux in Roman mythology). That particular story, however, was not the only version of the myth, and, importantly, in other renditions, not both of the twins were always boys.
In the study of folklore and mythology, it is conventional to distinguish two main categories of twins: those of like sex (parallel twins) and those of opposite sex (cross twins). Mythological traditions of both categories are very rich and remarkably similar throughout the world (Ward 1968). Predating Homer, the Divine Twins were a recurrent theme of many religions. Such a theme was well known not only in the mythologies of the Greeks and Romans but Indians, Mitanni, Persians, Armenians, Germans, Balts, Slavs, and many others. Especially rich data surfaced from the Indo-European heritage. In terms of archaeological finds, the principal gods of the Indo-European pantheon were the God of Thunder, the God of Sky (the Indic Dyaupitar, Greek Zeus pater, and Latin Ju-piter, literally ‘sky father’), the Great Goddess, the God or Goddess of Earth, the Cultural Hero. The Divine Twins also secured a prominent place in this series (Meletinsky 1991).
In ancient India, twin deities, the Asvins, were the earliest bringers of light in the morning sky, the couple that prepared the way for Dawn. They were thought to be the brothers of the Glorious Dawn (Usas) and children of the Sun (Bowker 1997).
The widely spread cult of the twins in Indo-European mythology goes back to a general Proto-Indo-European myth about the heavenly twin children of a supreme Sun-god. This myth appears in all major ancient Indo-European traditions. In his book on an Indo-European myth in Germanic tradition, Donald Ward sums up all the facts in following words:
‘The evidence is too overwhelming to allow more than one conclusion: The Divine Twins, sons of the Sky God, brothers of the Sun Maiden, were well-defined deities in the Proto-Indo-European pantheon, and they were borne by the various migrating peoples to the new homelands, where the religious concept changed remarkably little through the centuries in the new environments‘ (1968: 28).
There is a version of the twins’ role in the creation of mankind. It proposed that the Proto-Indo-Europeans believed that the progenitors of mankind were Man and Twin, ‘the latter of which was sacrificed and carved up by his brother to produce mankind’ (Mallory 1989: 140).
Since the idea of twins as progenitors of mankind was prevalent (and probably relatively new) roughly during the same time as the institution of the first quartet, little wonder that we can find its traces not only on Earth, but in the sky, as well. The constellation of Gemini was called the Great Twins in the Mesopotamian text mulAPIN.
The problem of the Divine Twins was scrupulously investigated by numerous authors (see, for example, Golan 1991). Most of them insist that there is every reason to believe that the Divine Twins came into being much earlier than the Indo-European invasion of the Near East and Old Europe. A worship of divine twins existed as early as at least the dawn of the agricultural era, i.e., in the early Neolithic age, which is the subject of our concern.
Based on everything stated above, the importance of twin symbolism for spring within the Gemini quartet is unquestionable. In spring, flora and fauna come alive. It is spring that is the natural beginning of every annual cycle. Gemini, as the source of regenerated life in the mind of ancients, could be easily seen as a metaphor for the conception of life, the springtime renewal of nature. It is a very proper metaphor for the historic epoch in question.

Virgo was not a Virgin

The second constituent within the Gemini quartet is Virgo, which corresponded to the summer solstice during this epoch. It is not granted that a figure of a virgin could have ascended to the sky in ancient times since then the ideal of sexual innocence and purity was probably in no way considered a feminine virtue. Nevertheless, the roots of a feminine figure in the archaic sky can be interpreted without hesitation.
For ancient humans, the birth of a new being was the main miracle of Mother Nature, and the woman’s body served as the metaphor of fertility and creativity. Starting with the Paleolithic, thousands of female figurines christened ‘Paleolithic Venuses’ have surfaced among archaeological finds. This image is typical of the art that ranges from the Palaeolithic to the early agricultural societies: the figurines of nude, pregnant women and women giving birth, thus symbolizing fertility, are widely known thanks to archaeological data. James Mellaart (b. 1925) pointed to the finding of small cult female statuettes practically in every house during the excavation of Hacilar-VI (nearly 5,600 BCE) (1965). Mellaart proposed that the figurines excavated by him in that area were designed for the performance of the rites of a fertility cult. They lacked sexual symbolism, and their exterior was primarily aimed at displaying pregnancy.
The most prolific scholar on the role of a woman during the Neolithic was Marija Gimbutas whom we cited earlier. She viewed the culture of the time as being
‘characterized by a dominance of woman in society and worship of a Goddess incarnating the creative principle as Source and Giver of All‘ (1982: 9).
Gimbutas contrasts ‘Palaeolithic Venuses’ with ‘Neolithic virgins.’ In her publications, she more than once emphasized that goddess symbolism focuses on the enigma of birth and death and the renewal of life, not only human but all life on Earth and indeed in the whole cosmos. There was probably more than one female goddess in the Neolithic. Gimbutas concludes:
‘With the inception of agriculture, farming man began to observe the phenomena of the miraculous Earth more closely and more intensively than the previous hunter- fisher had done. A separate deity emerged, the Goddess of Vegetation, a symbol of the sacral nature of the seed and the sown field, whose ties with the Great Goddess are intimate‘ (1982: 237).
Did the Greeks mislead us with the name of the zodiacal constellation, Virgin? Is it possible that the name Virgo originally stood for ‘young woman’ and the connotations of sexual innocence were attached much later to a figure who was actually meant to symbolize the fertility of youth and whose Greek/Latin name was descriptively neutral rather than actually misleading?
In agreement with Gimbutas and many other scholars, there are the avenues of searching for the roots of the sign of the summer solstice. Virgo may be a symbol (or a mutated symbol) of summertime fertility. It would be reasonable to link the celestial Virgo with the cult of the Mother-goddess that was so widely spread in the Palaeolithic and Neolithic times, including cultures of Proto- and Pre-Indo-Europeans.
There is also an additional meaningful key to the celestial Virgo. It is important to underline that Virgo in all the known ancient astronomical portrayals is represented with an ear of grain in her hands, which echoes the depiction of the terrestrial Goddesses and which should be seen as further emphasizing the connection of the celestial figure to fertility.
Possibly, it was not until a certain point of time in Greece, where chastity was increasingly demanded of women and projected onto goddesses as class societies developed and where the attributes of the goddess were transformed, that a vestal Virgo appeared in the sky instead of a life-giving woman. Originally, it seems that the celestial Woman could not be a virgin.

The Hunting Archer and Two Fishes

The autumnal constellation of the Gemini quartet is Sagittarius—a centaur, or simply a hunting archer on horseback, with a bow in his hands. Was hunting yet another miracle of Mother Nature? Yes, it was for the ancestors of the Neolithic people. Supporting their very existence, it was murder in the name of life.
The utilization of tamed or domesticated horses added another layer of symbolic meaning to hunting. As T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov (1984, 1995) note, the Indo- Europeans distinguished horses as primarily domestic animals, the creatures that were ritually the closest to people, an indication of the ritual significance of horses is the tradition of burying kings together not only with their wives, but also their horses. The importance of the horse in the Proto-Indo- European culture is stressed by Mallory (1989).
A. Yu. Militarev (1995) insists that when they are read correctly, cuneiform texts written during the Sumerian period refer to Saggitarius as ‘old man’ or ‘elder kinsman’. Militarev then proceeds to assert that we have no information as to the name of this constellation in the pre-Sumerian period. I cannot agree with this. After a mutation, the Sumerian name in fact evokes and preserves the original symbolic meaning of the constellation. For early agriculturists, hunting and armed defense of their land remained an important activity. No doubt the ‘elder kinsman’ would deal directly with these duties, and in this conext, semantically, ‘elder kinsman’ and ‘archer’ become closely related. The term ‘elder kinsman’ not only does not exclude, but, rather, suggests the possibility that he would own a horse, an expensive commodity, and would participate in activities requiring bow and arrows.
Sagittarius fully fits the autumnal symbolism. As was mentioned before, hunting as an activity fits into the symbolic view of a world moving in a cyclical pattern, with life leading to death leading again to life. When a hunter took an animal’s life, he perpetuated his own, and were an animal to kill him, the animal would be, by sustaining itself, also providing future sustenance for the hunter’s progeny. Likewise, the Sun in its annual journey in autumn had to give less light and heat, symbolically to die (and take plants and hibernating animals with it), before its springtime resurrection. A celestial hunter, then, would seen an appropriate metaphor for man to mark the beginning of autumn, for he brings the death that will make the inevitable return of life all the more joyful and miraculous.
Armed with a bow, Sagittarius can only be an archaic person. In the epoch of the Gemini quartet, bows started to be replaced with more sophisticated types of weapons. Sagittarius’ bow thus stands as a vestige of an older age and points to his earlier origin.
It is very essential that, in accordance with modern literature in the field, in mythology the three ancient metaphors—Divine Twins, the Great Goddess, and horses— were firmly linked together through a number of mutual symbolical properties. For example, the name of the twin Vedic deities, the Asvins, literally means ‘horse possessors’, they have very strong parallels with the Greeks’ Dioscuri as well as with Lettish and Lithuanian mythologies (Mallory 1989, Meletinsky 1991). Is this not evidence that all three celestial labels comprise a mutually interconnected thematic togetherness on the path of the Sun?
In winter, the Sun reaches its lowest midday position in the sky and appears to linger over the threshold of the Lower World, corresponding to Pisces, the fishes of the Gemini quartet.
The 19th-century British ethnographer Sir Edward Burnet Tylor (1832-1917), the leader of the time in cultural evolutionism, and many others have illustrated the cross- cultural link between winter and the concept of a Lower World. Numerous rites in various cultures indicate that water has long been considered to be the primary element of the Lower World. With the help of rich ethnographic material, E. B. Tylor concluded (1871, I cite the 4th edition):
‘It is by the simplest poetic adaptation of the Sun’s daily life, typifying Man’s life in drawing beauty, in mid-day glory, in evening death, that mythic fancy even fixed the belief in the religions of the world, that the land of Departed Souls lies in the Far West or the World Below. How deeply the myth of the sunset has entered into the doctrine of men concerning a Future State, how the West and the Under-World have become by mere imaginative analogy Religions of the Dead, how the quaint day-dreams of savage poets may pass into honored dogmas of classic sages and modern divines,- all this crowd of details here cited from the wide range of culture stand to prove‘ (1903, Vol. 2, 48-49).
M. Eliade elucidates the same connection in numerous works, as well (for example, 1949). The generic ‘Land of the Departed Souls’ is situated in the Far West, beneath a watery boundary. Likewise, the River Styx of the ancient Greeks was considered to be an essential element of the Lower World. Perhaps the waters of the Lower World had no anthropomorphic images when the quartet was created, and so a pair of fishes served the purpose. Marija Gimbutas repeatedly mentions fishes among the most important symbols of the Neolithic peoples (see also Baring and Cashford 1991).
There is no doubt that bodies of water—vast and extremely specific ecosystems—seemed to the Neolithic people to be yet another marvel of Mother Nature. The symbol of water—fish—was ascended to the godlike, which is evidenced in archaeological finds.
In this way, the reconstruction of the symbolism of the four constellations, which we call the quartet of Gemini, seems logical and not difficult to fit within the frames of the general Neolithic religious-mythological mentality. Underlining the characteristics similar to all four symbols, we first note that all of them manifest the amazement of the Neolithic mind before the unexplainable marvels of Mother Nature: the wonder of the birth of twins, the miracle of the reproductive process itself, and the marvel of supporting life through hunting and fishing. Three of the four symbols are anthropomorphic. Since it is impossible to find an anthropomorphic symbol for water, the fourth symbol— aquatic—became the fishes.
Those listed are the major peculiarities of the symbolism of the Gemini quartet. Aside from these major features, there exists a less significant and more problematic detail, but one worth mentioning nevertheless. This detail is the dualism of the symbols in the Gemini quartet.

The Dualism of Archaic Symbology

It is both curious and important that Marcus Manilius, the afore-mentioned Roman astrologer, describes five of the zodiacal signs—Gemini and Pisces (images of pairs), Sagittarius and Capricorn (composites), and Virgo—as doubled rather than singular images. Of these five, four belong to the quartet of Gemini. Ptolemy goes even further and directly refers to all four members of the Gemini quartet as bicorporeal, i.e., having two distinct main parts. Is there a deeper meaning behind these references?
Considering the symbolism of the constellations on the Sun’s track, we unwillingly again touch on the more complicated issue of archaic symbolism at large. Like modern mascots, symbols then were visualized ideas. Thinking through apparent images, i.e., symbolical mentality, was born with the making of human mentality itself and, as far as we can evaluate today, long before the Neolithic revolution. Before they could domesticate plants and animals, primeval hunters/gatherers had to ‘domesticate’ the landscape, i.e., adjust their lifestyle as well as they could to the environmental realities. In the absence of a developed oral vocabulary, associations, primarily graphic ones, better served this goal. Archaic symbolism is a gigantic tier of human culture based on the belief in the magical power of associations that served as tribal emblems, distinctions of property, were used for healing and for cult rites.
Ancient symbolism, which made itself known long before the birth of literature as a genre, had various levels of complexity. There are serious grounds to suppose that, echoing the specificities of human mentality, the earlier symbolism was in its core dualistic, or, if you prefer, binary. Behind this term is the fairly simple idea that primeval man obviously leaned towards thinking through binary oppositions. Being extrapolated to prewritten history, research of later sources shows such meaningful binary oppositions for ancient man could have been day and night, male and female, top and bottom, left and right, good and evil, etc. These oppositions are broadly reflected in ancient philosophies (Toporov 1982). Mallory (1989: 140) suggests that binary oppositions were the underlying structures of Indo-European and Proto-Indo- European ideology.
The best symbols must have been those that in themselves combined features of both oppositions, for example, twenty four hours as a unity of daylight and nighttime, a dangerous hunting beast as a combination of good and evil, primeval chaos as a mixture of sky and earth (top and bottom). The latter—the unification of top and bottom—might also have been embodied by vertical slabs dug into the ground, along with the many other axis mundi, knowledge of which has been well preserved through oral traditions, from this practice came tombstones and later funerary kurgans.
Dealing directly with the Indo-Europeans, the issue of ancient binary symbolism was closely examined by a number of Russian authors. Thus, T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov emphasize that
‘the dualism of the social organization of the ancient Indo-European society. greatly influences the nature of the spiritual life of ancient Indo-Europeans and determines the binary character of religious and mythological mentality as well as some features of the model of the real World‘ (Op.cit., Part 2, pp.776).
In simplest terms, a dualist symbol is a composite created by combining at least two elements each of which has a meaning attached to it. These elements typically characterize different aspects of a whole. A dualism can be relative or absolute. It is said to be relative if one element is held to be subordinate to, derivative from, explicable by or in any way dependent upon the other. If the elements are independent and contrasting, then the dualism is absolute (see, for example, the entry Dualism in the Encyclopaedia Britannica).
The zodiacal quartets in our mind, amazing yet true is the fact that binary (dual) symbols that are totally absent in the next quartet are used in all four symbolic labels of the Gemini quartet. The fact that all of the four constellations of the quartet of Gemini are binary indeed is of collateral importance for our research.
The absolute dualism of Gemini’s symbol (twins) needs no prolonged explanation. Even having no knowledge of their exact meaning, two bodies are contrasting elements of a whole process. The second member of the Gemini quartet is the Mother-goddess. This image as the symbol of fertility in the fine arts, as I have mentioned above, is doubled by another symbol of fertility—a relative one in respect to the woman— the ear of wheat.
The duality of the symbol of a horse and a rider is indubitable, as well. The horse is an element to stress mobility of the whole, while another element, the man, stands as characterization of successful hunting. The symbols rely on each other to create a meaning as a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Moreover, Sagittarius as a centaur, man and animal physically fused into one, appeared only in Antiquity. There is a much older picture of Sagittarius on a Babylonian boundary stone of the Kassite period (the second half of the second millennium BCE), it depicts a horse with a creature on its back having two heads, two tails, and two wings, this symbol is doubly dual (Waerden 1966).
Lastly, all of the known pictures of Pisces consist of not just one fish, but two of them facing in opposite directions. Once again, the presence of two complementary elements that constitute an absolute dualistic symbol in this emblem is unquestionable.
The fact that the majority of the ecliptic constellations with clearly expressed binary symbols turn out to be concentrated in the quartet of Gemini seems significant. Neither Cancer, nor Leo, Scorpio, Aries, or Taurus possess binary symbolism. Aquarius is the only constellation possessing this probable dual nature in the quartet of Taurus: in the ancient material, he often carries two vessels in his hands. Libra and Capricorn (two of the four constellations in the quartet of Aries), could be claimed to have a binary interpretation. Libra is certainly drawn with two cups, though it is a single symbol of the equilibrium, while Capricorn, which resembles a mermaid in the imitative material, is also a single creature, in this sense, it differs radically from the Babylonian version of Sagittarius which has two heads and two tails.
Dualism is a common visual and structural feature of all four symbols of the Gemini quartet. In my opinion, every common feature distinguishing one quartet from others is additional evidence that each quartet was designed and executed as a singular thematic entirety.
Thus, the coincidence of the symbolism of the quartet of Gemini with the widespread Neolithic symbolism and Indo- European myths, as well as its dualism, clearly displayed in this quartet, are the evidence that all four of these constellations belong to a single symbolic unity. We have more than enough reasons to suggest either the Pre-Indo-European or the Proto- Indo-European origin of the examined symbolism. The timing of these cultures is in full agreement with our working hypothesis.
The problem of Pre-Indo-European culture was summarized by Winfred P. Lehmann (2002). This culture, defined as a result of linguistic, archeological, and genetic research, is attributed mainly to the period between 8,000 and 5,000 BCE. Having preserved a number of characteristics of the preceding hunters/gatherers, Pre-Indo-Europeans led a settled way of life and practiced herding and agriculture. Socially connected groups were modest in size, and they had no central power that dominated any considerable territory. Pre-Indo-Europeans occupied small settlements. Each one was a family with a head who was master of his extended family. Tribal chiefs were independent of one another, though they sometimes might make temporary and unstable coalitions.
Being agriculturists, Pre-Indo-Europeans had a tendency towards expansionism. They easily moved from place to place with a highly developed sense of adaptability. In new surroundings, they quickly exchanged knowledge and spiritual views with the aborigines. Researchers believe that the basis for this expansionism was the horse:
‘… The horse had been domesticated as early as the end of the sixth millennium, and was prominent in the assumed Indo-European community from the fifth. Used initially for food, the horse only later became the means for territorial expansion. Increasing evidence for it is found in the Moldau area and the Hungarian plains in the fourth and third millennia, which Meid associates with the expansion of the Indo-Europeans. This type of horse was the tarpan, in contrast with Przewalski type that was prominent among Asiatic people who later used it in their raids on Indo-European settlements‘ (Lehmann 2002: 41-42).
The heirs of the Pre-Indo-Europeans were the Proto-Indo- Europeans. On the basis of linguistics, J. P. Mallory stated:
‘… Proto-Indo-European language is commonly ascribed by linguists to the period ca. 4000-2500 B.C. with some room for debate concerning how much earlier one may set the existence of the protolanguage‘ (in Fagan, 1996: 347).
The homeland of Proto-Indo-Europeans is still unknown, so we can define the epoch but can not define the territory where the first proto-zodiacal constellation-makers resided.
The members of the quartet of Gemini were the earliest constellations fixed on the ecliptic for the purpose of creating an agricultural solar calendar. We can call them the constellations of the first quartet, or the first generation. Our idea is in a complete accord with the previously mentioned thoughts of Stanislaw Iwaniszewski. Note that if we try to examine the quartet of Cancer (constellations of Cancer, Libra, Capricorn, and Aries), which precedes that of Gemini as far as its epoch is concerned, not a single assertion that we made above (the correspondence to the socio-cultural context of the epoch, the integrity of the quartet’s symbolism as a circle of anthropomorphic gods, the connection of the symbols with the corresponding seasonal points of the ecliptic, the water character of the ecliptic constellation in winter, the dualism of all symbols) would suit it. The quartet of Cancer, and all other before it, are just artificial astronomical constructs without real historic sense.
The quartet of Gemini is the first one that interconnects all its elements into the symbolic system, which, in turn, fits into its historical period determined due to astronomical phenomenon of precession. On Egyptian materials, the same can be demonstrated in respect to the quartets of Taurus and Aries (Gurshtein, 1993, 1995, 1997).

Conclusion

The most ancient written data on the twelve-strong Western Zodiac came down from the Mesopotamian cuneiform texts of the 1st millennium BCE (Waerden 1966, Gleadow 1968). This data provide the basis for a frequently made claim that the Western Zodiac originated during that particular time in Mesopotamia, and that from the beginning it was conceived as a system of twelve constellations. The writers making this claim propose no explanations as to why the Zodiac would have been instituted at this certain time in this certain place. Moreover, the suggestion that such complex and sophisticated twelve-strong symbolic system as the Zodiac could have been envisioned all at once is obviously very problematic.
Based on the decoding of the zodiacal symbolism and its dating using the astronomical phenomenon of precession, as was done in the previous investigation, the author sees no pro and too many contras in respect to the standard view of the Zodiac’s origin. In his mind, the very long history of the Zodiac is evolutionary, and the roots of the Zodiac go back much deeper to preliterate cultures. It appears that the twelve- strong Zodiac was developed gradually in three stages, and the earliest stage dates back to the early herders and agriculturists soon after the Neolithic Revolution. In harmony with the surrounding world, the introduction of four ‘seasonal’ markers on the annual path of the Sun was an appropriate response to the challenges of the newly sedentary lifestyle of the Neolithic. The use of domesticated plants and animals urgently required a solar calendar, and this vital issue was successfully addressed through the introduction of the first zodiacal quartet. The pagan names of the first four markers on the path of the Sun—modern Gemini, Virgo, Sagittarius, and Pisces—were symbolic brainchildren of the period dated by precession 6,000 to 4,300 BCE. What is the most important point is that these celestial labels seemed to reflect concepts and worldviews of Pre- and/or Proto-Indo-Europeans. They are images of a Neolithic settlement.
It seems that our conclusions coincide with the larger cotemporary conceptions on how the human mind works in the process of historical development. The interlocked string of symbols that we have uncovered in the course of this investigation dovetails beautifully with the larger precepts of structural anthropology developed by Claude Levi-Strauss. The string of symbols in a zodiacal quartet is comprised of specialized conceptual units acting as the intermediate developmental step between concrete, sensory-based images and abstract notions. The symbols demonstrate the full capacity of pre-literate minds for logical thinking and testify to the fact that the ability to think rationally and execute basic logical functions found in pre-literate societies was not inferior to those of more technologically advanced civilizations. As Levi-Strauss showed, the aptitude for thought is the one universal constant of human psychic activity present in all cultures and civilizations (Levi-Strauss 1966). ‘Savage’ minds are more the capable of ‘coding’ information used to identify similarities and differences between quite complex categories of experience.
The symbolic potency of the first four constellations on the path of the Sun, their implicit importance which allowed them to survive thousands of years of cultural change, and their consistence with ancient patterns of thinking and worldview, at least as some of the scholars understand it, all point to the fact that in the Zodiac we have a rich and untapped source of data, as well as a living reminder of the ancients’ creativity. While written evidence is missing and material evidence is often scant, by combining numerous sources of information, some of them rather elusive but still very useful—linguistics, for instance—with a dose of educated and reasonable conjecture, we can reconstruct events and ideas that delve into the depths of time that would otherwise remain utterly hidden.
Needless to say, a project so ambitious and extensive in scope will transcend one lifetime and require the labor of more than one scholar. In proposing his concept in this article, the author hopes not only to gain supporters for his ideas, but also to excite his colleagues about the possibilities of developing these ideas to their full potential and to issue an open invitation for collaboration to all those who dare to ask questions and attempts to find answers about some of humanity’s most ancient cultural artifacts.

Acknowledgments

While developing my views on the evolution of the Zodiac, I had some very fortunate opportunities to discuss numerous issues with experts in various fields: Igor M. Diakonov, Aharon B. Dolgopolsky, Owen Gingerich, Albert P. Gulyaev, Vyacheslav V. Ivanov, Igor L. Kyzlasov, Alexander Marshack, Stephen McCluskey, Dmitry S. Raevsky, Archie E. Roy, Clive Ruggles, Bradley Schaefer, Vladimir N. Toporov, and many others. I recollect these meetings and discussions with sincere gratitude. I appreciate a permanent support and inspiration by James Rybak. Dr. James P. Mallory was kind enough to help me fine-tune the draft of this article, while Ksenya and Michael Gurshtein were instrumental in improving the nuances of my English language.

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1997 The Chinese Sky during the Han: Constellating Stars and Society (Sinica Leidensia, Volume XXXVIII). Leiden, Brill.

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Journal of Indo-European Studies. Volume 33, Number 1 & 2, Spring/Summer 2005.
Гурштейн Александр Аронович
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