Sky Stories

[sdi]

Well, shit. I think I finally figured it out.

It's well-known that the myth of Perseus is illustrated in the night sky:

There's Perseus holding Medousa's head (the demon star Algol from Arabic ra's al-ghul "head of the ogre"), rushing to save Andromeda, chained to a rock, from the sea monster Ketus (the ecliptic nicely acting as the surface of the sea), while Kepheus and Kassiopeia look on.

This is often said to be the only complete mytheme still illustrated in the constellations as we know them today, but I just realized that this is mistaken: there's another one, right next to it:

Nut is the sky. Geb is the earth, and his penis is the axis the earth turns around. Their children are the constellations, and Ra prevents her from giving birth because the Sun hides the constellations from view: we can only see them at night. Osiris is the one we call Orion, the great man in the sky, and the shape of Orion is, I presume, the reason why the Egyptians drew figures in their peculiar profile. The Nile is the Milky Way, of course, and there we see Isis in her boat, which we call by its Greek name, the Argo, still sailing the Nile searching for her husband. Osiris's penis is highlighted in the myth because it's the most notable feature of his constellation, though we call it Orion's sword. (Perhaps this is a euphemism, though; in Greek, the word for sword, ἄορ, literally means "hanging thing.") Next to Osiris, we see the Apis bull, though we call it by its Latin name, Taurus. The children of the constellations are, of course, the stars: Horos is Sirius, the brightest star of heaven, literally following in his father's footsteps; while Anoubis is Canopus, the second-brightest, attending to Isis in her boat.

Thus the theogony, as I said, is exoteric because everyone can look up at the sky and see the constellations; but the Mysteries are esoteric because only the initiated can look up at the sky and understand what the constellations mean.

Comments

[randomactsofkarmasc]

When I was studying the Herakles' myths (and the Zodiac), I found Gavin White's research into the Babylonian Zodiac quite enlightening. The Babylonian constellations are based on Tiamat mythology, but some of the constellations are quite similar to how the Greeks saw them. (And some of the constellations are seen quite differently, but some of the Babylonian interpretations fit very well with the Herakles' myths.) (But some constellations are the same... the Bull seems to always be the Bull!)

He has some information posted here: https://solariapublications.com/2011/10/25/a-brief-guide-to-the-babylonian-constellations/, but I'm sure the book has more info.

I found this diagram helpful: https://solariapublications.com/2011/10/25/map-2-full-reconstruction-of-the-babylonian-star-map/

And this was helpful when I was determining the sequence of myths: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d1/Babylonian_Celestial_Map.png

‘Babylonian Star-lore, An Illustrated Guide to the Star-lore and Constellations of Ancient Babylonia’ by Gavin White.

[sdi]

Thank you for this, it may prove helpful!

I think it's pretty cute to see the keel of Argo Navis as a bow and Sirius as the arrow issuing from it, but oh, the poor Shepherd is about to get shot in the back!

[sdi]

More here; consequently, I have added Procyon to my little star map.