The 12 zodiac signs, with which many people are likely familiar today, were created during this Ancient Greek period. The signs of Aries (approximately March 21-April 19), Taurus (April 20-May 20), Gemini (May 21-June 20), Cancer (June 21-July 22), Leo (July 23-Aug. 22), Virgo (Aug. 23-Sept. 22), Libra (Sept. 23-Oct. 22), Scorpio (Oct. 23-Nov. 21), Sagittarius (Nov. 22-Dec. 21 These Western, or tropical, zodiac signs were named after constellations and paired with dates based on their apparent relationship to the sun’s position in the sky.
By 1500 BC, the Babylonians had divided the zodiac into 12 equal signs, with constellation names that were similar to those we know today, such as The Great Twins, The Lion, and The Scales, and these were later adopted into Greek divination. These 12 signs were popularized by the astronomer Ptolemy, author of the Tetrabiblos, which became a key work in the history of Western astrology.
“Ptolemy codified the idea that there were 12 signs of the zodiac that were 30 broad, and that the sun travelled through these signs on a regular basis throughout the year,” adds Odenwald. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “zodiac” derives from the Greek, from a term for “sculpted animal figure,” and the sequence in which the signs are normally enumerated also stems from that time period.
In This Article...
Who designed the zodiac signs?
The 12 zodiac signs, one of the earliest notions of astrology, were devised by the Babylonians around 1894 BC. The Babylonians lived at Babylon, which is roughly where modern-day Iraq is located. Babylon was one of the most prominent ancient Mesopotamian towns.
How did the Zodiac sign come to be?
Babylonian astronomers split the ecliptic into 12 equal “signs” at the end of the 5th century BC, analogous to 12 schematic months of 30 days each. The first known celestial coordinate system was created when each sign contained 30 degrees of celestial longitude. According to contemporary astronomical estimates, the zodiac was first used between 409 and 398 BC, during Persian dominance, and most likely within a few years of 401 BC. Unlike modern astrologers, who place the beginning of the sign of Aries at the position of the Sun at the Northern Hemisphere’s vernal equinox (March equinox), Babylonian astronomers fixed the zodiac in relation to stars, placing the beginning of Cancer at the “Rear Twin Star” (Geminorum) and the beginning of Aquarius at the “Rear Star of the Goat-Fish” ( Capricorni).
Since Babylonian times, the time of year when the Sun is in a certain constellation has altered due to equinox precession; the point of March equinox has moved from Aries to Pisces.
They formed a perfect system of reference for making predictions about a planet’s longitude since they were divided into 30 equal arcs. However, Babylonian observational measurement techniques were still in the early stages of development. They measured the position of a planet in relation to a group of “normal stars” near the ecliptic (9 degrees latitude) as observational reference points to aid in planet placing inside the ecliptic coordinate system.
A planet’s location in Babylonian astrological journals was usually stated in terms of a zodiac sign alone, rather than particular degrees within a sign. When degrees of longitude were given, they were stated in terms of the 30th degree of the zodiac sign, rather than the continuous 360 ecliptic. The positions of prominent astronomical phenomena were estimated in sexagesimal fractions of a degree in astronomical ephemerides (equivalent to minutes and seconds of arc). The daily locations of a planet were less important in daily ephemerides than the astrologically significant times when the planet moved from one zodiac sign to the next.
Is there any truth to the zodiac signs?
Is astrology accurate? Reading horoscopes is a popular pastime, but is there any scientific evidence that they are accurate?
When you’re enticed by a familiar interruption and your willpower weakens, problems can occur.
Every day, up to 70 million Americans consult their horoscopes. At least, that’s what the American Federation of Astrologers claims. According to a Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life poll conducted twenty years ago, 25% of Americans believe that the positions of the stars and planets have an impact on our daily life. In 2012, the General Social Survey indicated that 34% of Americans think astrology is “extremely” or “kind of scientific,” with the percentage of individuals who think astrology is “not at all scientific” dropping from two-thirds to about half.
Astrology is the concept that astronomical phenomena, such as the stars over your head when you were born or the fact that Mercury is retrograde, have the potential to influence our daily lives and personality traits. Of course, this is distinct from astronomy, which is the scientific study of celestial objects, space, and the physics of the cosmos.
A particular facet of astrology, the foretelling of a person’s future or the provision of daily counsel via horoscopes, is gaining in popularity. The Cut, for example, recorded a 150 percent rise in horoscope page views in 2017 compared to 2016.
Clearly, a lot of people are trying to figure out how to read the stars for guidance. Understanding the positions of the stars is the foundation of astrology, which appears to be a scientific discipline in and of itself. Is there any scientific evidence that astrology has an impact on our personalities and lives?
But, since I still have five minutes of this six-minute podcast to fill, let’s take a look at how astrology has been put to the test.
What is the zodiac’s age?
The constellations that represent the 12 astrological signs each take up a quarter of this belt in principle, although they aren’t properly proportionate in shape or size in reality. They’ve also moved around since the Babylonians initially recorded the zodiac sign system around 450 BCE.
What is the zodiac sign of Zeus?
Zeus, Leo. Zeus (or Jupiter in Roman language) is the King of the Gods and the rock star of Mount Olympus, therefore it’s no surprise that he belongs to Leo, the zodiac’s rock star.
Why are horoscopes so inaccurate?
The main reason astrological signs don’t align with the zodiac is due to precession, a wobble in the Earth’s spinning axis. The Earth bulges somewhat at the equator as a result of its rotation, similar to how a skater’s skirt fanned out as she spins. The Moon’s and Sun’s gravitational pulls on the bulge, causing the Earth to wobble like a top. Over the period of 25,800 years, the wobble causes the Earth’s axis, which is the center line around which it revolves, to swing in a leisurely circle.
The view of the zodiac from Earth is altered as a result of this movement, with the constellations appearing to slide to the east by around a degree per human lifetime. Hipparchus of Nicaea discovered precession with his naked sight approximately 150 B.C., though it was gradual.
The vernal equinox, or the first day of spring, was in Aries in ancient times. It went into Pisces circa 100 B.C. due to precession, where it is today and will remain until 2700 A.D., when it will move into Aquarius, and so on. It will finally return to Aries after 25,800 years, and the cycle will begin again.
Astrology and its predictions about fate and personality can be entertaining as a game. The subject, on the other hand, has no scientific foundation. It’s the equivalent of the board game “Monopoly” in the real estate market.
Astrology draws attention away from the planets’ very real affects, namely their gravitational interactions with one another, which create true changes in the shapes, sizes, and tilts of their orbits. Past ice eras on Earth were most likely triggered by such shifts. Direct impacts between Earth and celestial bodies can result in dramatic changes, such as the 66 million-year-old impact of an asteroid off the Yucatan Peninsula, which resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs and the advent of mammals.
Astronomical studies will someday allow such events to be predicted, however astrological forecasts will lead to nowhere.
What makes you think astrology isn’t true?
Astrology is a collection of belief systems that assert that there is a connection between astrological phenomena and events or personality traits in the human world. The scientific community has dismissed astrology as having no explanatory power for describing the universe. Scientific testing has discovered no evidence to back up the astrological traditions’ premises or alleged effects.
