The zodiac was first clearly defined by the Babylonians some 2500
years ago, but until recently the basis of this original definition
remained unknown. This zodiac of the Babylonians, known as the
sidereal zodiac because it is specified in direct relation to the
stars (Latin sideris, 'starry'), was used for centuries throughout
the ancient world, all the way to India, and must be distinguished
from the tropical zodiac in widespread use by astrologers in the
West today, which was introduced only in the middle of the second
century A.D. by the Greek astronomer Claudius Ptolemy. Such was
Ptolemy's influence, however, that the tropical zodiac gained
prominence and, except for its survival (in a variant form) in
India, knowledge of the sidereal zodiac was lost. In this thrilling
study of the history of the zodiac, first submitted in 2004 as his
Ph.D. thesis, Robert Powell rescues the the sidereal zodiac from
the dusts of time, tracing it back to the Babylonians in the
sixth/fifth centuries B.C. The implications of this discovery-among
them the restitution of the sideral zodiac to its rightful place at
the heart of astrology-are immense, they key point being that the
signs of the sidereal zodiac, each thirty degrees long, coincide
closely with the twelve astronomical constellations of the same
name, whereas the signs of the tropical zodiac, since they are
defined in relation to the vernal point, now have no direct
relationship to the corresponding zodiacal constellations, owing to
the precession of the equinoxes.This revolutionary history of the
zodiac includes chapters on the Egyptian decans and the Hindu
nakshatras, showing how these sidereal divisions, which originated
in Egypt and India, are related to the original Babylonian zodiac.
It also sheds light on the controversy surrounding the 'zodiac
question' (tropical vs. sidereal), illuminating the history of the
tropical zodiac-showing that originally it was not a zodiac at all,
but a calendar for describing the course of the seasons This book,
the fruit of thirty years of research, is intended not only for
scholars but for general readers as well, and offers the clearest
and most comprehensive study of the history of the zodiac yet
published.
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