HISTORY OF EARLY CONSTELLATION
WHERE "CONSTELLATION" CAME FROM?
For as long as mankind has walked the Earth it is likely we have always recognized patterns formed by stars in the night sky. Our modern constellation system comes to us from the ancient Greeks.
HISTORY
Constellations in the Ancient Near East (old Babylonian astronomy)
The Babylonians were the first to recognize that astronomical phenomena are periodic and apply mathematics to their predictions. The oldest Babylonian star catalogs of stars and constellations date back to the beginning in the Middle Bronze Age, most notably the Three Stars Each texts and the MUL.APIN, an expanded and revised version based on more accurate observation from around 1000 BC. However, the numerous Sumerian names in these catalogs suggest that they built on older, but otherwise unattested, Sumerian traditions of the Early Bronze Age. The classical Zodiac is a product of a revision of the Old Babylonian system in later Neo-Babylonian astronomy 6th century BC. Knowledge of the Neo-Babylonian zodiac is also reflected in the Hebrew Bible. E. W. Bullinger interpreted the creatures appearing in the books of Ezekiel as the middle signs of the four quarters of the Zodiac.
Constellations in Classical antiquity (Egyptian astronomy and ancient Greek astronomy)
There is only limited information on indigenous Greek constellations, with some fragmentary evidence being found in the Works and Days of Greek poet Hesiod, who mentioned the "heavenly bodies". Greek astronomy essentially adopted the older Babylonian system in the Hellenistic era, first introduced to Greece by Eudoxus of Cnidus in the 4th century BC. The original work of Eudoxus is lost, but it survives as a versification by Aratus, dating to the 3rd century BC. The most complete existing works dealing with the mythical origins of the constellations are by the Hellenistic writer termed pseudo-Eratosthenes and an early Roman writer styled pseudo-Hyginus. The basis of western astronomy as taught during Late Antiquity and until the Early Modern period is the Almagest by Ptolemy, written in the 2nd century.Some of these were combined with Greek and Babylonian astronomical systems culminating in the Zodiac of Dendera, but it remains unclear when this occurred, but most were placed during the Roman period between 2nd to 4th centuries AD. The oldest known depiction of the zodiac showing all the now familiar constellations, along with some original Egyptian Constellations, Decans and Planets. Ptolemy's Almagest remained the standard definition of constellations in the medieval period both in Europe and in Islamic astronomy.
Constellations in Ancient China (Chinese constellations and Chinese astronomy)
In ancient China astronomy has had a long tradition in accurately observing celestial phenomena. Template:Nonspecific Star names later categorized in the twenty-eight mansions have been found on oracle bones unearthed at Anyang, dating back to the middle Shang Dynasty. These Chinese constellations are one of the most important and also the most ancient structures in the Chinese sky, attested from the 5th century BC. Parallels to the earliest Babylonian (Sumerian) star catalogues suggest that the ancient Chinese system did not arise independently. Classical Chinese astronomy is recorded in the Han period and appears in the form of three schools, which are attributed to astronomers of the Warring States period. The constellations of the three schools were conflated into a single system by Chen Zhuo, an astronomer of the 3rd century (Three Kingdoms period). Chen Zhuo's work has been lost, but information on his system of constellations survives in Tang period records, notably by Qutan Xida. Further improvements were made during the later part of the Ming Dynasty by Xu Guangqi and Johann Adam Schall von Bell, the German Jesuit and was recorded in Chongzhen Lishu(Calendrical Treatise of Chongzhen Period, 1628). Traditional Chinese star maps incorporated 23 new constellations with 125 stars of the southern hemisphere of the sky based on the knowledge of western star charts; with this improvement the Chinese Sky was integrated with the World astronomy.
AestheticxScience
2018
references:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constellation#History_of_the_early_constellations
http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/astro/asp/constellation.faq.html
https://www.solarsystemquick.com/universe/star-constellations.htm
http://www.ducksters.com/science/physics/constellations.php