Sagittarius zodiac sign

The earliest information about the group of stars known today as Sagittarius comes from the ancient Sumerians, who identified them with Nergal (the god of plague and ruler of the underworld). Nergal was depicted as a figure with two heads - the first was the head of a panther, and the second was the head of a man - this Sumerian god also did not have a scorpion instead of a tail. The Sumerians called this character Pablisag (translated as "the most important ancestor").

The Greeks adopted this constellation, but in Hellenistic times there was disagreement over what these constellations represented. Aratus described them as two separate constellations, Arrow and Archer. Other Greeks associated their form with the centaur Chiron, placed in the sky to guide the Argonauts to Colchis. This interpretation mistakenly identified Sagittarius with Chiron himself, who was already in the sky as the Centaur. Eratosthenes, in turn, argued that the stars of Sagittarius could not represent the Centaur, because the centaurs did not use bows. It depicts one of the mythological half-horses, half-humans, the wise and friendly centaur Crotos, the son of the Lord and the nymph Euphemia, the favorite of the muses, placed in the sky by the gods of Olympus among others. for the invention of the onion. Depicted with a drawn bow, aimed at the heart of a neighboring Scorpio.

The constellation Sagittarius is older than the constellation Centaurus, representing the wise and peaceful Chiron; In traditional depictions, Sagittarius has a clearly menacing appearance. This constellation on old maps is called Centaurus, but in Greek mythology it functions as a satyr. On some maps of the sky, the stars on the front paws of Sagittarius are marked as a wreath in memory of one of the games played by Crotos. The Greeks represented Crotos as a two-legged creature, similar to Pan, but with a tail. He was considered the inventor of archery, often hunted on horseback and lived with the muses on Mount Helikon.

Sagittarius was not always and not always associated with the figure of a centaur. In the Chinese atlases, there was a tiger in its place, after which one of the constellations of the Chinese zodiac was named.

The Jews saw in the sign of the Archer Gog, the enemy of Israel.