Mise à jour le 06/05/2014

Celestial Imaginary,

as a tool for astronomical knowledge

Article of Roland Laffitte, issued in Planétariums, review of APLF (Association des Planétariums de Langue Française), 2014, p. 73-75.

This texte consists in the abstract of the text published in French in the same issue (see L’Imaginaire céleste comme outil de la connaissance astronomique) 

It does exist a manner to tackle in a pleasant way the astronomical phenomena − which might be otherwise very thankless −, so that we have may access to a precious pedagogical tool. Now the celestial figures and their layout are varying with the different civilizations in which they satisfy practical needs by the prism of symbolic concerns. That is why each one answers in a more or less adequate way the requirements of the initiation into astronomy. It enters therefore the needs of a good pedagogy to choose quite well, among the abundance of the celestial figures that offer to us the various peoples, the most susceptible to report, first of all, the location of stars and, secondly, the determination of the time and the positioning in the space, knowing that the lack of place granted obliges us to leave aside this last topic within the framework of this article. And even there, we shall ignore the Sun and the planets and limit us to the so called “fixed” stars, gathered in constellations. So, by picking out of the stock of celestial figures coming from various civilizations, particularly the Greek, the Chinese and the Arab ones, the article gives its preference for certain legends.

Let us give just an example of this need of selecting efficient astral legends, that of the movement of the circumpolar stars. It gives rise, in most of the civilizations, to interesting presentations. We like to use the mythology of the punishment of the nymph Callisto by her jealous mistress. The fact that the Seven brilliant stars of the North are dedicated to the Bear, the animal’s king not only in the boreal regions of America, but also in those of Eurasia, from where the peoples of Indo-European languages and cultures are originated, has nothing to be a surprise : Ursa Maior is well the “She-Bear” in Sanskrit, in the Indian Sky, i.e. Riksa, and Arktos in greek. No surprise either in the fact that this animal is a goddesses’ symbol, the name of which derives from this animal: so for Artio for the Gauls and Artemis for the Greeks. But however delicious is the legend of the transformation in the She-Bear of the waiting-maid of the one who Homer qualifies of “mistress of animals”, it is difficult to discern its astronomical function. It is quite different in the Arab sky which presents a funeral convoy, the one of Banāt Naᶜš,  “The Daughters of Nash” (see Figure 1). Accusing al-Juday, personifying Polaris, of the death of their father, but not being able to reach him because of the interposition of the Two Mediators, β and γ UMi, they turn endlessly around the Pole. For the Chinese, the Seven brilliant stars of the UMa − i.e the Plough, or for the Babylonian and the Greek the Wagon −, are located on the Imperor’s Chariot which makes the tour of the Purple Forbidden Enclosure. We shall note the interest of this representation, which gives us a very consistent set of a large part of the visible stars of the whole boreal area.

Figure 1: Banāt Naᶜš,  “The Daughters of Nash”, in the Arab sky

Going on trying to give appropriate examples, the article makes then proposals for reporting the summer and the winter skies, the simultaneous star rises and sets, and it presents as well figures and legends which express the making of time with stars of Ursa Maior and then of the ecliptic. We could so establish a vey useful collection of astral legends, supplied by the various civilizations and culture of yesterday and today and selected for their efficiency to illustrate astronomical phenomena retained for educational purposes, and in relation with the public whom we address and the angle according to which they are tackled.