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Mythology
The constellations as we know them today are very different from those first few, our night sky is a compendium of images from a number of different societies, both ancient and modern. We owe the greatest debt to the mythology of the ancient Greeks and
Romans. Greek constellations may be found in the works of Homer, on it he
made the earth, and sky, and sea, the sun and the moon, and all the
constellations. Mythology influenced the naming of many objects in the sky, not just the constellations. The planets all bear names from Roman mythology which reflect their characteristics. Mercury, for the speedy messenger god, revolves fastest around the sun; Venus, for the goddess of love and beauty, Mars, for the god of war, Jupiter, named for the single most important god. |
Most
ancient cultures saw pictures in the stars of the night sky. The earliest
known efforts to catalogue the stars date to cuneiform texts and artefacts
dating back roughly 6000 years. These remnants, found in the valley of the
Euphrates River, suggest that the ancients observing the heavens saw the
lion, the bull, and the scorpion in the stars.