From The Alpha and the Omega - Volume III
by Jim A. Cornwell, Copyright © July 20, 2002, all rights reserved
"Volume III - The Seventh Month - Constellation Names for Libra"
Aries - Libra
LIBRA

Libra, the Scales, the Balance.
The constellation name for Libra:

Viewpoint that Libra was known as the MOUND or ALTAR
before or after 3000 B.C.

From Starnames by Richard H. Allen:
    Brown thinks that its present symbol (for Libra), generally considered a representation of the beam of the Balance, shows the top of the archaic Euphratean Altar, located in the zodiac next preceding Scorpio [Ara, the altar is below Scorpio], and figured on gems, tablets, and boundary stones, alone or in a pair.    Miss Clerke recalls the association of the 7th month, Tashritu, with this 7th sign and with the Holy Mound, Tul Ku, designating the biblical Tower of Babel, surmounted by an altar, — the stars in this constellation, alpha, mu, xi, delta, beta, chi, zeta, and nu, well showing a circular altar.    Sometimes this Euphratean figure was varied to that of a Censer, and frequently to a Lamp; Strassmaier confirming this by his translation of an inscription as die Lampe als Nuru, the Solar Lamp, synonymous with Bir, the Light, also found for the sky figure.    In this connection it will be remembered that another of the names for our Ara, a reduplication of the zodiacal Altar, was Pharus, or Pharos, the Great Lamp, or Lighthouse, of Alexandria, one of the seven wonders of the world.    This Lamp also has been found shown on boundary stones as held in the Scorpion's claws, and we see the same idea even as late as the Farnese globe and the Hyginus of 1488, where the Scales have taken the place of the Lamp.    When the Altar, Censer, and Lamp were in the course of time forgotten, or removed to the South, the Claws were left behind, and perhaps extended, till they in turn were replaced by Libra.    Miss Clerke additionally writes:
    The 8th sign is frequently doubled, and it is difficult to avoid seeing in the pair of zodiacal scorpions, carved on Assyrian cylinders, the prototype of the Greek Scorpion and Claws.    Both Libra and the sign it eventually superseded thus owned a Chaldaean birthplace.

    The early Greeks did not associate its stars with a Balance, so that many have thought it substituted in comparatively recent times for the Chelae, the Claws of the Scorpion (Scorpio), that previously had been known as a distinct portion of the double sign; Hyginus characterizing it as dimidia pars Scorpionis, and Ptolemy counting eight components in the two divisions of his Khelai (claws), — Boreios and notios with nine amorphotoi.    Aratos also knew it under that title, writing of it as a dim sign, — phaeon epiduees, — though a great one, — megalas khelas.    Eratosthenes included the stars of the Claws with those of our Scorpio, and called the whole Skorpios, but alluded to the Khelai; as did Hipparchos, although with him the latter also were Zugon, or zugos, these words becoming common for our Libra, and turned by codices of the 9th century into Zichos.    They were the equivalents of the Latin Jugum, the Yoke, or Beam, of the Balance, first used as a stellar title by Geminos, who, with Varro, mentioned it as the sign of the autumnal equinox.    Ptolemy wrote these two Greek titles indiscriminately, and so did the Latin poets the three, — Chelae, Jugum, Libra, — although the scientific writers of Rome all adhered to Libra, and such has been its usual title from their day.    The ancient name was persistent, however, for the Latin Almagest of 1551 gave a star as in jugo sive chelis, and Flamsteed used it in his description of Libra's stars.
    The Romans claimed that it was added by them to the original eleven signs, which is doubtless correct in so far as they were concerned in its modern revival as a distinct constellation, for it first appears as Libra in classical times in the Julian calendar which Caesar as pontifex maximus took upon himself to form, 46 B.C., aided by Flavius, the Roman scribe, and Sosigenes, the astronomer from Alexandria.    Some have associated Andrew Marvell's line, Outshining Virgo or the Julian star.

Viewpoint that Libra was known as the Scales, the Balance
before or after 3000 B.C.

    One of the twelve simple Hebrew Letters is Lamed (KJV Lamed, law'-med, Ps 119:89), the English letter l which has a numerical value equal to 12, and an esoteric meaning of "Ox {cattle} Goad," note from below the Hebrew lamad, law-mad', a primary root.    Also of interest is the original name LÚ.HUN.GÁ, "The Hired Man," "Hired Laborer," or farm worker, in Aries, which was the name of this constellation prior to 3000 B.C., before it was changed to a Ram.    The image was shown holding a goad, which he prodded the celestial Bull, Taurus with.


Continue to Star Names of Libra or return to Introduction of Libra.
    This file updated on July 15, 2008, and March 30, 2010.

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