Prismtect › Constellations › Draco
the Dragon
A long line of fairly faint stars winds between the Big and Little Dippers. Its head is a small group of four stars near Vega, the brightest of them Eltanin.
Draco is often the dragon Ladon, who guarded the golden apples of the Hesperides and was killed by Hercules.
About 4,700 years ago the dragon's star Thuban was the pole star, when the pyramids of Giza were being built.
Ladon is not the only dragon named here.
Bedouin Arabs saw no dragon.
Chinese astronomers imagined two walls around the north pole, enclosing the emperor's Purple Palace, and Draco holds large parts of both.
Ladon is not the only dragon named here. The Roman writer Hyginus says it was one of the Giants who fought the Olympian gods for ten years. Athena killed it and threw it into the sky. It twisted as it flew and froze at the cold north pole before it could straighten out. The orator Aelius Aristides calls this giant Aster, "star". Others said the dragon was Typhon, the monstrous son of Gaia. The Greeks also called the constellation Ophis, "serpent".
Bedouin Arabs saw no dragon. The four stars of the head were four mother camels guarding a baby camel, a faint star in the middle. Two hyenas, the stars Eta and Zeta, were attacking it. The camels' owners were camped nearby, marked by a cooking tripod of three stars. Arab astronomers also knew the Greek dragon and called it at-Tinnin. That is where the star name Eltanin, from "head of the dragon", comes from. Another star, Alrakis, means "the trotting camel".
Chinese astronomers imagined two walls around the north pole, enclosing the emperor's Purple Palace, and Draco holds large parts of both. Thuban was the Right Pivot on the western wall. Inside the walls they placed palace life: pillars for posting government orders, the emperor's concubines and secretaries, a woman in charge of the palace water clocks, a scribe, and the emperor's bedroom. Just outside the walls were two kitchens, one for the royal family and one for officials and guests. The dragon's head stars were Tianbang, a flail for threshing grain or, in another reading, the emperor's advance guard.
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