Prismtect › Constellations › Hercules
the Hero
Between bright Vega and Arcturus, look for four stars in a lopsided square, the Keystone, the hero's body. The figure is drawn upside down in the sky.
Hercules, son of Zeus, was famous for his twelve labours. In the sky he kneels with one foot on the head of Draco, the dragon.
On one side of the Keystone lies M13, a ball of several hundred thousand stars, faintly visible on a dark night and lovely in binoculars.
The historian Gavin White suggests the figure goes back to Babylonian star groups called the Standing Gods and Sitting Gods.
Phoenician tradition is said to have seen here their sun god, who killed a dragon (Draco).
The earliest Greek writers did not call him Hercules.
Arabic star names keep the old idea of a kneeling man.
In China, Rasalgethi was Dizuo, the Emperor's Seat.
The historian Gavin White suggests the figure goes back to Babylonian star groups called the Standing Gods and Sitting Gods. These were drawn as men with serpents' bodies instead of legs, and the serpent part may live on as Draco under the hero's foot. The constellation has also been linked with Gilgamesh, the Sumerian hero.
Phoenician tradition is said to have seen here their sun god, who killed a dragon (Draco).
The earliest Greek writers did not call him Hercules. The poet Aratus described a nameless figure toiling on bended knee with arms raised, and said nobody knew who he was or what task he was doing. People simply called him Engonasin, "the Kneeler". Later writers offered many names: Theseus lifting a rock, the musicians Orpheus and Thamyris, Prometheus in chains, Ixion, Atlas. In a lost play by Aeschylus, Hercules falls to his knees in a fight in Liguria, in northern Italy, after his weapons break. Zeus helps by scattering stones for him to throw.
Arabic star names keep the old idea of a kneeling man. The brightest star, Rasalgethi, comes from "head of the kneeler". It is called the head because old maps drew the figure upside down. Arab translators of Ptolemy called the constellation al-raqis, which is where the Swahili name Rakisi comes from. Early Arab sky-watchers also had their own line of stars here, "the Northern Line", which crossed into Serpens.
In China, Rasalgethi was Dizuo, the Emperor's Seat. It stood alone at the centre of the Heavenly Market enclosure, a market in the sky. A row called the Seven Dukes ran along the border with Boötes.
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