Page:Star Lore Of All Ages, 1911.pdf/39

Rh The Babylonian Tablets, the oldest records extant, reveal that the Akkadians introduced their sphere and zodiac into Babylonia before the year 3000, and the zodiac of the Akkadians corresponds almost exactly with the signs we know to-day.

It seems almost folly to endeavour to set the date of the invention of the constellations, for that period must approximate the age of the habitable world, and in all probability the stellar figures known to us were not designed at any one time, and lost their originality by the varying conditions that time has wrought in the past, for even in comparatively recent years there have been many attempts to alter them.

Bailly, a brilliant scholar and eminent astronomer, contends that the phenomena of astronomy had been closely observed before the great races of mankind separated from the parent stock. He claims, and few would dispute him, an antediluvian race as the originators of astronomical science. In proof of this he cites the fact that there are ancient Persian records which refer to the four famous "Royal Stars" as having marked the four colures (the meridian points of the solstices and equinoxes), a fact only possible in antediluvian times.

Maunder, who has made a very careful study of archæology in its relation to the constellational figures, has revealed many interesting features in connection with them. He writes:

"The first feature which the old constellation figures present to us is a very striking one. They cover only a portion of the heavens, and a large region roughly circular in the southern hemisphere is left entirely vacant. Swartz was the first to make the significant suggestion that this space was left vacant because the inventors of the constellations lived too far north to permit of their viewing this part of the heavens."

Pursuing this line of thought. Maunder considers that the designers of the figures lived, in all probability,