Stonehenge was built on solstice axis, dig confirms

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25. Looking at the stars was popular before the days of TV

Last edited Thu Sep 12, 2013, 11:21 AM - Edit history (2)

Star watching is believe to have started with Shepherds watching their herds at night. Lacking anything better to do, you talked to other shepherds where the stars were that night. The movement of the Planets were seen to vary when compared to the other "Stars" (in ancient times the word "Star" could mean anything seen in the sky, thus the argument that the alignment of the Planets were the "Star" of Bethlehem mentioned in the Bible).

http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/1203.html

The above paper cites several such alignments for the Star of Bethlehem, but only later on mentions that there is growing scholarship that Herod died in 1 AD not 4 BC (Either date in possible, the records of his death is unclear).

Back to Venus. These Shepherds (and sailors, another group of men on watch during the night) saw the changes as the seasons changed. Why the stars "Moved" they did not know, but made up stories about why, stories relying on the best evidence they had, what they saw in the Sky.

From these observations the various Stars (i.e. the Planets) were given names of the Various Gods and an effort was made to make the stories of the Gods AND what their Planet did match up. If is unclear how what gods were tied in with what Planet, but most societies did it, again remember this is all pre-TV and pre-Street lights thus the stars were quite bright. Lack of anything better to discuss the Stars became a safe topic to talk about and this spread as Civilization spread and the need to have increase safe topics to talk about increased along with the population.

Thus by the time we have writing, these Stars and the gods associated with them were already quite old, People knew the movement of such stars, and people studies such stars to try to determine the will of the gods. Thus Venus became known for a Pentagram for that is what the Planet Venus does. Why the goddess Venus does this was unknown, but explanations were made. That Venus was associated with the raising and setting of the sun made it important, seeing Venus meant your watch at night was almost over. That seems to be why Venus became so important in the days before watches.

Worse, Venus was considered to be two different planets for Centuries, one at sunset, the other as sun raise.

Venus was known to ancient civilizations both as the "morning star" and as the "evening star", names that reflect the early understanding that these were two separate objects. The Venus tablet of Ammisaduqa, dated 1581 BCE, shows the Babylonians understood the two were a single object, referred to in the tablet as the "bright queen of the sky", and could support this view with detailed observations.The Greeks thought of the two as separate stars, Phosphorus and Hesperus, until the time of Pythagoras in the sixth century BC. The Romans designated the morning aspect of Venus as Lucifer, literally "Light-Bringer", and the evening aspect as Vesper.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Venus#Early_studies

Thus the importance of Venus in the days before Watches was it showed that sunrise was NOT far off. That is important to people who want to start moving as soon as it is daylight (I.e. start packing with Venus, ready to move when Dawn breaks). It is important also to people during various night watches, it means their watch is almost over. Thus Venus was one of the more important "Stars" in the heavens for its rise indicated something useful to people who looked for it.