Signs oldest known names

[Soft Alpaca]

Out of pure curiosity here, what are the oldest names we know for all of the constellations we use as today's signs (and perhaps the direct translation, if known). Not that this has any particular astrological value, but as a relatively reliable source that one could access [rather than a wikipedia page] that I'm sure many people have pondered.

[Jim Eshelman]

Out of pure curiosity here, what are the oldest names we know for all of the constellations we use as today's signs (and perhaps the direct translation, if known). Not that this has any particular astrological value, but as a relatively reliable source that one could access [rather than a wikipedia page] that I'm sure many people have pondered.

The oldest are the Egyptian. I have those in fragments here and there through my notes - you can get a lot of that from Fagan's out of print Symbolism of the Constellations and much of that in his in-print Astrological Origins.

Ancient Egyptian, like Semitic languages, had consonants and no vowels written. The vowels that were given to the word gave it different meanings, and so there are a lot of puns that seem meaningful. For example, the word for "Bull," which was the name of Taurus, also means "phallus." The word for "Lion," which was Leo's name, also means "knife" or "scythe" IIRC. There were few surprises - best studied in Astrological Origins, I think, instead of my memory - but they were similar to what we have, e.g., Gemini was "The Two Stars," Aquarius was "Bringer of Waters," etc.