H A Rey The Stars (1952) had a nice series of cartoons depicting a caveman, a grey-flannel-suit man, and a futuristic man all looking at their respective versions of the big dipper.
The Barbers' When They Severed Earth From Sky (2004) hypothesises that the various kingship changes in heaven of several ancient mythologies correspond to the precession of the solstices and equinoxes through the zodiac. Eg, for Greek mythology, they give:
Head God Summer Spring
CHAOS Libra Cancer
~6480 BC
OURANOS Virgo Gemini
~4320 BC
KRONOS Leo Taurus
~2160 BC
ZEUS Cancer Aries
along with parallel tables for Babylonian, Hittite, Phoenician, and Norse mythologies, and reference a different work which should give Germanic, Finnic, Iranian, Indian, and Chinese mythological shifts.
According to this hypothesis, when the fall equinox moved into Virgo and Saturn and Jupiter came into conjunction with Pisces in 6 BC, many ancients took it as marking the advent of a new Kingdom of Heaven ruling a New Age, making them more susceptible to picking up new religions emanating from the middle east around that time, eg Mithraism.
Does Virgil, writing ca 40 BC, predict the New Age? [Fourth Eclogue 4-10]
> Now is come the last age of Cumaean song; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you, pure Lucina, smile on the birth of the child, under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world!
(but note that by this counting the "Age of Aquarius" wouldn't be due to start until ca 2160; rather far off in human lifetimes from the 1960s)
The Barbers' When They Severed Earth From Sky (2004) hypothesises that the various kingship changes in heaven of several ancient mythologies correspond to the precession of the solstices and equinoxes through the zodiac. Eg, for Greek mythology, they give:
along with parallel tables for Babylonian, Hittite, Phoenician, and Norse mythologies, and reference a different work which should give Germanic, Finnic, Iranian, Indian, and Chinese mythological shifts.According to this hypothesis, when the fall equinox moved into Virgo and Saturn and Jupiter came into conjunction with Pisces in 6 BC, many ancients took it as marking the advent of a new Kingdom of Heaven ruling a New Age, making them more susceptible to picking up new religions emanating from the middle east around that time, eg Mithraism.
Does Virgil, writing ca 40 BC, predict the New Age? [Fourth Eclogue 4-10]
> Now is come the last age of Cumaean song; the great line of the centuries begins anew. Now the Virgin returns, the reign of Saturn returns; now a new generation descends from heaven on high. Only do you, pure Lucina, smile on the birth of the child, under whom the iron brood shall at last cease and a golden race spring up throughout the world!
(but note that by this counting the "Age of Aquarius" wouldn't be due to start until ca 2160; rather far off in human lifetimes from the 1960s)