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Description
Afterwork: Border, resized, sharpened.

Leo The Lion

Leo (Latin for lion) is a constellation of the zodiac. Leo lies between dim Cancer to the west and Virgo to the east.

The adoption of this animal's form for the zodiac sign has been attributed to the fact that when the Sun was among its stars in midsummer the lions of the desert left their accustomed haunts for the banks of the Nile, where they could find relief from the heat in the waters of the inundation. Pliny wrote that the Egyptians worshipped the stars of Leo because the rise of their great river was coincident with the Sun's entrance among them. For the same reason the Sphinx is said to have been sculpted with Leo's body and the head of the adjacent Virgo, although Egyptologists maintain that this head represented one of the early kings, or the god Harmachis.

Distinct reference is made to Leo in an inscription of the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, which, like the Nile temples generally, was adorned with the animal's bristles, while on the planisphere of Dendera its figure is shown standing on an outstretched serpent. The Egyptian stellar Lion, however, comprised only a part of ours, and in the earliest records some of its stars were shown as a knife, as they now are as a sickle. Kircher gave its title there as Πιμεντεκεων, Cubitus Nili.

The astrological symbol has been supposed to portray the animal's mane, but it also might be the animal's tail. Gaius Julius Hyginus's writing published in 1488 and Albumasar's in 1489 showing this latter member of extraordinary length, twisting between the hind legs and over the back, Hyginus's manuscript properly locating the star Denebola in the end. But the International Dictionary says that this symbol is a corruption of the initial letter of Λεων (Leon). Félix Lajard's Cultes de Mithra mentions the hieroglyph of Leo as among the symbols of Mithraic worship, but how their Lion agreed, if at all, with ours is not known

In some cosmologies, Leo is associated with the classical element Fire, and thus called a Fire Sign (with Aries and Sagittarius). Leo is also one of the Fixed signs (along with Taurus, Scorpio, and Aquarius).

It is the domicile of the Sun. The Egyptian pharaoh Nechepso, and his priest Petosiris, taught that at the creation of the world the Sun rose here near Denebola, and hence Leo was Domicilium Solis, the emblem of fire and heat, and the "House of the Sun".

Each astrological sign is assigned a part of the body, viewed as the seat of its power. Leo rules the heart and spine.

`lns

Description
Afterwork: Border, resized, sharpened.

Leo The Lion

Leo (Latin for lion) is a constellation of the zodiac. Leo lies between dim Cancer to the west and Virgo to the east.

The adoption of this animal's form for the zodiac sign has been attributed to the fact that when the Sun was among its stars in midsummer the lions of the desert left their accustomed haunts for the banks of the Nile, where they could find relief from the heat in the waters of the inundation. Pliny wrote that the Egyptians worshipped the stars of Leo because the rise of their great river was coincident with the Sun's entrance among them. For the same reason the Sphinx is said to have been sculpted with Leo's body and the head of the adjacent Virgo, although Egyptologists maintain that this head represented one of the early kings, or the god Harmachis.

Distinct reference is made to Leo in an inscription of the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, which, like the Nile temples generally, was adorned with the animal's bristles, while on the planisphere of Dendera its figure is shown standing on an outstretched serpent. The Egyptian stellar Lion, however, comprised only a part of ours, and in the earliest records some of its stars were shown as a knife, as they now are as a sickle. Kircher gave its title there as Πιμεντεκεων, Cubitus Nili.

The astrological symbol has been supposed to portray the animal's mane, but it also might be the animal's tail. Gaius Julius Hyginus's writing published in 1488 and Albumasar's in 1489 showing this latter member of extraordinary length, twisting between the hind legs and over the back, Hyginus's manuscript properly locating the star Denebola in the end. But the International Dictionary says that this symbol is a corruption of the initial letter of Λεων (Leon). Félix Lajard's Cultes de Mithra mentions the hieroglyph of Leo as among the symbols of Mithraic worship, but how their Lion agreed, if at all, with ours is not known

In some cosmologies, Leo is associated with the classical element Fire, and thus called a Fire Sign (with Aries and Sagittarius). Leo is also one of the Fixed signs (along with Taurus, Scorpio, and Aquarius).

It is the domicile of the Sun. The Egyptian pharaoh Nechepso, and his priest Petosiris, taught that at the creation of the world the Sun rose here near Denebola, and hence Leo was Domicilium Solis, the emblem of fire and heat, and the "House of the Sun".

Each astrological sign is assigned a part of the body, viewed as the seat of its power. Leo rules the heart and spine.

`lns