This page groups zodiac signs by the planet said to reach its weakest, fallen placement there, the sign directly opposite its own exaltation. Wikipedia notes "Western astrology measures from Equinox and Solstice points," a fixed tropical framework against which each planet's exaltation, and so its opposite fall, has long been mapped sign by sign. Browsing by in-fall-in lets a visitor find every sign where the same planet falls.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe twelve signs of the TROPICAL zodiac, measured from the vernal equinox. The sidereal signs of Indian astrology and the twelve-year animal cycle of Chinese astrology are separate systems and are held as their own categories. 1 Size of the Traditional Set Origins
Origin PeriodMid-first millennium BCE: the twelve equal signs are fixed in Babylonian astronomy by about the fifth century BCE 2 Place of OriginBabylonia (southern Mesopotamia), where the older constellation-based sky was divided into equal segments for calculation 2 Structure
StructureTwelve equal thirty-degree arcs of the ecliptic, cross-classified by four elements and three modalities, each named for the constellation that occupied it in antiquity. 1 Comparison
Cultural OriginMesopotamian / Babylonian 3 Era of Origin Learn More
The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac
The twelve signs of the tropical zodiac, Aries through Pisces, divide the ecliptic into twelve equal thirty-degree arcs, each named for the constellation that occupied it in antiquity. Because the tropical zodiac is measured from the moving equinox rather than from the stars, the signs have gradually drifted away from the constellations they are named for, a difference the atlas notes.
Each sign carries an element (fire, earth, air or water), a mode (cardinal, fixed or mutable), a ruling planet, and a body of character and correspondence. Together the four elements and three modes generate the twelve as a systematic set.
Babylon to the Western tradition
The twelve-sign zodiac was fixed in Babylonian astronomy in the first millennium BCE, dividing the older constellation-based sky into equal segments for calculation, and it passed through Hellenistic astrology into the Western tradition and, in a sidereal form, into India. The signs are the framework onto which planets, houses and aspects are read.
The atlas gives each sign its element, mode, ruler, and traditional associations of body, character and affairs. The sidereal signs of Indian astrology, the rashis, share the names but are measured differently and are treated under Vedic Astrology; the constellations proper are a separate category.
In Fall In
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Sources
1. A History of Western Astrology
2. The Heavenly Writing: Divination, Horoscopy, and Astronomy in Mesopotamian Culture
3. Wikipedia: Zodiac
WikipediaZodiac, History section, Babylonian dating sentenceQuote, Zodiac, History section, Babylonian dating sentence
the zodiac was introduced between 409 and 398 BC, during Persian rule, and probably within a very few years of 401 BC.
Divinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptions
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