HISTORICAL FACTS

• There are archeological indications that humans were familiar with the lunar periodicity as long as 32,000 years ago, during the Ice Age.

• In 4200 B.C.E. the Egyptians had star charts. The pyramids of Egypt are among the most famous astrological buildings of antiquity. They were burial places as well as astrological calculators, oriented to the North Pole of the sky.

• In 2900 B.C.E. the Sumerians built temples in the form of terraced pyramids to observe the stars and planets.

•  Astrological books were written in India around 3000 B.C.E.

•  In 2850 B.C.E., in the reign of Sargon of Agade, predictions were made based on the positions of the Sun, the Moon, the five known planets, and other phenomena.

•  The Chaldeans used the 12 principal constellations, through which the Sun and Moon pass regularly, in their cosmological system.

•  Stonehenge, in England, whose construction goes back to at least 2500 B.C.E., is one of the most important astrological sites in the West.

•  For the Maya as well as the Aztecs in ancient America, time and the calendar were of enormous importance. They had two calendars: one of 365 days for domestic matters and another of 260 days for ritual purposes.

•  The Babylonians introduced Astrology to Greece. By 250 B.C.E. the first Astrology School was initiated on the island of Cos.

•  Astrological interpretations also can be seen in religious texts. The Bible is filled with astrological information. An example of such is Ecclesiastes (3:1-15): "For every thing its season, for every activity under heaven its time..."

•  Astrology has at different times had among its ranks some of the most influential people. Some examples are: Pythagoras, Hippocrates, Claudius Ptolomaeus, St. Thomas Aquinas, Nostradamus, Giordano Bruno, Nicolaus Copernicus, Johannes Kepler, Isaac Newton. Also, a number of popes of the Roman Catholic Church, among them Sixtus IV and Julius II, adopted astrological practices.