The Inspiration of Astronomical Phenomena VI

ASP Conference Series, Vol. 441

Enrico Maria Corsini, ed.
c
2011 Astronomical Society of the Pacic
The Alphabet and the Sky
Arnold Lebeuf
Instytut Religioznawstwa, Uniwersytet Jagiello nski, Krak ow, Poland
Abstract. Since the beginning of the 17
th
century the letters of the Greek alphabet
are used to identify the stars of constellation by order of magnitude. This was simply
a practical means of astronomical classication. In several instances the Bible uses
such metaphors as The sky rolled up like a scroll. The idea of associating letters
of dierent alphabets with stars, constellations and the sky in general can be found to
day in the marginal subculture. The persistence of such an association of writing with
astronomy or cosmology is at least of interest for cultural reasons, but the problem
might be of good interest as well for the history of astronomy and cosmology. I present
here two examples of this tradition in works of art. The rst a painted representation
of the Revelation of Saint John in the Orthodox church tradition, and the other in the
construction of the late bronze age sacred well at Santa Cristina in Sardinia, Italy.
Since the beginning of the 17
th
century, after Johann Bayer started to use them in his
star atlas Uranometria
1
, the letters of the Greek alphabet have been used to identify by
order of magnitude the stars of constellations (Figure 1).
This was simply a practical means of astronomical classication, but the idea of
associating the letters of dierent alphabets with stars, constellations and the sky in
general can also be found to day in the eorts of marginal subculture adepts to nd
order in the universe at any rate in a mixture of cheap mystics, ethnic dreams and
other madness. For example a runic alphabet seen in the constellations
2
. Both of these
modern schools, are the inheritors of very ancient traditions. The subject has been
approached by some scholars.
In 1903, Franz Boll
3
touched the question with a clear mind in the paragraph
Buchstaben und Tierkreiszeichen, of his masterwork book Sphaera. In 1913 Edward
Stucken, explored the relations of the alphabet with the Moon stations in Der Ursprung
des Alphabets und die Mondstationen
4
. The work of Franz Dornsei, a pupil of Franz
Boll, returns to the subject in 1925 with Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie
5
. More
1
Ioxxxrs Bx.rar Rnxrxxxr I. C., Uranometria: omnium asterismorum continens schemata [. . . ], 1603.
2
See the website http://alynptyltd.tripod.com/TheRunicSky/TheRunicSky.htm.
3
F. Boii, Buchstaben und Tierkreiszeichen, in Sphera. Neue griechische Texte und Untersuchungen zur
Geschichte der Sternbilder, Leipzig, Teubner, 1903, pp. 469-472.
4
E. Srtckrx, Der Ursprung des Alphabets und die Mondstationen, Leipzig, Hinrichs, 1913.
5
F. Doaxsrrrr, Das Alphabet in Mystik und Magie, Leipzig und Berlin, Teubner, 1925.
317
318 Lebeuf
Figure 1. Johann Bayer, Uranometria, 1603, detail of Taurus constellation.
recently, in 2004, Stefano Serani and Giuseppe Sermonti presented respectively La
scrittura celeste: nellalfabeto unantica testimonianza archeoastronomica?
6
and Un
tentativo di raronto tra stazioni lunari e alfabeti
7
. But there are many more works
touching the subject.
Most of these documents, whether modern critical studies or delirious beliefs re-
lated to various combinations of dierent alphabetic systems with stars and constel-
lations were inspired or directly stem from the famous paragraph Athanasius Kircher
dedicated to that question in Oedipus Aegyptianus
8
. This basic reference to Kircher for
some of the queerest claims is unjust and cruel for the 17
th
century polymath Jesuit,
because indeed, in the paragraph he dedicates to celestial writing, he is among others
the one who engaged most strongly against these ideas and traditions, showing, the
madness of such attempts to read in the sky. But Kircher was interested in everything,
a curious collector who reproduced an alphabet of the constellations and a map of the
sky covered with Hebrew letters. These were copied from Gaarels lecture des etoiles
9
(Figure 2), and Agrippas Occult philosophy
10
(Figure 3).
6
S. Sraxrrxr, La scrittura celeste: nellalfabeto unantica testimonianza archeoastronomica?, Rivista
Italiana di Archeoastronomia, 2, 2004, pp. 95-105.
7
G. Sramoxrr, Un tentativo di raronto tra stazioni lunari e alfabeti, Rivista Italiana di Archeoastrono-
mia, 2, 2004, pp. 107-116.
8
A. Kracnra, Oedipus Aegyptianus, Roma, 1652.
9
J. Gxrrxari, Cvriositez inovies sur la scvlptvre talismaniqve des Persans. Horoscope des patriarches et
lectvre des estoilles, Paris, 1637.
10
H. C. A. vox Nrrrrsnrrm, De Oculta Philosophia Libri Tres, Leiden, 1551.
The Alphabet and the Sky 319
Figure 2. Gaarels sky in Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptianus, Rome, 1655.
These two had built on some ideas of Pico della Mirandola, Guillaume Postel,
and Raymon Lulle. The Renaissance ourished with such ideas, which were devel-
oped, discussed or criticized. Kircher especially attacks and mocks the divinatory use
promoted by Gaarel and his method of reading in the sky:
Si au mot AME, nous ajoutons devant un F, nous lisons FAME et en rajoutant
un R nous obtenons ARME; en retirant les deux premi` eres et les deux derni` eres
lettres du mot EMPEREUR, nous lisons PERE; et de m eme, en eliminant les trois
lettres centrales de ROYAUME, nous obtenons ROME
11
.
He treats such methods of childish, inept and inane and calls those who accept
them, of disturbed minds and many more insults, fortunately all of them in Latin. The
arguments presented by Kircher could well be addressed to many of our colleagues
in the eld of archaeoastronomy, i.e., in a quasi innity of points and their arbitrary
combinations, the only trouble is with choice. With such methods, one can nd and
prove anything at all, at best it makes a good gymnastic for the brains.
As we see, we need not be anxious in front of the too rapid changes of the world.
The world of ideas is very steady and conservative, it loves continuity. Indeed the epoch
of the Renaissance was in a certain way very similar to our present New Age, people
were feeling anguish in front of too rapid a change of knowledge and customs, and
were frantically looking for order at any rate.
11
K, Oedipus Aegyptianus (cit. note 8), pp. 215-224.
320 Lebeuf
Figure 3. Agrippas sky alphabet in Athanasius Kircher, Oedipus Aegyptianus,
Rome, 1655.
The Renaissance esoteric tradition of sky alphabet was directly inuenced by the
Jewish Cabbalah, mystic ideas presenting the creation of God as a text, a piece of liter-
ature, a mathematical and semantic potential of creative combinations. The sephirothic
tree is a cosmogram. The Cabbalah states that the whole universe is a text written with
the 22 letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and Adolph Frank, quoting the Zohar, recalls
that:
They speak of the celestial alphabet in the following manner: Throughout the
entire extent of the heavens whose circumference surrounds the world, there are
gures and signs by means of which we may discover the most profound secrets
and mysteries. These gures are formed by the constellations and the stars which
are observed and investigated by the wise. He who is obliged to travel in the
morning shall rise at daybreak and look attentively toward the East. He will see
something like letters graven on the heavens, and placed one above the other.
Those brilliant forms are the letters with which God created the heaven and the
Earth; they form His mysterious and holy name
12
.
It is supposed that Cabbalistic tradition dates from the Spanish middle-ages, but
similar ideas were already present in the Revelation of Saint John: In the beginning
was the verb
13
. In the apparent worrisome disorder of society projected to the uni-
versal scale, man was always looking for order and reason, and was convinced that the
Creation of God is logical, well ordered and meaningful, and that God from the begin-
ning has oered the answers to all of our anguishes, and that all we need is to learn how
to read the message in the large book of the Universe.
Medieval literature presents good examples of the association of wisdom with the
ability of reading the messages of heaven on the sky vault. In the legend of Melusine,
the young Raimondin is taken by his uncle for his education:
12
A. F, The Kabbalah or the Religious Philosophy of the Hebrews, rev. and enl. I. Sossnitz, New
York, The Cabbalah Publishing Company, 1926. See Zohar, II, . 74-76
13
John 1:1.
The Alphabet and the Sky 321
[. . . ] Count Aimery was full of qualities and much more a scholar than one might
imagine. Just by looking at the stars and observing their disposition, he knew the
future and what would happen in good or badcrouched under a tree, the uncle
was looking at the stars, he seemed to be reading in the sky as if it were a book,
he was so absorbed that he did not give heed to anything
14
.
Medieval literature was justied by the biblical text itself, which uses in several
instances such metaphors as The sky was rolled up like a scroll
15
. These texts were
not only inspiring popular literature, but very scholarly dissertations as well, such as
those of Gildas of Roma, a 13
th
century monk who establishes a parallel between celes-
tial graphic signs and the letters of the alphabet on one side, and on the other, compares
the angelic virtue to the ink for writing and the sky to a parchment stretched out by the
Lord to make of the Heaven the book of the Universe
16
. Or the other way round: All
the stars of the heavens will be dissolved and the sky rolled up like a scroll
17
. The
persistence of such an association of the letters of the alphabet and writing, with the
sky, astronomy or cosmology is at least of interest for cultural, historical, sociological,
or psychological reasons, but the problem might be of good interest as well for the his-
tory of astronomy and cosmology. Indeed, the alphabet may represent the cosmos, the
Universe.
When we use such expressions as from Alpha to Omega, we are alluding to a
totality, a universal totality. Everything from the beginning to the end: I am Alpha and
Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord in Revelation (1:8).
Alpha and Omega are sometimes used to translate the rst and the last in the verse
of Isaiah (48:12) I am the rst, I also am the last. But that is an abuse because the
formulation Alpha and Omega, could not appear before the Byzantine times. Of course,
the Hebraic tradition had for long used the totality of the alphabet as a representation
of other totalities or the Totality in general, the Universe, but certainly not the Greek
alphabet. Psalm 119, for example, is an acrostic of 22 verses from Aleph to Taw. We
could see an intention in the observation that Psalm 22 of David starts with the words
My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? which are the last words uttered by
Christ
18
. Again, presenting the relation of the beginning to the end, the beginning of
the end, or the end as the foundation of a new beginning.
14
A. Bxaor, Histoire de M elusine, LEthnographie, 46, 1951, pp. 7-45.
15
John 6:14.
16
tout comme lhomme produit des signes par une application particuli` ere de la plume sur un support
mat eriel, lange produit son langage gur e par une application de sa vertu au ciel empir e (` a une petite
ou grande partie de celui-ci), dessinant des gures qui lui servent ` a manifester sa pens ee, et qui ne sont
visibles que par un autre ange. Gilles etablit un parall` ele entre les signes graphiques c elestes et les lettres
de lalphabet dun cot e, la vertu ang elique et lencre de lautre, enn entre le ciel et le parchemin comme
supports de l ecriture, en assimilant le ciel ` a une peau que tend Dieu, pour que le ciel devienne le livre de
lunivers [. . . ], I. Rosrra Cxrxcn, Arts du langage et th eologie au Moyen

Age,

Ecole Pratique des Hautes

Etudes, programme de lann ee 2006-2007, I. La locution angelica selon Gilles de Rome.

17
Isaiah 34:4.
18
Matthew 27:46; Mark 15:34.
322 Lebeuf
In many cultures it was believed that the alphabet had been given or revealed to
men by God himself
19
. In short, the relations between the alphabet and the heavenly
vault seems as old as writing itself.
The letters of dierent alphabets have been associated with the zodiacal constel-
lations or the lunar mansions, this was easy with a Greek alphabet of 24 letters, but
of course presented many diculties and distortions with alphabets of 22 or 26 letters
which are not congruent with the known division of the ecliptic by 12 signs or 36 decans
or 27 or 28 lunar mansions.
The eorts to nd structural equivalences between the heaven and the alphabet led
to many abuses, but there is a series of singularities I would like to present here.
According to Macrobius, the dead part of the year, the winter part, took place
between Scorpio and Pisces, where the Milky Way crosses the ecliptic
20
. In Scorpio
starts the dark hemisphere, and according to Czubrytski, this is what means darkness
in the Revelation
21
. The persecution will last for ve months
22
corresponds to
the arc of the zodiac from Scorpio to Pisces inclusively, on which is limited the
hemisphere of night, and then starts on the sign of Aries the hemisphere of the day.
If we can accept that Belzebub is to be found in Scorpio, then these ve months
of persecution correspond to the power of the devil until Aries victory starting
a new year and a new era. According to Assyrian and Phoenician traditions, the
dark underworld of the year where the Sun passed winter started in the claws of
Scorpio
23
.
All this means that the part of the zodiac associated to life goes from Aries to
Libra included, that is to say seven months. According to this author, this would be a
specicity of Assyrians and Phoenicians, but in fact we meet in very many traditions
the same division of the year in the proportions of 5/7, corresponding to North/South;
Night/Day; Death/Life, etc.
24
. Well, if we are oered here the Phoenicians, let us keep
them in mind as they were the inventors of an alphabet of 22 letters, an information
which will be of interest if we consider that from the rst point of Aries to the last of
Libra we count 210 degrees and thus 21 decans bordered by 22 points.
Now has come the critical moment when my kind reader will start thinking I had
better not criticized the numerologists and their combinatorial use of the alphabet and
the stars, as I start feeling the same vertigo they did. Let us look at that a bit closer.
In 1980, Christian Peder Moesgaard published an article concerning a cuneiform tablet
from the British Museum where is written that the eclipses return to the same place in
19
Doaxsrrrr, Antike Ansichten ueber den Ursprung der Schrift (cit. note 5), I, p. 2.
20
Mxcaorrts, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, New York, RCSS, 48, 1952, pp. 2-12.
21
Revelation 8:12.
22
Revelation 9:5.
23
A. Cztra. xskr, Komentarz astralystyczny do Apokalipsy Jana, Bydgoszcz, Polskie Towarzystwo Astro-
logiczne, 1938, p. 40.
24
A. Lrrrtr, The Milky Way, Path of the Souls, in V. Koirvx-D. Koirv (eds.), Astronomical Traditions in
Past Cultures, Soa, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, National Astronomical Observatory Rozhen, 1996,
pp. 148-161.
The Alphabet and the Sky 323
the sky after 19 years
25
. All the scholars rejected the formulation as a scribal error,
according to them, the scribe had confounded the Meton cycle with the Saros, but
Moesgaard trusted the scribe. He placed all the full moons on a band of 10 degrees
around the ecliptic and found that the successive positions of the full Moon formed
a very regular pattern made of two serpent-like undulations crossing regularly at 10
degrees distance of each other. The full moons situated on the ecliptic were eclipsed, of
course. He called the gure the Full Moon Serpent. And so he rediscovered that indeed
the Meton cycle is also an eclipse cycle. He noticed as well that the Mesopotamian
tables of eclipses and observations of star occultations were limited between Taurus
and Scorpio, that is to say 210 degrees of the ecliptic, or 21 decans marked by 22 of the
crossing points on the ecliptic of the Full Moon Serpent. The winter part was altogether
ignored by Mesopotamian astronomers. Thus limiting the system to the summer, light
and life part of the cosmos. The 21 decans, or 210 degrees from the rst point of Taurus
to the last of Scorpio. Taurus, the head and Scorpio the tail of the system corresponded
to the whole alphabet from Aleph to Taw.
Now, we know a short series of Byzantine icons representing the Revelation, on
which a serpent comes out of the mouth of an infernal monster, a Leviathan at the
bottom of hell. This serpent crosses all the center of this icon upward to reach and bite
the heel of Adam kneeling in front of the Divine Throne. A striking singularity of these
representations is that the body of the serpent is covered with pairs of black and red
rings. These are eclipses. These couples of rings are 21 or 22 in most of the known
examples. On the icons of Venecja Lukow in Slovakia and Polana in Poland (Figure 4),
each of these 22 eclipse representation is accompanied by a word or two. The names of
sins. Each of them starts with one or two capital letters. I rst found some diculties
to read these inscriptions, until I understood that the rst capital letters should be taken
o the inscriptions.
These capital letters are simply the letters of the alphabet used as numbers. Alpha,
Betha, Gamma, . . . etc. giving an ordered linear progression to the sins upward. The
sins are: A-Malediction, B-Quarreling, G-Envy, D-Lie, E-Anger, J-Pride, Z-Calumny,
I-Usury, etc. Because the number of steps is 21 or 22, we could expect 21 or 22 dierent
letters attached to the successive stages, but the fact is that they were used only as
numbers, from A to Phi for the rst nine digits, and then L for ten, and K for twenty.
The letters of the alphabet in order were often used as a classicatory device to express a
totality, but here we nd a singularity, because although using Greek letters in a decimal
way, the number of steps is only 22, so that it is almost certain that this icon reproduced
an oriental older prototype based on the Phoenician/Hebrew alphabet of 22 letters
26
.
Other icons also associated with the Last Judgment and the Ascension to heaven
represent a ladder instead of the serpent, the number of steps is sometimes of 21, 22 or
23 degrees, sometimes more, sometimes less, but 22 seems the standard.
Other variants such as the representations of Saint John Climaque (of the Ladder)
show a ladder standing from Earth to heaven with humans, saints or angels trying to
reach the Lord, being attacked by demons. This recalls us of course of Jacobs ladder
25
K. P. M, The Full Moon Serpent, Centaurus, 24, 1980, pp. 51-96.
26
There are only 21 eclipse stations represented, but we could start from the zero point out of the monsters
mouth, or count the last step, the foot of Adam. We could also enter the problem of the silent Aleph and
of the permanent problem in ancient arithmetic, whether or not to include the limits, do we start with a
zero or with one? etc. There is no room in this paper for such discussions.
324 Lebeuf
Figure 4. Icon of Polana, 16
th
century, National Museum, Cracow
and the angels coming up and down, but the number of steps can vary. So it seems the
Orthodox tradition repeats an old iconographic, religious and cosmological motive of a
ladder to heaven, representing human existence. And the number of steps between the
Earth and the sky is most often 22.
Let us now turn somewhere else. We know the domes in general like those of
modern planetariums represent the celestial vault, a camera obscura, a microcosm. The
prototype of all semispherical domes, before their invention by the progresses of ar-
chitecture, is the tholos, a corbel construction also called false vault. One of the most
beautiful example is certainly the tholos of the Sacred Well at Santa Cristina, in Sardinia
(Figure 5).
The Alphabet and the Sky 325
Figure 5. Sacred well at Santa Cristina in Sardinia, Italy. Plan by A. Lebeuf, 2007.
I have studied, and published partially the results of my investigations on this
monument. It shows that it was built very precisely to receive and measure the light
of the Moon at the time of lunistices. It is an instrument for the observation of the
declinations of Moon in lunistice during the Draconic cycle of 18, 61 years. When the
moonlight descends on the wall of the well, it creates a ladder of light by hitting the
edges of the stone rows. Let us now remember that the tradition of dividing the useful
part of the sky in 22 points was attributed to middle or near oriental archaic traditions.
Of course we also keep in mind that the prototype of all alphabets is the Phoenician
one which invariably counts 22 letters. Now well, the Phoenician inuence in the late
Bronze epoch of Sardinia is well documented.
326 Lebeuf
The well at Santa Cristina is certainly a cosmic temple, a sort of primitive plan-
etarium, a camera obscura reproducing on a minor scale the movements of heaven, a
microcosm. In these conditions, we will certainly appreciate that the number of rows
of stone in this perfect construction is precisely of 22. Could this be casual?
27
.
27
A. L, The Nuraghic Well of Santa Cristina, Paulilatino, Oristano, Sardinia. A Verication of the
Astronomical Hypothesis: Work in Process, Preliminary Results, Archaeologia Baltica, 10, 2008, pp.
155-163.