What are the zodiac signs?

Taurus? Taurus (04/20-05/20)?

Gemini? Gemini (05/2 1-06/2 1)?

Cancer (06/22-07/22)?

Leo Leo (07/23-08/22)?

Virgo Virgo (08/23-09/22)?

Libra Libra (09/23- 10/23)?

Scorpio (10/24-11/22)?

Sagittarius Sagittarius (11/23-12/21)?

Capricorn (12/22-0119)?

Aquarius? Aquarius (0 1/20-02/ 18)?

Pisces? Pisces (02/ 19-03/20)

Extended data

Constellation origin

There are some names of 28 homestays in the early Zhou Dynasty in Zhou Li, which was written in the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. Records of twenty-eight huts and four elephants were first found in historical records. There are many differences in academic circles about the origin, time and place of Twenty-eight Nights. Traditionally, China's twenty-eight lodging system can only be traced back to the eighth and sixth centuries BC.

1978, archaeologists unearthed the lacquer box cover engraved with the image of Twenty-eight Hostels in the tomb of Zeng Houyi of the Warring States Period in Suizhou, Hubei Province, which is the earliest physical specimen of Twenty-eight Hostels discovered so far.

In ancient China, Sanyuan, which is near the North Pole, was defined as a middle official, while Erbasu was actually subdivided from four elephants. The star area south of Erbasu was called a foreign official, that is, "middle official+four elephants+foreign officials", which was just one of the many ways to divide the star areas in ancient China.

In addition, there are many ways to divide the stars into seven areas, such as "five beasts+middle officials+foreign officials" and "nine wild+middle officials+foreign officials" which are divided into 1 1 area, but the division method of "middle officials+four elephants" is widely spread.

In ancient China, the sky was divided by star officials. The earliest record of star officials is Sima Qian's Book of Historical Records, which contains 9 1 star officials and more than 500 stars. By the Sui Dynasty, there were 283 star officials recorded in Song of Heaven, belonging to one of the three yuan or twenty-eight lodging houses.

Sanyuan refers to the three regions surrounding the Arctic sky, namely Ziweiyuan, Taiweiyuan and Tianshiyuan, which are divided into four elephants around the ecliptic and the celestial equator, and each elephant is subdivided into seven regions of the four elephants, collectively called Twenty-eight Hostels. In ancient China, the lunar calendar was used as a calendar year. Because the moon rotates once around the earth on the 28th of every month, it is called a "shelter" or "shed" when it passes through an area every day.

At the end of the Ming Dynasty, due to the influence of western learning spreading to the east, Xu Guangqi compiled the almanac of Chongzhen with reference to the data of European astronomy, adding 23 star officials near Invivo.

There are different opinions about the order in which the starry sky is divided into three walls, four images and twenty-eight nights. Gaul, an astronomer in the Republic of China, thought in his book Notes on Astrology that three walls appeared first, then four elephants, and finally appeared for 28 nights.

Chen Zungui, an astronomer who was the first curator of the Beijing Planetarium, thinks in his works that these four images appeared earlier, and then they were divided into twenty-eight lodges, with Sanyuan being the last one, and points out that the name of Sanyuan only appeared in the Song of Dan Deng Tian in the Sui Dynasty, and the shape of Sanyuan and Twenty-eight lodges was also formed and used here.