Talk:Royal stars

Sources?

FYI, this article is incorrect. According to astronomers, Fomalhaut is the SOUTHERN star and Watcher of the SOUTH as it is located in the SOUTHERN fish, Piscis Austrinus. Regulus is the Northern Star and Watcher of the North. I've found this article most helpful, as well as the ones linked to at the bottom of the page:http://souledout.org/cosmology/highlights/fomalhaut/fomalhaut.html 75.162.229.118 (talk) 18:01, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

Correct. Glorious Goddess (talk) 08:56, 27 August 2012 (UTC)

Source for any of this? 3000 BC is more than two thousand years before the Persians are known to history! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Orcoteuthis (talk • contribs) 14:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

This is the first I've ever heard of the 'Royal stars' (collectively named as that; I've heard of the individual stars frequently), but that isn't surprising if they're named as such by ancient Persians. Regulus is going to be a project of mine so I'll see what I can scrounge up on the subject for the its history section. If I find something I'll add it in here and expand this article as well. SkarmCA (talk) 16:58, 18 December 2008 (UTC)

I need to check my references, but my understanding was that the four Royal Stars were Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut. 72.49.43.222 (talk) 05:44, 31 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi, I would like to make an edit to the Royal Stars page. What does everyone think?

Thank you,

MirelaSab (talk) 01:25, 30 March 2014 (UTC)MirelaSab

Moved template to the top of the page where it belongs. Hairy Dude (talk) 02:14, 9 January 2016 (UTC)

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Capitalization of 'royal stars'

As the article stands at "Royal stars", it is assumed that the phrase is a common, not proper, noun. If "Royal Stars" can be shown to be treated as a proper noun in the majority of sources, then please open a move request so this can be discussed. But as long at the article remains at this title, the phrase should not be capitalized in the article lead or body. Skyerise (talk) 15:59, 12 November 2022 (UTC)

Unclear association of ancient Persian names and modern stars.

In a previous iteration there was a modification of the labels setting Regulus to the North and Fomalhaut to the South, which stemmed from a change of convention from some modern astrological references.

After reading "The so-called Royal Stars of Persia," I can see that there is no clear reference associating the modern stars to the ancient Persian names. According to the Bundahish, as quoted by Davis, the names on the current wikipedia page are inconsistent.

The quote says Tishtar is associated with the east, Sataves the south, Vanand the west, and Haptokring the north.

The stars, directions, and astronomical events seem to be correct. However, I am tempted to change the Persian names to what seems to be correct and consistent. Venant associated with Antares, Satevis with Fomalhaut, Haftorang with Regulus, and Tascheter with Aldebaran (which is correct).

Davis takes the opinion that that there is no evidence that Haftorang was ever associated with Regulus and rather he was associated with the seven stars of Ursa Major. Furthermore, Tascheter was associated with Sirius instead of Aldebaran, and Satevis and Venant were associated with the constellations Pisces and Scorpio rather than the individual stars. He claims the association with those 4 stars stemmed from the invention by author Jean Sylvain Bailly.

It would be nice if we could cite the earliest references to the different conventions. I also noticed that there was a recent change in the Criticism section. Originally the section said that the paper rejected the royal stars, but it perhaps missed some of the nuance of the paper. However, the new section doesn't represent the views that Davis put forward in his paper very well.

The paper was very critical of the concept of the royal stars. The main point was that most of the modern references seem to come from Jean Sylvain Bailly's paper which did not provide any evidence for its claims. At the earliest one can date usage of the royal stars to the time of Persian empire, and the concept of 4 stars was not clear from the sources he read. On the other hand he did not reject the claim that there was a long tradition of these 4 stars, he just argued that historical evidence must be provided. Smidas3 (talk) 16:37, 12 August 2024 (UTC)

After doing a search for references that use different conventions and not finding much opposition, I decided to change the Persian names such that they are consistent. Since I was using Davis as the main reference, I added a note that the Persian names have also been associated with the other stars/constellations. Smidas3 (talk) 14:04, 13 August 2024 (UTC)

A justification for some changes to the criticism section are below:

While Davis proposes pushing back the date of the birth to 960, he immediately rejects this, and points out that there is no historical evidence until the beginning of the empire. He says:

"Let us, consequently, push back Zarathushtra's birth 300 years to 960 B.C. Will this help the cause of the tradition? Obviously not,"

Later he says.

"And Persia, as a nation, cannot, by any stretch of the imagination, be said to have stepped upon the stage of history until the accession of Achaemenes about 650 B.C."

Also on pages 155 and 156 there is no mention of Satevis being previously identified with Antares, nor a mention of Girtab or a reassignment. He simply argued that Vanant was associated with the constellation of Scorpio (including Antares), and that Satevis was associated with the constellation of Aquarius (including Fomalhaut). Smidas3 (talk) 09:20, 14 August 2024 (UTC)