The legend of Sirius

Sirius's western name comes from Greek ∑ ε ρ ο, which means "scorched". After sunrise, the heat comes. The ancients thought that it was summer when Sirius and the sun rose at the same time, and the combination of Sirius's light and the sun's light was the reason for the hot weather in summer, so Sirius was called Sirius. The ancient Greeks called summer "dog day", because only dogs would run out like crazy in such hot weather, so this star was also called "dog star".

In ancient Egypt, whenever Sirius rose from the eastern horizon at dawn (this phenomenon is called "rising together" in astronomy), it was the annual flood of the Nile, which irrigated large areas of fertile land on both sides of the river, so the Egyptians began farming again. The ancient Egyptians realized that the stars rose in the morning and the Nile Delta began to flood every year.

Moreover, they found that the time interval between Sirius's two rises was 365.25 days, not 365 days in Egypt. Ancient Egypt defined the day when Sirius rose from the east before dawn as the beginning of a year. It can be said that the Gregorian calendar, the predecessor of the calendar we use, was first born in ancient Egypt.

Extended data

In China astronomy, this star is called Sirius (the wolf in the sky); Romanization of Chinese: tiānláng；; ; Romanization of Japanese: Tenrō is not; Romanization of Korean: Cheonlang), in the 28 constellations of China, Sirius belongs to Su Jing, where Sirius is the official. Sirius is the only star in Star Official.

In ancient China, some stars of Pisces and Canis Canis were combined and imagined as a big bow across the southern sky. They were classified as sagittal stars. In this combination, the arrow is facing Sirius. It means "shoot Sirius". This is how the sentence "Look northwest and shoot Cang Lang" came from "Hunting in Mizhou, Jiangchengzi". The ancients also had a saying about the official of the arrow star: the sky did its best and died. That is, astrologers use it to predict the military situation.

A similar combination also appeared on the murals of the Temple of Hassall in Dendra. In the late Persian culture, this star was called Tir and regarded as an arrow. The Saudi goddess (Satis) painted her arrow on the goddess Hassall (Sirius) in the form of a bull's head.

Baidu Encyclopedia-Sirius (Alpha Dog)