History and Mythology

Leo has been represented as a lion by numerous civilizations for thousands of years. One explanation is that the Sun was among its stars in Midsummer, and during this time the lions of the Egyptian desert left their accustomed haunts for the banks of the Nile, where they could find relief from the heat in the waters of the inundation. Pliny wrote that the Egyptians worshipped the stars of Leo because the rise of their great river was coincident with the Sun's entrance among them. Distinct reference is made to Leo in an inscription of the walls of the Ramesseum at Thebes, which, like the Nile temples generally, was adorned with the animal's bristles, while on the planisphere of Dendera its figure is shown standing on an outstretched serpent. The Egyptian stellar Lion, however, comprised only a part of the modern constellation, and in the earliest records some of its stars were shown as a knife, whereas they now are as a sickle. Kircher gave its title there as Πιμεντεκεων, Cubitus Nili.

The Persians called Leo Ser or Shir; the Turks, Artan; the Syrians, Aryo; the Jewish, Arye; the Indians, "Sher"; and the Babylonians, Aru — all meaning a lion. In Euphratean astronomy it was additionally known as Gisbar-namru-sa-pan, variously translated, but by Bertin, as the Shining Disc which precedes Bel, "Bel" being our Ursa Major, or in some way intimately connected therewith.