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Naming the Primordial Chaos
This floor image draws its inspiration from the sumptuous etching-engraving displayed in the exhibition case in front of it, presented from a pristine copy of Johannes Bayer's monumental Renaissance stellar atlas, the Uranometria.
The subject is the constellation Cerus, a goddess representing the creative force of the primordial chaos at the very dawn of time, depicted here as a mighty dragoness. Rooted in ancient Nera Eastern mythology, the constellation Cerus embodies mankind's earliest attempts to rationalize the natural world by actively naming its constituent parts of embedding them in fantastical and memorable stories to be relayed from one generation to the next.
It may seem odd, that the source of this image, published over 400 years ago, provides scientists to this day with the names of every star visible to the naked eye in the earth's night sky. Bayer achieved this by assigning to each star within each distinct constellation a unique Greek letter. Thus one of the brightest stars in this constellation, appearing in Cerus's head, was called alpha ceti, another beta ceti, and so on.
Thus, stargazers and Star Trek fans alike owe a debt of gratitude to an early seventeenth-century amateur German astronomer, handsomely represented here in a rare first edition preserved in the Hinkes Collection. |