Sirius From Other Sources
Assem Dief has written an article on the legends surrounding Sirius. Interestingly, Assem reveals mention of Sirius from Arab sources and compares it with Ancient Egyptian mythology.
“Looking into other cultures we find equal myths about the same type of story. To the Indians the name “Tishtrya” goes back to the Sanskrit term “three stars”. In Arab mythology there are abundant poems on the Sirius lore. They believed there were three stars getting along well. They called the original star “Al-Shi’ra Al-Yamaniyyah or “Al-Shi’ra Al-A’bour”, denoting Sirius A in Canis Major from the Arabic verb a’bar, meaning to traverse, and another “Al-Shi’ra Al-Shamiyyah or Al-Ghomaisaa” from the verb ghamasa i.e. blink from excessive weeping. But the latter is not Sirius B, but Procyon in Canis Minor; the appearance of which above the horizon heralds the coming of Sirius approximately an hour later. Both are the alpha stars of the dog constellations and both are binary stars, each with a white dwarf companion (both are also relatively close, 8.7 light years for Sirius, and 11 light years for Procyon). Perhaps it was because Procyon was also called by the Arabs “Al-Shi’ra” (Sirius) that Griaule took it for Sirius B and impelled the Dogons unnoticeably or involuntarily to accepting it this way; thus attributing them more knowledge than they actually possessed.
A third star in the set is Suhayl in the Constellation Carina (part of Argo), known as “the ship of the desert”. There are the three most important stars for the Arabs, along with Ursa Major. It meant they recognised the triplet Sirius- Proycon-Canopus, in which the last was the brother of the first two sisters and Sirius is married to Canopus. Now the legend goes as follows: “As Canopus and Sirius were husband and wife and the first flew to the south, Sirius in order to follow suit traversed the constellation. Procyon, being left alone and losing its brother, not being able to traverse similarly, began to weep heavily; losing its brightness and becoming a smaller star and staying at the end of the constellation”. So eventually, Sirius moved to the south, whereas Procyon was tilted to the north. This explains their Arabic names “Al-Shi’ra Al-Yamaniyyah” for Sirius and “Al-Shi’ra Al-Shamiyyah” for Procyon, referring to Al-Sham (Syria).”
Read the full article: Sirius Lore.
Related posts:
- Sirius and the Face of the Pyramids A new article by Assem Deif published today in Al-Ahram...
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