The Great Fish

The Great Fish 

Piscis Austrinus is a constellation in the southern celestial hemisphere.

 The name is Latin for "the southern fish", in contrast with the larger constellation Pisces, which represents a pair of fishes.

The Latin word for fish is piscis & for south is austral from which 

we get the  title ‘Pisces Australis'. 

 The stars of the modern constellation Grus once formed the "tail" of Piscis Austrinus. 

In 1597 (or 1598), Petrus Plancius carved out a separate constellation and named it after the crane.

Piscis Austrinus is a constellation bordered by Capricornus to the northwest, Microscopium to the southwest, Grus to the south, Sculptor to the east, and Aquarius to the north.

In Greek mythology, this constellation is known as the Great Fish and it is portrayed as swallowing the water being poured out by Aquarius, the water-bearer constellation. 

      

 The two fish of the constellation Pisces are said to be the offspring of the Great Fish. 

In the 5th century BC, Greek historian Ctesias wrote that the fish was said to have lived in a lake near Bambyce in Syria and had saved Derceto, daughter of Aphrodite, and for this deed was placed in the heavens. 

For this reason, fish were sacred and not eaten by many Syrians.

In Egyptian mythology, this fish saved the life of the Egyptian goddess Isis, so she placed this fish and its descendants into the heavens as constellations of stars.

The priests of Heliopolis, followers of the sun god Re, developed the myth of Isis. 

This told that Isis was the daughter of the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut and the sister of the deities Osiris, Seth, and Nephthys.

 Married to Osiris, king of Egypt, Isis was a queen who supported her husband and taught the women of Egypt how to weave, bake, and brew beer. 

But Seth was jealous, and he hatched a plot to kill his brother. 

Seth trapped Osiris in a decorated wooden chest, which he coated in lead and threw into the Nile. 

The chest had become Osiris’s coffin. 

With his brother vanished, Seth became king of Egypt. 

But Isis could not forget her husband, and she searched everywhere for him until she eventually discovered Osiris, still trapped in his chest, in Byblos. 

She brought his body back to Egypt, where Seth discovered the chest and, furious, hacked his brother into pieces, which he scattered far and wide. 

Transforming into a bird, and helped by her sister, Nephthys, Isis was able to discover and reunite the parts of her dead husband’s body. 

Using her magical powers, she was able to make Osiris whole; bandaged, neither living nor dead, Osiris had become a mummy. 

Nine months later Isis bore him a son, Horus.

 Osiris was then forced to retreat to the underworld, where he became king of the dead.

Fomalhaut star

 Traditionally representing the mouth of the fish, Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation and the 19th-brightest star in the night sky, with an apparent magnitude of 1.16. 

The name Fomalhaut is derived from the Arabic fum al-ḥawt, which means

 “the mouth of the (Southern) Fish.”

“The fish drinks the waters of the flood to save the world ."

The Southern Fish is depicted with its mouth open, drinking the water that is being poured from the jar of Aquarius.

The constellation has its origins in Babylonian culture, where it was known as the Fish, or MUL.KU.

 It was associated with the myth about the Syrian fertility goddess Atargatis, who fell into a lake near the river Euphrates in what is today northern Syria, and was rescued by a large fish.

 The goddess would later punish all those who ate fish, but her priests were allowed to eat it every day.

In a different version of the story, Atargatis deliberately threw herself into the lake.

 In this version, she abandoned her daughter, did away with the father, and was turned into a mermaid in the lake.

Stories how Atargatis became a mermaid are quite sad. 

According to the myth Atargatis fell in love to a mortal shepherd called Hadad and they had a daughter called Semiramis. 

Semiramis later on became queen of Assyria. 

Atargatis accidentally caused the death of Hadad. 

She could not live with her guilt and drowned herself into a lake near Ascalon.

 Waters however could not hide her beauty and she was transformed into a mermaid. 

A woman with a tail of a fish. 

Story of Atargatis is one of the first mermaid stories ever told.

The fish played  important role in modern world too.

 It is generally believed to be the elephantfish of the family Mormyrid .

 Elephant-nose fish are depicted in ancient Egyptian tombs dating from around 2500 B.C. 

Oxyrhynchus‘ papyrus-rich garbage heaps were excavated in the late 1890s and yielded paper fragments of books and documents of seven centuries of Graeco-Egyptian life. 

The Long-nosed elephant fish has an electrical organ which it uses to find its food in dark and murky waters.

 This fish is used by water departments in the U.S. and Germany to test the quality of drinking water. 

Its brain size to body weight ratio is higher than that of humans .

The human brain uses 15-20% of the body’s oxygen supply. 

The brain of the African elephant nose fish uses 60% of its body’s oxygen supply .

 (Maybe this explains the prefix oxy– in Oxyrhynchus, –rhynchus is Greek for beak).

Interesting na?

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