The Sumerians may have regarded Taurus as a sacred bull of light. From the time of the Chaldeans, some 5,000 years ago, constellation as Zeus in the guise of a bull, while to the Chinese (who do not regard the constellation as a bull), it is alternatively the “White Tiger” or the “Great Bridge.”The ancient Egyptians revered Apis, the Bull of Memphis…a real bull believed to be an incarnation of Osiris.
In the constellation of Taurus there are many of the celestial objects that are visible to the naked eye. Among them are the star clusters Hyades and Pleiades. The Hyades have been known since antiquity. The name itself dates back at least as far as 1000 BC, when it is mentioned in various Greek sources. The rising of the Hyades was associated with rain from ancient Greece to ancient China. The Pleiades are visible in good weather, a sign that the ancient seamen could undertake a sea voyage. Taurus constellation also contains the bright stars Elnath (Beta Tauri) and Aldebaran (Alpha Tauri), long used in navigation.
The stars of the Hyades are associated with one another in the sense that they are all moving in approximately the same direction and at the same speed through the galaxy. It was within Taurus that the Italian astronomer Piazzi made the discovery of the first asteroid (named Ceres) on New Year’s Day in 1801.
Taurus marked the point on the horizon where the Sun rose on the Vernal Equinox…the first day of Spring. Taurus no longer holds this position due to an effect known as precession, caused by the slow wobble of the Earth’s axis. These wobble, which moves the Earth’s celestial poles in one complete circle every 26,000 years, accounts for the apparent shift in the location of stars over time.
