Author: Marinus Anthony van der Sluijs
Abstract: The astrological concept of the ‘dragon of the lunar nodes’, responsible for eclipses of the sun and the moon, may have derived from a combination of ideas prevailing in Late Antiquity with respect to the ourobóros or ‘tail-biting serpent’—that it constituted a ring of darkness, that it was bent around the sun and that it was positioned on the ecliptic band. Various Mithraic, astrological and alchemical images of celestial dragons appear to represent this aspect of the dragon.
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Publication: Culture and Cosmos
Issue: Volume 13, Number 1
Dated: Spring/Summer 2009
Pages: 63-75
The Dragon of the Eclipses—A Note
Posted in Free Research Abstract