Astrology has been around for thousands of years and evolved since ancient time from a limited aspect of predicting events managed by a selected group of people mainly related to religion, to a general knowledge with a much wider horizon reaching human psychology, evolution and personal guidance.
There is information where the Sumerians already worshiped the Sun, Moon and Venus from 4000 BC. They named them:
Sun – Utu Moon – Nanna Venus – Inanna
The first “astrologers”, even if they were not called such, were the people more naturally inclined or prepared to observe the stars and do predictions of their movement. They became the first priests since they had the knowledge and were able to predict certain natural or astronomical events. Given their knowledge, the priests were mainly consulted for the “prediction” or “possible outcomes” of events that were in the planning for the military or ruling establishment. Not everything was so easy given that when the outcomes were not favorable, most of the time they paid with their lives when they made the wrong predictions.
By 1300 BC the first birth charts were done based on the month when the child was born.
When the Assyrians conquered the Sumerians, they took their gods (planets) and in most of the cases gave them new names. The Assyrians placed as much or even more importance to the planets known and their movements into the constellations. Not only they had the believe that planets were gods, but also that they were the home of gods.
The names given to the planets as well as the Sun and the Moon were eventually replaced by the Greek names, then the Roman names, and eventually they were translated for the rest of the languages.
In times of the Assyrians, the names of the seven known planets were as follows:
Sun = Shamash
Moon = Sin
Mercury = Nebo or Nabu
Mars=Nergal
Jupiter=Marduk
Saturn=Ninurta
Venus, named Ishtar by the Assyrians, was very important for the ancient civilizations.
For the Egyptians and the Greeks : it was the morning and evening star. Greeks named Hesperus the evening star and Phosphorus the morning star. As a goddess was called Aphrodite. For the Egyptians is compared with the goddess Isis. For the Romans the goddess Venus had the same attributes that given by the Greeks. She was the goddess for love, fertility and beauty. For the Mayans: Noh Ek, “the Great Star” or Xux Ek, “the Wasp Star“. In other parts of Mexico, they embodied Venus in the form of the god Kukulkán and Quetzalcoatl.
In Egypt, is was found in the temple of Hathor at Dendera a zodiac chart, called the Zodiac of Dendera, in which the decans for each zodiacal sign are already present.
For the Egyptians in addition to the known planets, they gave significant importance to the start Sirius, which is not considered in astrology. Events like the flooding of the Nile delta, Sirius falling down or uprising over the horizon, where important moments in the lives of the people in Egypt.
There is much information related to Sirius and the orientation of the pyramids and the openings found in the great pyramid of Giza, which they point to the star and many others related coincidences.