Cultural Significance
See also: Algol in astrology| The constellation Perseus and Algol, the Bright Star in the Gorgon's head | |
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Johannes Hevelius, Uranographia, 1690 |
In the Tetrabiblos, the 2nd century astrological text of the Alexandrian astronomer Ptolemy, Algol is referred to as "the Gorgon of Perseus" and associated with death by decapitation: a theme which mirrors the myth of the hero Perseus’ victory over the snake-headed Gorgon Medusa. Astrologically, Algol is considered one of the unluckiest stars in the sky, and was listed as one of the 15 Behenian stars. Historically, the star has received a strong association with bloody violence across a wide variety of cultures.
Read more about this topic: Algol
Famous quotes containing the words cultural and/or significance:
“The sickly cultural pathos which the whole of France indulges in, that fetishism of the cultural heritage.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“The hypothesis I wish to advance is that ... the language of morality is in ... grave disorder.... What we possess, if this is true, are the fragments of a conceptual scheme, parts of which now lack those contexts from which their significance derived. We possess indeed simulacra of morality, we continue to use many of the key expressions. But we have—very largely if not entirely—lost our comprehension, both theoretical and practical, of morality.”
—Alasdair Chalmers MacIntyre (b. 1929)