Zodiac constellations can be traced even further back, to Bronze Age (First Babylonian dynasty) sources, including Gemini "The Twins", from MAŠ.TAB.BA.GAL.GAL "The Great Twins", and Cancer "The Crab", from AL.LUL "The Crayfish", among others. Around the end of the 5th century BC, Babylonian astronomers divided the ecliptic into twelve equal "signs", by analogy to twelve schematic months of thirty days each. Each sign contained thirty degrees of celestial longitude, thus creating the first known celestial coordinate system. Unlike modern astronomers, who place the beginning of the sign of Aries at the place of the Sun at the vernal equinox; Babylonian astronomers
Goat (zodiac) year of promise and prosperity. "Yáng" (羊) is a component of another written Chinese characters "xiang" (祥), which means auspiciousness, and the two were interchangeable in ancient Chinese, according to one source. It is also a part of the character "shan" (善), which counts kindness and benevolence as among its meanings. Individuals born in the zodiac year have been supposed to share certain characteristics with other individuals also born in years of the same animal sign. Similarly, years sharing the same animal sign have been supposed to share certain characteristics, repeating over their 12/60 year cycle. The shared characteristics in