(XI.) HISTORY - Into the Twentieth Century

1] With regard to this point, see an article in the Nineteenth Century for September 1900, by E. W. Maunder of the Greenwich Observatory on "The Oldest Picture Book" (the Zodiac). Mr. Maunder calculates that the Vernal Equinox was in the centre of the Sign of the Bull 5,000 years ago. [It would therefore be in the centre of Aries 2,845 years ago--allowing 2,155 years for the time occupied in passing from one Sign to another.**] At the earlier period the Summer solstice was in the centre of Leo, the Autumnal equinox in the centre of Scorpius, and the Winter solstice in the centre of Aquarius--corresponding roughly, Mr. Maunder points out, to the positions of the four "Royal Stars," Aldebaran, Regulus, Antares and Fomalhaut.

[* Modern scholarship disagrees with this. Mithraism is now thought to be of a very similar age to Christianity. It's a Roman mystery religion founded when the Vernal Equinox Point was entering Pisces, not when it was in Taurus.]

[** This is one of the the first known uses of the Platonic Month concept. [See Massey's work for an even earlier use.] This use is Carpenter's not Maunder's. Maunder in The Oldest Picture Book carefully notes that: "The Signs of the Zodiac are not of perfectly equal extent. Cancer, for instance, only represents about 19 degrees of longitude; Virgo covers about 43 degrees," a fact which invalidates the simple idea of using twelve equal Platonic Months to measure the amount of time for the Vernal Equinox Point to go from one sign to another. It's possible that Carpenter's incorrect use of a Platonic Months idea may have contributed to his later highly inaccurate start date of 1936 for the beginning of the Age of Aquarius... Which probably influenced Jung - and thus the idea of a New Agewas born early...]

http://www.geocities.com/astrologyages/edwardcarpenteraquarius.htm