When our ancestors gazed upon the skies thousands of years ago they looked up into the center of Creation and saw a mighty Dragon, a great celestial serpent with wings circling ceaselessly about them, night after night, century after century. When the Dragon Wore the Crown is a ground breaking work that covers a period of over six thousand years, focusing on what some would call the Ages of Gemini, Taurus and Aries and taking us through the period of classical astronomy with the Greeks and Romans (approx. 7000 BC-200 AD). When the Dragon Wore the Crown opens and closes with the Chinese mythological tradition and touches on Egyptian, Sumerian, Babylonian, Phoenician, Greek, Norse, Hindu, Native American Mayan and even aboriginal myths, weaving together many of their celestial serpentine similarities.
We begin with a focus on the role of the constellation Draco, the celestial marker for the North Celestial Pole for literally thousands of years. The importance of this simple astronomical observation helped facilitate the study of the calendar, navigation, farming and social organization. The circuit of the seasons was marked by this cadence with the moving center guarding the position of the elliptical and zodiacal circle for literally thousands of years. The secret of the circle was hidden in the center. The one had to be determined before the other. If the true center was not accurately observed and determined, the entire circle was off. This is a beautiful and informative book of discovery, following the mythology of various cultures as it evolved into modern astronomy.
After examining these themes we will penetrate more deeply into both the Age of Gemini with some of our earliest cultural storytelling, the myths themselves. In addition, we will then pick up in the 2nd century AD and study in detail the Age of Pisces as outlined in Don’s second book, The 8th Seal, which not only brings us down to the present day, but also looks at some of the prophecies for our future as seen from the 1st century AD in this mythological and astronomical translation of the Biblical Book of Revelation. The early Christian and Hebrew prophets left a record of what they believed was about to unfold as we moved through the Age of Pisces (their future) and into the Age of Aquarius (our present).
Graduating Magna cum Laude from the University of Massachusetts in Classics, Don Cerow is a religious scholar, historian, mythographer and astronomer. Author of the groundbreaking IBIS PRESS title, When the Dragon Wore the Crown, Cerow’s focus has been on the Ancient Mysteries and how they evolved from the study of the sky. In 2003 he reconstructed an early model of Stonehenge in the Hamptons, Long Island in a story picked up by the New York Times. In 2005 he produced a multi-media show for Fiske Planetarium at the University of Colorado, pushing back in time the limits of what our forbearers knew about the heavens. In 2012 he lectured at CPAK (the Conference for Precession and Ancient Knowledge). Writing a weekly column for various newspapers and on-line since 1983, Don has produced shows for radio and television and taught at colleges, universities and planetariums across the country.