Isti Mirant Stella

[Kyriakos]

I would like to ask if that comet was known by another name, before that astronomer giving it his own name (Halley's comet).

I read that it is theorised that the first recorded sighting of it was in 466 BC, by ancient Greeks, partly due to a meteor falling in northern Greece at the time (mentioned also by Aristotle an aeon later, along with the comet).

 

[Plotinus]

No, because until Halley, no-one realised that it was the same comet coming back each time. People thought that comets were meteorological disturbances until the sixteenth century, when it was shown that they are superluminary. And even then, people didn't realise that they have regular orbits around the Sun, as opposed to just shooting straight past and never being seen again. Although Newton suspected it, Halley was the first person to show that comets orbit the Sun, and that a comet seen one year might be identical with one seen on a previous occasion. So no-one would have bothered to name comets before, any more than you'd name clouds.

 

[Kyriakos]

No, because until Halley, no-one realised that it was the same comet coming back each time. People thought that comets were meteorological disturbances until the sixteenth century, when it was shown that they are superluminary. And even then, people didn't realise that they have regular orbits around the Sun, as opposed to just shooting straight past and never being seen again. Although Newton suspected it, Halley was the first person to show that comets orbit the Sun, and that a comet seen one year might be identical with one seen on a previous occasion. So no-one would have bothered to name comets before, any more than you'd name clouds.

Yeah, but this was not what i asked:

While it has to be supposed that indeed prior to that time the heavenly body was not deemed as a recurring sighting of the same object, the ancients still might have given it a name. The term comet probably comes from the Greek term for "mane", which is kome (the term for comet is Kometes). The comets seem to have a flowing mane-sort of tail behind them, which is why the word was used for this phenomenon.

A meteorite, on the other hand, comes from the Greek for heavenly body/hanging above, which is "meteoro". -ites signifies it came from there. Aristotle mentions the meteorite at AigosPotamoi (that fell around 60 years before Athens 'fell' on the same area ).

So the question is whether any source (Greek, Chinese or Babylonian, or later) named that object in any way. I would guess they would have had. Afterall it would be rather hard to note it down without giving it some sort of name (even generic, even mildly expanded in number of words), for practical reasons at least.

 

[Plotinus]

Well, more broadly, do any ancient sources name any comet, meteor, or meteorite? We don't typically name non-recurring objects today; even famous ones such as the Chelyabinsk meteor are just referred to by where they were seen. I don't see why an ancient reference to a comet would need to give it a name beyond "the comet that was seen in that month" or whatever.

 

[Kyriakos]

I agree, but i suspect that the term "comet" did not exist in 466 (or 467) BC, and they obviously saw it as distinct from the meteor. I don't know if they called it a star (like the Bayeux tapestry names it, 1500 years later).
A few decades earlier it was Anaxagoras (of Klazomenae) (500-428 BC) who argued that the stars (the sun as well) were fiery cores, of massive size (although he did not seem to identify their size as having to be larger than the earth). He did think they emitted massive heat, which was only a little felt on earth due to the great distance.
So given that Anaxagoras rose to prominence in Athens of Pericles, the people witnessing the comet would have had reason to note it in reflection to those arguments as well.

 

[ParkCungHee]

So no-one would have bothered to name comets before, any more than you'd name clouds.

Well, it's not a cloud...

 

[Kyriakos]

Even a general term used for it during the ancient time (Greek, Chinese or Babylonian) would be of interest to me. I would want to not use the name Halley, in some possible mention of the comet in a work of mine.

 

[SeekTruthFromFacts]

Well, it's not a cloud...

They come from a cloud though....

 

[Gucumatz]

I don't know if Halley's comet was ever named in Maya astronomy, but I remember reading that on the date of its appearance in the fourth century the king of Tikal fell to a conqueror from far away in Teotihuacan named "Fire is Born"/Siya'h K'ak. After the ruler from Teotihuacan took power the previous ruler's depictions weren't defaced either. Fire is Born then proceeded to take out other cities around Tikal conquering the land as a vassal for Teotihuacan following that particular date of the comet. The fall of Tikal was quite an important event historically so it happening at the same time as the comet's arrival I am sure would have had it named somehow although I don't believe it's recorded.

 

[Symphony D.]

People thought that comets were meteorological disturbances until the sixteenth century, when it was shown that they are superluminary.

That's not what that word means. Perhaps you meant supernal?

 

[Kyriakos]

Thank you for the added info

Regarding Tikal, would the main regional deity at the time be already Tezcatlipoca? - or some early prototype of his (iirc he was not originally the leader of that pantheon, but after a time he became the clear center of it).

 

[Plotinus]

That's not what that word means. Perhaps you meant supernal?

Whoops. I meant superlunary, i.e. above the moon.

 

[Gucumatz]

Thank you for the added info

Regarding Tikal, would the main regional deity at the time be already Tezcatlipoca? - or some early prototype of his (iirc he was not originally the leader of that pantheon, but after a time he became the clear center of it).

Sorry didn't see this post earlier. Anyhow Tezcatlipoca is an Aztec god and while there are other gods that share similarities with him its kind of hard to definitely say they are the same as the later Aztec representation unlike some other gods where the cultural "evolution/change" is more evident.

As for Tikal's main deity I am not sure who it was at the time of conquest/dynastic succession by Teotihuacan. I know at around this time that Chaac [God of Rain and Thunder] became an incredibly important if not the most important god in the region and that Chaac's origins probably come from Teotihuacan so Chaac might have become prevalent with Teotihuacan's rise in the region. The fall of Teotihuacan saw Tlaloc/Chaac's edifices burned and destroyed at Teotihuacan in an incredibly violent manner according to archaeology something so startling that it might have gone along with the decline in Chaac's dominance in the 700s and the rise of Hunahpu and others in his place of dominance. But yea, I am sorry not sure who was the main god of the region in the early 4th century before dominance from Teotihuacan.