Pleiades in folklore and literature
Interpretations and traditional meanings of the star cluster among various human cultures / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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High visibility of the star cluster Pleiades in the night sky and its position along the ecliptic (which approximates to the Solar System's common planetary plane) has given it importance in many cultures, ancient and modern. Its heliacal rising, which moves through the seasons over millennia (see precession) was nonetheless a date of folklore or ritual for various ancestral groups, so too its yearly heliacal setting.[2]
As noted by scholar Stith Thompson, the constellation was "nearly always imagined" as a group of seven sisters, and their myths explain why there are only six.[3] Some scientists suggest that these may come from observations back when Pleione was further from Atlas and more visible as a separate star as far back as 100,000 BC.[4]