The Chinese Zodiac

The Year of the Snake is here! But how did a legendary tale of twelve animals shape Chinese astronomy and culture for over 3,000 years? In this episode of The Ancients, Tristan Hughes is joined by Professor John Steele from Brown University to dive into the origins of the Chinese Zodiac to mark the Chinese New Year. They uncover how this ancient zodiac, associated with 12 animals, ties into Chinese astronomy and philosophy. Professor Steele explains the intricate cycles of 12 earthly branches and 10 heavenly stems that form a 60-year pattern deeply embedded in Chinese culture. Discover the mythical origins, the influence of lunar calendars, and the evolution of this zodiac from the Shang dynasty to today. Presented by Tristan Hughes. Audio editor is Aidan Lonergan, the producer is Joseph Knight. The senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff. Theme music from Motion Array, all other music from Epidemic Sounds The Ancients is a History Hit podcast. Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe. You can take part in our listener survey here https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/6FFT7MK. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tristan Hughes?

  Ever wondered why the Romans were defeated in the Teutoburg Forest? What secrets lie buried in prehistoric Ireland? Or what made Alexander truly great? With a subscription to History Hit, you can explore our ancient past alongside the world's leading historians and archaeologists. You'll also unlock hundreds of hours of original documentaries with a brand new release every single week, covering everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 0:32Speaker 01

  Hi folks, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman, and I'm here to suggest that you host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are, as usual, no antibiotics ever in their meat department, so carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All of their fabulous, delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Where else are you going to find that? Gourmet Thanksgiving flavours with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 1:16Tristan Hughes?

  This episode is sponsored by Smart Travel, a new podcast from NerdWallet. Now, you know that one friend who always finds the best travel deals, picks the right cards and somehow ends up in first class for the price of coach? Smart Travel is like that friend, but in podcast form. They cover all things travel finance, so you can stop stressing and actually start enjoying your trips. I'm lucky enough to travel a fair bit. You might have heard me talking about being on tour with The Ancients in Australia and New Zealand quite recently. Well, Smart Travel Podcast from NerdWallet was a great help. They dig into which airport lounges are really worth it, and which are just an airport gate with better snacks and worse lighting,

• 2:00Tristan Hughes?

  and what actually happens when an airline loses your luggage for 12 days, and how to get real money back instead of a free drink and an apology. Plus, the tip I really needed: how to book flights without it turning into a part-time job. Travel smarter and spend less with help from NerdWallet. Follow Smart Travel wherever you get your podcasts.

• 2:36Tristan Hughes?

  2025 welcomes the Year of the Snake, the sixth animal of the 12 at the heart of the Chinese zodiac. If you are born a snake, you are considered mysterious, yet charismatic, calm, yet determined. To many, it's all just fun superstition. Regardless, knowing your Chinese zodiac animal symbol and what it represents has become incredibly popular with people across the world. It's part of your identity, a fun fact to share with friends. If anyone wants to know, I'm a rat and couldn't be prouder. But this is a tradition that has endured for more than a millennia. So how exactly did this zodiac come about? How did it relate to wider ancient Chinese astronomy and philosophy, their lunar calendar?

• 3:21Tristan Hughes?

  And why these particular 12 animals?

• 3:25Tristan Hughes?

  It's The Ancients on History Hit. I'm Tristan Hughes, your host. Today, as Chinese New Year approaches, we're exploring these ancient origins of what is arguably the most famous part of that festival: the Chinese zodiac. Our guest today is Professor John Steele from Brown University, an expert on ancient astronomy and lunar calendars. Now, John, he has a particular interest in ancient Babylonian astronomy. Think their own famous zodiac, featuring names like Capricorn, Aries, Leo, Sagittarius, and so on. An episode will no doubt do in the future. But John has also studied astronomy in ancient China and how they divided up time into cycles of 60 years.

• 4:06Tristan Hughes?

  It's a cycle that has its roots in ancient Chinese history, more than 3,000 years old, and heavily features the 12 animals that represent the Chinese zodiac today. We're going to be exploring it all. Lots of detail and information coming your way, and I hope you enjoy.

• 4:26Tristan Hughes?

  John, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today.

• 4:29Speaker 02

  Pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

• 4:31Tristan Hughes?

  Now, everyone loves a zodiac and it feels especially true this time of year with particularly the Chinese zodiac. But no such thing as a silly question. What exactly is the Chinese zodiac?

• 4:43Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, it's not a silly question. It's actually not a simple question either, because it's kind of a misnamed concept. I mean, the zodiac in its technical meaning is a division of the path of the sun into 12 equal parts. So as we think of the earth in the centre of the universe, as we view it, we have the sun moving around us and the moon and the planets moving around us. And they trace out this path that we call the zodiac. And we can divide that into 12 equal parts. That's what the zodiac is in terms of astronomy. But the Chinese zodiac is actually something quite different. The Chinese zodiac is basically just a cycle of 12 that are associated with animals. And because it's a cycle of 12 with 12 animals, people have just called it a zodiac because we have 12 animals in the Western zodiac. So it's actually just a coincidence of the fact that there's 12 and they're named after animals or associated

• 5:28Speaker 02

  with animals, that people call it the Chinese zodiac. But it's really a misnamed concept.

• 5:33Tristan Hughes?

  Is it always that magic number, John? Is it always that magic number of 12, whether it's a zodiac officially, or as in the case of the Chinese zodiac, it's not actually a zodiac?

• 5:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, so we have from China various different cycles based on different numbers. So we have a cycle of 12, which is this thing that gets associated with the zodiac, which is a cycle that's actually officially called the 12 earthly branches. When it cycles through from 1 to 12 on a repeating cycle, we have another cycle of 10 called the 10 heavenly stems. And you can put those two cycles together, and they run side by side. And if you go through the whole cycle, then it takes 60 to go around in the whole cycle. So we have this cycle of 60 that keeps repeating, made up of a cycle of 12 and a cycle of 10. And that cycle is applied to all different aspects of Chinese life and society. So you have a cycle of the 60 years,

• 6:24Speaker 02

  and you also have a cycle of 60 days. So just like our days of the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday is a cycle of seven. In China, you have a cycle of 60 days. And so the cycle of 12 is kind of one aspect of that cycle. So it's like a sub-cycle, if you like, of that 60. It's this repeating cycle of 12 that just keeps going round and round. So you have a cycle of 12 days, and you have a cycle of 12 years, all of which have the same names. So there are 12 names for this each individual entry in this 12 cycle. This cycle is applied to all sorts of things. So the Chinese day is divided into 12, what we call double hours, so 12 two-hour-long intervals. And they're also named after these 12 different earthly branches. So this cycle of 12 is used all throughout different aspects of Chinese life and Chinese

• 7:09Speaker 02

  concepts of the earth and the world around us. And then there's one aspect of this, if you get associated with different things, and one of the associations is with the animals. And so that's why we get this cycle of 12 animals that have been associated with the 12 years. And this is quite ancient, and this goes back almost 2,000 years or so, that we have this cycle of 12 going on and on, and this being associated with these animals that then the year, then we have the year, you know, we're just ending the year of the dragon and we're going into the year of the snake now.

• 7:36Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, from an outsider looking in, it does feel like that with the numbers 60 and 12 and animals only being a small part of it, that in the Chinese tradition, it's almost, and forgive me if I'm slightly wrong here, but it feels like layers of an onion, because it is very detailed, dare I say, complicated at first to get your head around these various parts of this whole system.

• 7:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's true, it is. I mean, I think the onion analogy is a nice analogy. It's like, it is the all these different layers of meaning that all these different cycles have. And we have to think of these cycles almost like gears going around together, they're all interlocking and changing.

• 8:09Tristan Hughes?

  They complement each other, do they?

• 8:11Speaker 02

  Exactly, they complement and combine to give you various different associations that can be used. And, I mean, I think for us, it is, you know, coming as outside as this is, takes a while to get your head around. But of course, for the ancient Chinese, this was so familiar to them that it's trivial, because they've grown up with it, it's just what they, what they know. So this cycle of 12 and all these associations are so part of everyday life that they're just familiar with it in the same way that we're familiar with the, you know, the 12 signs of the Western zodiac or the 24 hours of the day or something.

• 8:41Tristan Hughes?

  Well, John, you're going to help us peel away that onion for us, layer by layer. But let's go back to ancient China and the origins of the Chinese zodiac. I know there's so many stories. For instance, let's say in ancient Greece with various cities, you have like a mythological origin story and then a historical origin story. Is it the same with the origins of the Chinese zodiac?

• 9:03Speaker 02

  It's absolutely the same. We really don't know the origin of the Chinese zodiac, or even the original cycle of twelve before it gets associated with the animals. I mean, there are various different myths about this. So there are myths about the association between the twelve earthly branches and the animals. So there's a very famous myth about the Jade Emperor holding a race.

• 9:23Tristan Hughes?

  This is the race, isn't it? Yes, the great race, yes.

• 9:25Speaker 02

  The great race where the animals run and have to cross a river. And this gives you the order of the twelve signs of the zodiac. So what happens in the race? I mean, there's different versions of this myth, but in the sort of the prevailing version, the rat wins the race because it convinces the ox to let it stand on its back and cross the river along with a cat. And then when it gets to the bank of the river, the rat pushes the cat off into the river and jumps ahead of the ox. So it wins the race and becomes the first of the sequence. And of course, the poor cat is then lost in the river. So it doesn't become an animal in the sequence at all.

• 9:54Tristan Hughes?

  Oh, it doesn't become an animal at all? Oh, the poor cat?

• 9:56Speaker 02

  That's why there's no cat in the Chinese zodiac. So you have this myth of, as I say, the Jade Emperor. So going back to, you know, really ancient times of this great race that gives you the order of the twelve. But you also have other explanations that people have made over the years, including many centuries ago, people pointed out that, for example, the Chinese sign for the earthly branch that is associated with a snake, which is the sign for the sea, actually looks, if you draw it in the Chinese character, it looks a bit like a snake. And that can be done for a couple of the other characters as well. So people say, well, maybe the origins is actually in the sort of the graphical drawing of the signs. And people said, oh, well, this looks a bit like the animal. So

• 10:37Speaker 02

  we'll make that association. So there's all sorts of possible reasons or explanations for why the animals were chosen. But as I say, we don't, you know, we don't know truthfully what the answer is.

• 10:48Tristan Hughes?

  I was born in the year of the rat. So I love how that story of the great race and how the rat takes a piggyback on the ox and then jumps off to be the first one across the line. Hence why the rat is at the start of the cycle and then the ox. And then I can't remember the rest, but we'll, we'll talk about those animals in a bit. But it's interesting. So we know its origins are in the ancient period. So two thousand years ago, as you mentioned earlier, John, but pinning it down exactly, do we have a rough estimate? Can we see when it starts getting integrated into Chinese society?

• 11:17Speaker 02

  The twelve branches and the ten stems, we can trace back very ancient. We can see this already in the the Shang Dynasty oracle bones, which date from fifteen thousand B C or so. So they're very ancient. The application of these to the cycle of sixty that that's made up from the combination of these two, the stems and the branches, we can trace back, as I say, to the Shang Dynasty. When it was applied to years seems to be later, sometime in the first millennium B C, but we don't know quite when. And then the association with the animals seems to be there at least in the in the Han Dynasty. So sometime around the beginning of the Christian era, that sort of of time period, just over two thousand years ago.

• 11:58Tristan Hughes?

  And John, forgive me for being dumb, but I'm also going to get you to re-explain, because you mentioned the branches and the stems there, and our twelve, and then the ten, and then that leads up to the sixty. So can you just explain to us once again how those numbers, how the branches and the stems are linked to the sixty together, please?

• 12:16Speaker 02

  So the the twelve branches and the ten stems each run through every every sequence. So every day or every year, we go on one in each of those two cycles. So, for example, you know, this is entering the year of the snake, which means that this is the sixth one of the twelve branches. Next year, so in January two thousand twenty six, we'll enter the year of the horse, which is the seventh one of the twelve branches. So we'll go through and go through the whole twelve, and then that will repeat again. Now, at the same time, there's another cycle going around, which is the cycle of the ten stems, the ten heavenly stems. That will again increase one in that cycle of ten each year.

• 12:56Speaker 02

  So what we have every year then is a combination of these two different parts. We have the one from the ten heavenly stems and one from the twelve earthly branches. Each of those are increasing by one each time. So we'll go through, we'll go through, you know, one, one, two, two, two, three, three, all the way up, till we get to ten, ten. The next one will be on one again for the ten stems and eleven for the branches. Two, twelve, and then three, one, and so forth. And we can go around this whole sequence until and then we eventually will get back to one, one again after sixty times through the sequence.

• 13:32Tristan Hughes?

  Right, so when it once again reunites together is when the cycle begins again, and that's 60 years.

• 13:38Speaker 02

  Exactly, that's when we get back to 60 years, yes.

• 13:41Tristan Hughes?

  Thank you for explaining that. I needed that a bit more because there was quite a lot of information right at the start. So now I understand that. And that tradition, you know, the 12 and the 10, and the animals are just put on to the 12, basically. They're added on to that 12.

• 13:53Speaker 02

  Exactly, yes, yeah. So the animals are just one of the associations that are then imposed upon this cycle of 12.

• 13:59Tristan Hughes?

  And the Shang Dynasty, as you mentioned, before the Han Dynasty, so it's very interesting to hear how ancient the stems and the branches and the 60 pattern is.

• 14:07Speaker 02

  Yeah, this is going back to, you know, 1500 BC or so. So this is very ancient, you know, three and a half thousand years ago. And it's run, as far as we can tell, it's run continuously since then with no interruption. You know, we don't have any evidence that it, that people's missed a year or skipped anything here and there. It has run continuously since then.

• 14:23Tristan Hughes?

  But it's a fun fact, isn't it? Almost halfway between today and the Shang Dynasty, the animals were incorporated. So it's amazing to think, as you mentioned, for how long continuously that cycle was there in ancient China before the addition of these animals.

• 14:37Speaker 02

  That's right, yes, yes. I mean, I think that there were, there were other associations earlier on. We know that in the Shang Dynasty and very early, these branches and stems were connected with various forms of astrology and divination, and fortune telling, and rituals. There already existed a sort of an infrastructure of divinatory practices and rituals surrounding these, that then the animals get embedded within or added to, to this existing structure.

• 15:05Tristan Hughes?

  And John, I mean, how much astrology, I guess also, I guess, philosophy, Chinese astrology and philosophy is really entwined in the 10 stems and the 12 branches and the animals later on?

• 15:17Speaker 02

  Lots and lots. So the 12 branches, as I say, are associated with all sorts of things, including the animals, but also directions, the hours of the day and so forth. So they're used in many different aspects. Similarly, the 10 stems have all sorts of associations. So they're associated with the five phases of wood, fire, earth, metal and water. That are again, are very fundamental within Chinese, well, philosophy, worldview, astrology, whatever you want to call it. All of these things, ritual practice, religion, everything. And the ten stems are also associated with the, you know, the yin and yang, which I think everybody's heard of, but probably doesn't really quite understand what it is.

• 15:54Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, what exactly is the yin and yang?

• 15:56Speaker 02

  It's, I don't know how to explain it. I mean, I don't fully understand it myself, to be honest. It's, I guess it's too complementary but opposing ideas, forces, however you want. I don't quite know how to, how to explain it. It's one of these things that I think unless you're really deeply immersed in Chinese culture, it's not necessarily possible to understand these things. It's so fundamental. It's not something you can easily explain. And I, I don't claim to understand it myself. So the twelve stems were associated with yin and yang in alternating patterns. So, you know, yin yang, yin yang, yin yang and so forth. So you have all of these different types of philosophical, cosmological, astrological,

• 16:39Speaker 02

  divinatory ritual structure surrounding these, these stems and branches and that are all interconnected. And it's not that, it's not that these are the source of these other things. They're all percolate and develop independently and, and become linked and intertwined. It's not that the, the five phases come out of the ten stems. It's not the ten stems come out of the five phases. It's that they are developed and become enmeshed and associated with one another.

• 17:04Tristan Hughes?

  I won't go into too much detail, but you mentioned the phases there for the five phases. Can you once again kind of explain the whole purpose of these phases and why they're phases rather than elements?

• 17:16Speaker 02

  Yes. So people used to translate the term into English as, as elements because of the tradition in Greek philosophy of the four elements and the, the idea, you know, from ancient Greek philosophy that you had fire and water, that everything was composed of, that everything could be, all matter was composed of, of these parts of these four elements, different combinations, and that these elements had different characteristics on earth, you know, fire went up and earth goes down and so forth. And so the Chinese, because they are referring to some of the same things, so, you know, fire, earth, water. Metal and wood, people tended to translate them and think of the same thing. But actually, they're quite different in concept because they're not elements in the sense that they're not things that are put together to make matter.

• 17:59Speaker 02

  It's not that everything is made up of combinations of these five things. Rather, these are, again, it's difficult to explain, but they're more like phases of being. So they're more something you can transform between. You have a sort of a phase of being like water and a phase of being like air and that these things can interact. So it's a different concept. It's not an element that you build things out of, but rather a state of being. So that's why I think this idea of phases is a maybe a slightly better translation, although it's still a complicated concept to render in one word.

• 18:33Tristan Hughes?

  But it does kind of convey it much better, doesn't it? This idea that you're not always fire or you're not always wood or metal and so on. You know, it can change depending on life situations, on behaviour and so on. And that goes back, I guess, to that philosophical thinking in ancient China.

• 18:48Speaker 02

  Exactly, yes, yes.

• 18:49Tristan Hughes?

  So let's go on to the animals. So we've mentioned ones already like the rat, the ox and the unfortunate cat, which missed out, being part of the canonical 12. But John, this is another good pub quiz question coming up. What are the animals that make up the Chinese zodiac?

• 19:05Speaker 02

  So the animals are in order, we have the rat, the ox, the tiger, the rabbit, the dragon, which is the year we're just finishing. The snake, the horse, the goat, the monkey, the rooster, the dog and the pig.

• 19:22Tristan Hughes?

  The pig comes last.

• 19:23Speaker 02

  Pig comes last because supposedly in the story he stopped to eat on the way to the, in the middle of the race and fell asleep after eating.

• 19:29Tristan Hughes?

  I must admit, it does quite surprise me that the dragon finished fifth when you think what a dragon has compared to those other animals.

• 19:35Speaker 02

  Well, again, according to the myth or one version of the myth, it's because the dragon, dragons are sometimes at least good in China. And so he'd stopped off on the way to help a village by doing whatever dragons do. His kindly nature meant he got delayed.

• 19:48Tristan Hughes?

  Yeah, got beaten by the rabbit, but fair enough. Well, that's very interesting indeed. Okay, and so we are ending the year of the dragon before the Chinese New Year and we're entering the year of the snake. Is it the snake is the next one?

• 19:58Speaker 02

  Snake's next one, yes, yeah.

• 19:59Tristan Hughes?

  And so the other big question, John, what do all these animals mean?

• 20:05Speaker 02

  That's another big question that's not easy to answer. You can draw a comparison with the Western zodiac because they do have meaning for ritual in China. So again, from quite early, from the Han Dynasty onwards, we have representations of these animals involved in New Year's rituals and things like that, in festivals, you know, as puppets or as masks and things like that. But they're also, they carry what we would, you know, we could loosely call astrology. You have, just like in the Western zodiac, where people talk about whether certain people are compatible because they're a whatever and a whatever, an Aquarius and a Leo or something. You have the same idea in the Chinese zodiac, that people who are born in certain years, because of the animals, that they will either get

• 20:46Speaker 02

  on or not get on, or that it's good to do some things, some of these animals will be good for doing certain things on a certain day. So it gets fed into various astrological predictions about the life of individuals and their compatibility with other and their suitability to do various tasks.

• 21:03Tristan Hughes?

  Is there any link to astrological constellations, like in the Western zodiac at all?

• 21:08Speaker 02

  With the 12 animals? No, there doesn't seem to be any link with the constellations. I mean, one reason that there might be 12, why indeed there's 12 branches, that's been suggested is because there's 12 months in the year, in the usual calendar. And also because the planet Jupiter takes 12 years to go around the Earth. So Jupiter moves basically 30 degrees around us every year as we see it. And so that takes 12 years approximately. And so there's this idea in Chinese astronomy of this division of the sky into 12 parts based upon Jupiter's location. And so that also gets associated with these animals at certain point. I don't think it's the origin of the animals or the division. But again, it's one of these things that it's the coincidence of the number 12 gets

• 21:51Speaker 02

  brought in there. So we get these associations made.

• 21:54Tristan Hughes?

  John, I must apologize, but you are on the ancient. So this is the podcast which asks the big questions in regards to this. And I must also ask one more, and we may well not know the answer, but do we know why, back in Han Dynasty China, when deciding, if they are deciding, let's say in circles or wherever, which animal to assign to which Branch, they choose those animals. Do we think that the rat and the snake and the dragon and the pig had important meaning to them at that time, which influenced their decision?

• 22:25Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a very good question and a difficult question to answer. I think one of the reasons it's difficult to answer is we're not really sure where this comes from in terms of whether this is a folk tradition that was already in existence, that then becomes part of courtly practice and sort of bubbles up from below. Or whether this is something that is invented, if you like, by the state scholars and ritual experts and so forth. That's something we don't know. And I think that these are all animals that people will be familiar with. There's not, you know, these are not animals that are, I mean, except for the dragon, of course, but dragons have such a huge place in Chinese mythology anyway, that people know them from mythology. So it's not like there's some weird animal here that no one's ever seen before.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  So these are fairly everyday animals for the most part. But yeah, why these ones particularly were chosen and why they were chosen in this order and why these associations were made, no, we don't know. As I say, there were suggestions, people, you know, even several hundred years ago, were suggesting that some of these associations are because of similarities between the shape of the Chinese characters. But that only really explains what, you know, one or two, and then people say, well, that's extrapolated from there. Well, it's possible, but you know, we really don't know.

• 23:33Tristan Hughes?

  Well, I know how in, well, they say the originally Babylonian zodiac, but I know it's often called the Western zodiac today. You have all these websites and people laying out the strengths and weaknesses of each of them, and each of them has their own qualities. I mean, with the Chinese zodiac, did they think any particular animals were better than others, were the best, or how do they approach that in regards to their qualities? And I guess, yeah, overall strengths versus weaknesses.

• 24:00Speaker 02

  I think that the way they're conceived in China is that each has strengths and weaknesses. So they're different. It's not, I don't think it's a hierarchy. There's not a, you know, you're lucky if you're born in this year because you're going to be a snake or whatever. I think it's more that the idea that these people, the people might be suited to different things and these different characteristics might be useful in certain ways. And so it's not a hierarchy. It's a way of thinking about people in, or thinking about things in different ways and having different aptitudes or different suitabilities for different tasks.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  Hi folks, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. And I'm here to suggest that you host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are, as usual, no antibiotics ever in their meat department, so carve up turkey and spiral-cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 Brand. And guess what? All of their fabulous, delectable pies are made with no high-fructose corn syrup. Where else are you going to find that? Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 25:24Speaker 03

  Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 25:59Speaker 04

  In a world where swords were sharp...

• 26:02Speaker 05

  And hygiene was actually probably better than you think it is. Two fearless historians...

• 26:07Speaker 04

  Me, Matt Lewis.

• 26:09Speaker 05

  And me, Dr. Eleanor Yanaga. Dive headfirst into the mud, blood, and very strange customs of the Middle Ages.

• 26:16Speaker 04

  So for plagues, crusades, and Viking raids, and plenty of other things that don't rhyme, subscribe to Gone Medieval from History Hit wherever you get your podcasts.

• 26:39Tristan Hughes?

  We've talked about the branches, we've talked about the stems and how the animals become part of that and the overall number of 60 and how that's also important, covered the phases and the animals. So let's move on to the Chinese New Year because this is something which is obviously so closely associated with the Chinese zodiac today. Now, is Chinese New Year and the whole festival a bit, is it just as ancient as the Chinese zodiac? Are they always intertwined?

• 27:03Speaker 02

  Yeah, so the Chinese New Year Festival, what's now in China called the Spring Festival, is very ancient. I mean, we have references to festivals going back to the, what's called the Spring and Autumn period, so in the middle of the first millennium BC. Again, it's one of these things that becomes more and more codified as time goes on. Standard practices seem to develop probably again in the Han Dynasty and in the early first few centuries AD, where we have these traditions of the, associated with the colour red and cleaning and things like that, and also ritual performances.

• 27:34Tristan Hughes?

  And linking into that, I mean, at the same time, it must have also been quite a question of them figuring out when the zodiac year itself begins, like, how do they come upon that date of deciding that the zodiac year will begin with what does now become Chinese New Year?

• 27:49Speaker 02

  So the Chinese calendar is what we would call a ludisolar calendar. That means that the months follow the cycle of the moon, but in order to keep the calendar in line with the seasons, because a lunar month will only have 29 or 30 days, so if you have 12 of them, you're short of the length of the solar year, which is 365 and a quarter days long. So what that means is you have to add in an extra month roughly every three years. So this is what we know they did in China from very early, so they have, most years have 12 months, but some years have 13 months. And in China, the tradition was that the first month of the year began on the second new moon after the winter solstice. So you have the winter solstice towards the end of December in our calendar, and then

• 28:32Speaker 02

  you have one new moon, and then you have the second new moon, which at the moment's going to come up towards the end of January this year, that would be the beginning of the Chinese New Year. How people found that out is twofold. So probably in the countryside and most regular people would just know, you know, you you keep track of what month it was and you would know when the equinox was roughly because it's middle of winter effectively, when the days are shortest and you can realise when things are starting to to pass that. And then the new moon is just something you can look for. You so you wait until the moon disappears and then that's when the when the new moon is going to appear. So that's something you could get, you know, you could just look out and and see and you might be wrong by one day, but you're going to be more or less correct as to when the year begins.

• 29:15Tristan Hughes?

  And is it also influenced by the fact that many of those people in the rural countryside, you know, they're they're cultivating rice? I mean, it's agriculture. So the seasons and knowing the length of the days, that's also crucial to their survival.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think this is, you know, people often say that farmers need calendars, but I think that's wrong. I think farmers intuitively know the calendar. They know what the cycle of the seasons is, the cycle of the crops are. So they know when the shortest time of the shortest days are, when the equinox are, you know, to a good estimate. Before the days of streetlights, before the days of televisions, the night sky was part of everybody's existence and environment. They saw it all the time. And they were very familiar what was going on in the night sky. They were very familiar with the cycle of the moon. So I think in, you know, agricultural societies in in China in the past, everybody knew kind of what time of year it was roughly and whereabouts in the month you were. That was just a given. But for the sort of upper levels of society in in the court and the official

• 30:08Speaker 02

  and the bureaucracy and the government, you have a very well-defined, mathematically calculated calendar. So the Chinese calendar, the official Chinese calendar, again, stretching back at least to the Han Dynasty, I mean, it must have had predecessors, but our earliest real evidence for it is in the Han Dynasty, was a calendar that was calculated. So they were not observing the moon, they were not observing the solstice, it was all done by calculation. And what they did is they calculated when every new moon was. So actually, this is the new moon is something you can't see, the official new moon, the moon is in between the time you last see the moon and the time you first see the new moon crescent. So somewhere in the middle is the official point of conjunction of the solar moon. So they they calculated that every month and they produced.

• 30:50Speaker 02

  Almanacs distributed throughout the country that contained the calendar for the coming year with all the calculated dates of when the new, when each month began, whether there was an intercalary month and all the festival dates and everything that were embedded within this.

• 31:02Tristan Hughes?

  That must have been a massive job, considering the size of Han Dynasty China and that, as you mentioned earlier, like it's not a fixed calendar, it changes every year. So then like the bureaucracy, the administration to distribute to all the people who, who knew it, you know, knowing what the situation was that year, a bit of a logistical nightmare, surely?

• 31:20Speaker 02

  Well, yes, I mean, just the calculations. I mean, there was a whole bureau of astronomers who were tasked with producing this calendar. But the calendar, by the way, is not just the count of days for the Chinese. It was also included things like when they were going to be eclipses or when there were planets would pass by certain other planets or so forth. So it's a real, it's like an astronomical guidebook every year of every astronomical event is going to happen. So there was a huge bureaucracy, you know, and part of the government, this was, these were state employees who had to pass civil service exams to become astronomers employed by the court. And they were tasked with producing these almanacs every year. And these almanacs were then presented to the emperor because one of the emperor's duties

• 32:00Speaker 02

  was to ensure that there was a calendar. This was one of the fundamental things the emperor had to do every year to prove that he was the right person to be emperor, that he was following justly, was, was to show that he could harmonise heaven and earth. And one way to harmonise heaven and earth was to have it written down on a calendar. Was to show that you knew exactly what was going on when. And so this was not just a sort of a practical administrative matter, but a real ideological matter for the Chinese state, that the emperor had to produce a calendar and had to distribute it. And there's huge ceremonies around the distribution. So at later times, you know, it's not only to China, the Chinese calendar would then be sent off to

• 32:40Speaker 02

  Korea and elsewhere in official convoys with presentations of the calendar that these vassal states were expected to follow. So it was both a huge administrative task, but also of huge ideological importance to the Chinese state to both to produce a calendar and to produce a calendar that was actually quite accurate because if it You know, people will observe things that they hadn't predicted. That was a real bad omen. That was a shine that the emperor was not doing his job right.

• 33:06Tristan Hughes?

  So we have this link between Chinese New Year and the zodiac, the year of the various animals stretching back 2000 years, John. So it's extraordinary. And it seems to endure. But something I also want to pick up there that you mentioned was you mentioned like client states or client kingdoms of Han Dynasty China like Korea. So did they also export the Chinese zodiac and their ways of thinking beyond the borders of present day China?

• 33:30Speaker 02

  Yes, so the Chinese zodiac and I mean many aspects of Chinese philosophy and ritual and the Chinese calendar effectively were taken up throughout East Asia. So in Japan, in Vietnam, all areas around China's borders effectively follow the Chinese calendar. They place their own interpretations upon it, of course. So they have, you know, you get different animals, for example, in some different countries. You get some regional variation. They become localized to make them applicable to their local surroundings. I mean, this goes part and parcel along with many other aspects. So many of these cultures in medieval times were also adopted, things like the Chinese script and the Chinese language for writing, even if that's not what they were speaking.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  And often at times they were, if not part of China, they were heavily influenced by Chinese culture and Chinese government.

• 34:18Tristan Hughes?

  Were there any potential deviations? So I can imagine would the year of the snake still be the year of the snake, let's say in Southeast Asia? Or the year of the horse or so on? Or did they sometimes bring in their own animals into this story? And the meaning and importance of this zodiac spread further afield?

• 34:36Speaker 02

  So yes, they did bring in their own animals. Many of them are common across East Asia, of course, because they're common animals. But you did get local variations, local traditions coming along with new animals substituted for different ones of the Chinese system.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  Hi folks, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. And I'm here to suggest that you host Thanksgiving with industry-leading quality standards from Whole Foods Market. There are, as usual, no antibiotics ever in their meat department. So carve up turkey and spiral cut ham with peace of mind. Shop organic sides like stuffing mix and cranberry sauce from 365 brand. And guess what? All of their fabulous, delectable pies are made with no high fructose corn syrup. Where else are you going to find that? Gourmet Thanksgiving flavors with the quality you want, only at Whole Foods Market.

• 35:43Speaker 03

  Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations.

• 35:59Speaker 03

  Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.

• 36:27Tristan Hughes?

  John, you performed heroically today because I know that your main area of interest is actually a bit further to the west with Babylonian astronomy and the origins of the Western zodiac, Taurus and Aries and so on and so forth. However, I want to bring in that now. Can you see any connections or contact between the Chinese zodiac and the Western ancient Babylonian zodiac?

• 36:52Speaker 02

  It's a good question and it's an interesting question. Not in terms of origins. So the Chinese and the Babylonian zodiacs are completely independent when they're created. And the Babylonian zodiac, we can trace the development of that quite well. And it comes across, it's developed sometime in the 5th century B.C. And it comes pretty stabilized in terms of the names of the signs of the zodiac by around 300 B.C. And that Babylonian zodiac is then taken up outside of Babylonia. So it goes to Egypt, it goes to Greece, it goes from Greece to India. So we have the Babylonian zodiac in India in the first centuries A.D. And then eventually it comes from India into China. So in the, with Buddhism coming into China, in particularly in the sort of fourth, fifth centuries A D, along with Buddhism,

• 37:35Speaker 02

  we get Buddhist astrology. There was a big tradition in India of astrology in the Buddhist tradition. And we get that coming into China along with Buddhism. And along with that, comes the Babylonian zodiac. So we get this two systems interacting in China. When the Western zodiac, the Babylonian zodiac first enters China, there's a lot of debates as to how it should be interpreted, how we'd name these things. So we get the same names attributed. So they just take across the Chinese names from the 12 branches and use those to name the zodiac. Sometimes they translate the Sanskrit name or the signs that came from the Babylonian. Other times they associate them with the animals from

• 38:17Speaker 02

  the Chinese zodiac. So there's, they're trying to sort of harmonize these two systems.

• 38:22Tristan Hughes?

  So it's not a completely hostile bull versus ox kind of thing. There is an attempt to incorporate this other zodiac with the zodiac in China that they have been accustomed to and for hundreds of years by that point.

• 38:33Speaker 02

  Exactly. Yeah. So they're quite comfortable taking on the system of it being a mathematical division of the band of the moon and the planets into 12 equal parts. So they take on that system, but then what they have to do is come up with their own way of naming each sign. And the Babylonian names had already been kind of transformed by the time they got to India. So the Indians have slightly different names for them. And then by the time it gets to China, they're again renaming, partly because some of these things are not applicable to a Chinese context. You know, some of the names are maybe not necessarily understandable because they're named after gods and things like that. So we have, you know, what we call Sagittarius is, you know, the archer, the half man, half horse archer. For the Babylonians, there's a god called Pablosig, who, Pablosig, who, who looks like

• 39:14Speaker 02

  this, who's himself a half man, half horse archer. What would you call that in China? There's nothing you could call that. So they either have a choice of just translating the name and it's just a meaningless name, or else you have to re-identify it to something else. So what they do is they're searching around and trying out different ways of naming the 12 signs. And often they just kind of. Portal across from the 12 branches, the names of the branches across to the 12 signs.

• 39:42Tristan Hughes?

  But it's interesting you say that, John, because as you mentioned right at the beginning, I mean, the Chinese zodiac not actually being a zodiac and not actually linked to the lunar, the lunar path. So it's interesting to think how they incorporate that belief system into the Chinese zodiac belief system and that idea of hybridisation. I must also ask, and I mean, would you argue that that hybridisation, is it successful? Does it endure? Or do they decide actually we'll just keep with what we've known?

• 40:08Speaker 02

  I mean, it does endure certainly for quite a while. And I think they just view it as another tool. It's another system, particularly within astrology and divination. It's just another set of things you can correlate with the cycle of 12. So it doesn't replace the so-called Chinese zodiac animals. It's just yet another system. It's another, you know, as I said, this 12 is associated with so many different things, with directions, with time of day, with year, with the animals and so forth. This is just one more thing you can associate it with. Now, this is what astrology does all over the world. It wants more and more things you can make associations between. This is how astrology has developed. And so for the, in China, it's no different. This is just another two thing you can make associations with. So it gives you more flexibility, more things you can make connections between.

• 40:51Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, going the other way, do we know much about the Chinese zodiac going westwards?

• 40:55Speaker 02

  We can trace it a little bit in terms of, at least into the Islamic world. So in China, in the, probably the late Tang, so late first millennium AD, you know, Muslim people enter, become prevalent in China to a certain extent. And Muslim astronomy becomes established in China. So even to the extent that sometimes the emperors would establish a second Bureau of Astronomy, staffed by Muslim astronomers to kind of give an alternative set of calculations that could be cross-checked with the Chinese native astronomy. So through this, because we have this interaction between the Chinese and these Islamic astronomers, we can see some of aspects of the Chinese zodiac coming back into China, to the West, into Persia and so forth, particularly in terms of the iconography.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  So in terms of the visualization of this, the depictions of animals, rather than the concepts and much, but more, as I say, the way that things were visualized in artistic works or in diagrams and things like that.

• 41:52Tristan Hughes?

  I mean, in the previous answer, you also mentioned the coming of Buddhism and how it influences that change and the bringing of the new ideas. Then you've also got Islam there. Does it highlight the importance of religion in the story of the Chinese zodiac? Is that closely linked with the story?

• 42:08Speaker 02

  Yes, I think it is. I think that religion in China, again, is a very complicated thing to talk about because it's not a uniform thing. And these things we kind of call religious Taoism, Confucianism, Buddhism and things like that are not exclusive. People could be more than one and take ideas from one and mix them with others and so forth. It's not that you're necessarily just confined to the one way of doing things. But I think that that religious background informs so much of the ritual practice that's behind all of this. So all of this New Year's festival is all so heavily connected to religious practices, religious rituals, religious myths, worship and so forth. So that I think we just have to see the Chinese zodiac and the New Year festival

• 42:53Speaker 02

  as actually largely just part of this bigger picture of Chinese ritual and cult and so forth.

• 43:00Tristan Hughes?

  I must also say, as you mentioned, that the zodiac endures with Buddhism, then Islam, and all these various dynasties of China down through the last few millennia. I mean, it must be one of the greatest enduring aspects of Chinese culture, the zodiac and the Chinese New Year festival, to think that it's been there for more than 2,000 years. And I guess more than that, if we talk about the origins with the branches and the stems in the Shang dynasty, but it has still endured and that's fascinating, the strength of it.

• 43:32Speaker 02

  Absolutely, absolutely. And I think this is, this is what we see is that these sort of simple concepts have a very long life. You know, the same, the cycle of the seven days of the week, the same as many simple religious activities or simple bits of scientific knowledge, the fact that we have 360 degrees in a circle, that goes back to the ancient Babylonians, the fact we have 24 hours in the day, that goes back to ancient Egypt. You know, all these things, they're very simple, but they're so core to what we are and what we know, that they've endured for so long and they're not going to disappear. Scientific ideas are developed all the time and become replaced because they become outdated and we improve on them and people forget about them. But these sort of core ideas of the Zodiac, the Chinese Zodiac, the days of the week, these are never going to go

• 44:17Speaker 02

  away. These are so simple that everybody understands them, they're so core to us, that I think that they will endure for a long, long time.

• 44:24Tristan Hughes?

  Well, John, that's a lovely thought and statement to leave it on. And it just goes to me to say thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast and happy new year.

• 44:33Speaker 02

  Happy new year to everyone, yes. Thank you.

• 44:39Tristan Hughes?

  Well, there you go. There was Professor John Steele giving you an introduction to the Chinese Zodiac. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. Thank you for listening to The Ancients. Please follow this show on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. It really helps us and you'll be doing us a big favour. And don't forget, you can also listen to us and all of History Hits podcasts ad-free and watch hundreds of TV documentaries when you subscribe at historyhit.com/subscribe.

• 45:14Speaker 03

  Confidence. It's listening to your gut. It's moving forward even when the path ahead is unclear. For nearly 160 years, Pacific Life has helped people keep their promises, building confidence for generations. Whether you're confident in your financial future or just beginning to envision it, we're here to help. Ask a financial professional how. Pacific Life, the power of a promise. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska, and in New York. Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.