Contemporary historiography of science and popular astronomy have long entrenched a biased research paradigm: the zodiac is regarded as a rough observational product of naked-eye astronomy, while the 1930 static constellation boundary system defined by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) is deemed objective, precise and fully scientific. This dominant view marginalizes the classical zodiac as pre-scientific folk classification and dismisses astrology as a merely symbolic cultural system. Drawing on the PFUSRC ontological framework and four categories of primary historical materials—Babylonian cuneiform tablets, Ptolemy’s Almagest and Tetrabiblos, Chinese Hetu-Luoshu and Bagua astronomical systems, and Vedic cosmology—this paper reverses the mainstream paradigm. It argues that modern astronomical constellation demarcation boasts high-precision spatial data yet lacks cosmic ontology, inherent celestial topological skeletons and four-dimensional dynamic temporal energy sequences; it is merely a low-dimensional static snapshot, accurate in surface data but flawed in structural essence. By contrast, the ancient zodiac was never a crude observational summary, but a primitive ontological science constructed around the intrinsic bicone skeleton of celestial bodies, periodic ecliptic obliquity oscillation, and the dynamic precession of equinoxes. Four core conclusions are drawn: First, the 30° equal division of the traditional zodiac is not a calendrical rounding scheme, but a steady-state phase structure generated by the coupling of solar-terrestrial bicone skeletons, representing an a priori cosmic topological order. Second, stellar constellations serve only as external labeling markers and do not participate in the formation of zodiacal structures; their irregular boundaries and unequal ecliptic spans cannot invalidate the ontological equal-division framework. Third, Ophiuchus is not a missing thirteenth zodiac sign, but a dynamic residual and phase transition zone formed by persistent symmetry breaking caused by ecliptic obliquity and precession, functioning as a dynamic correction term rather than a fundamental structural unit. Fourth, sophisticated ancient astrological systems embedded complete dynamic corrections for angular variables, constituting four-dimensional spatiotemporal dynamical systems far exceeding the static spatial mapping logic of modern astronomy. This study completes the ontological reconstruction of ancient celestial science, dismantles the paradigm arrogance of modern positivist astronomy, re-establishes the scientific value of the cosmic structural logic underpinning astrology, and corrects a century-long fundamental misinterpretation of the zodiac within astronomical academia.
Zhenmin Wang (Fri,) studied this question.