Entomozodiac

The Entomozodiac is an ancient horoscope that was developed by old civilizations living in the South American Andes. These pre-Incan civilizations used a zodiac system consisting of 12 signs or houses that were named after 12 insects. The original name for this horoscope pronounces like "Naivsku" but we have renamed it "Entomozodiac", a combination of "Entomology" and "Zodiac".

Until a few years ago the Entomozodiac was rather unknown, but recent archeological discoveries in the South American rainforests have sparked a renewed scientific interest in this ancient indigenous knowledge. When a team of archeologists and anthropologists started to collect and compile available information they called this "The Entomozodiac Project" (TEP).

TEP has now started this website, partly to share its knowledge with a bigger audience, and partly to involve more people in its ongoing research programmes.

The 12 signs of the Entomozodiac

The Entomozodiac consists of 12 insect signs, with each sign corresponding to a period of the year of approximately 30 days. The Entomozodiac years starts on 22 September, which is the time when the sun crosses the equator from North to South, marking the beginning of spring for the ancient civilizations living in the Andes mountains.

#	Entomozodiac sign	From	To
1	Beetle = Scarab	22 September	22 October
2	Ant	23 October	21 November
3	Wasp	22 November	21 December
4	Mantis	22 December	21 January
5	Butterfly	22 January	20 February
6	Housefly	21 February	23 March
7	Moth	24 March	22 April
8	Cockroach	23 April	23 May
9	Mosquito	24 May	22 June
10	Dragonfly	23 June	23 July
11	Grasshopper	24 July	22 August
12	Bee	23 August	21 September

The history of the Entomozodiac

Early civilizations (pre-Inca) in the Andes had already defined a "Zodiac" based on their own stellar observations. The clear mountain skies in early human history revealed many more stars and patterns than can be seen today. Many of these patterns were interpreted as constellations representing persons, animals or objects. Well known constellations of the pre-Inca’s era include: standing man, sitting girl, llama, leopard, butterfly, wasp, maize plant, and tree. These constellations can be big or small and they can be individual signs or overlapping with others. Some stars are part of several quite distinct constellations that were recognized by these early civilizations. To measure progress of time throughout the year (which was important for their developing agriculture) the chief astronomers then mapped out a series of constellations resembling insects, which helped them to roughly divide the year in 12 periods (of approximately a month). Cropping calendars were directly linked to the appearance of these insects in the sky. Several of these insect constellations consist of a large number of minor stars and are nowadays not easy to recognize as night skies have become blurred with polluted airs and light pollution. But some, for example the “butterfly” can still be easily seen on clear nights (for example from mountain tops) and partly overlaps with the better known modern constellation of "Aquarius".

Modern zodiacs are believed to have "borrowed" heavily from this ancient pre-Inca indigenous knowledge. But in many cases astrologers have added their own interpretations which have obscured many of the ancient truths. The commercialization of modern astrology has attracted "astrologists" who use horoscopes to predict the future. This questionable misuse of the modern zodiac has fortunately not polluted the purer entomozodiac, which has been passed on throughout the ages within secluded communities in the Andes and Amazon regions. The entomozodiac does not make any predictions but is used to describe human characters. It has now been scientifically proved that characterizations based on the Entomozodiac have an accuracy of upto 70%. This may seem low but is actually much more accurate than any other known system in use. Empirical studies have found that astrological predictions based on western, Chinese or even Indian zodiacs are no better than random chance. For example it has been shown that matches based on astrological compatibility are not resulting in significant lower divorce rates, and astrological signs do never correlate with a certain career path. It seems the pre-Incan astronomers have never ventured in this non-science of finding compatibilities or making predictions. When they developed their Entomozodiac they preferred to stay on firm ground matching a detailed characterization of a person with his/her birth sign. Your birth sign does not determine what you will be but it describes who you are.

Entomozodiac and Human Traits

Pre-Incan astronomers dedicated a lot of their time on human observations, describing personal traits and matching them with birth signs. They understood that also the location of planets on the moment of birth would mark an individual with certain traits. But planets are less stable than stars, and for this to become meaningful it would be necessary to not only know a persons birth day, but also the exact moment (time) of birth. This was not possible during the pre-Inca era but it is possible today to finetune the Entomozodiac through direct human observations and linking these to the exact birth moment. Studies like this are ongoing and it is expected that these will eventually lead to an Entomozodiac with accuracies of 80% or even higher.

The Entomozodiac Project is dedicated to study the ancient Entomozodiac to preserve ancient knowledge and to eventualy enrich this knowledge with modern observations. A first version of an Entomozodiac database is now completed, and while research is ongoing to develop a next generation database with more details, TEP has decided to release some major parts of the first version via this website.

Click here to find Human Traits for a specific date, or click on the links below to find more general information for each of the twelve entomozodiac signs.

Entomozodiac compared to other Horoscopes

If you are familiar with horoscopes, it will be clear that there is a rough similarity between the Entomozodiac and the zodiac which is used by Western astrologists. The most obvious similarity is that both have 12 signs or houses. Looking closer we see that familiar zodiac signs such as "Libra", "Scorpio" and "Sagittarius" rougly coincide with "Beetle", "Ant" and "Wasp". This similarity between the two horoscopes could be coincidental, but for modern astrologists who are familiar with the Western zodiac (Tropical zodiac) it will be interesting to look at the following table, which illustrates the apparent overlap between the Entomozodiac and the Tropical zodiac.

#	Entomozodiac	From	To	#	Tropical zodiac	From	To
1	Beetle = Scarab	22 Sep	22 Oct	7	Libra	23 Sept	22 Oct
2	Ant	23 Oct	21 Nov	8	Scorpio	23 Oct	21 Nov
3	Wasp	22 Nov	21 Dec	9	Sagittarius	22 Nov	21 Dec
4	Mantis	22 Dec	21 Jan	10	Capricorn	22 Dec	20 Jan
5	Butterfly	22 Jan	20 Feb	11	Aquarius	20 Jan	19 Feb
6	Housefly	21 Feb	23 Mar	12	Pisces	20 Feb	21 Mar
7	Moth	24 Mar	22 Apr	1	Aries	21 Mar	20 Apr
8	Cockroach	23 Apr	23 May	2	Taurus	21 Apr	22 May
3	Mosquito	24 May	22 Jun	1	Gemini	22 May	23 Jun
10	Dragonfly	23 Jun	23 Jul	4	Cancer	23 Jun	23 Jul
11	Grasshopper	24 Jul	22 Aug	5	Leo	23 Jul	23 Aug
12	Bee	23 Aug	21 Sep	6	Virgo	23 Aug	23 Sep

Note that both horoscopes have their starting point during spring, which in the southern hemisphere starts on 22 September (i.e. autumn in the northern hemisphere).

Some researchers have pointed out that there are more similarities between the Entomozodiac and modern astrology. For example in the association of colors with the astrological signs there is a remarkable resemblance (e.g. color Yellow for Gemini and Mosquito).

Click here to read more about Colors in the Entomozodiac.