Crater

Authors: Susanne M Hoffmann, Youla Azkarrula, IanRidpath, Doris Vickers

---

Crater, IAU and Sky & Telescope.

Κρατήρ (Krater)

Asterism Info
Native	Κρατήρ
Romanisation	Krater
Translation	Vessel
Position (2000)
Right ascension	164.9436048 to 179.00397550000002
Declination	-18.35067637 to -9.802222702
Area	69.2 sq. deg.
Stars
Bright stars	13
Bayer/Flamsteed stars	10
Stars brighter than 3.00m	0
Brightest star	δ Crateris (3.56m)
Taxonomy
category of asterism	Almagest constellation
IAU- constellations	Cra

The constellation crater was created in antiquity, probably due to wordplay. It is unknown whether it happened intentionally or unintentionally. The constellation forms part of the ancient Greek super-constellation of Hydra-Corvus-Crater. As such it is mentioned by Aratus, Eratosthenes, Hipparchus and Ptolemy (and all Greek authors from Hellenistic time on). Greek mythology connects it to the adjacent constellations Hydra and Corvus, more details on mythology in Ian Ridpath's Star Tales.

Etymology & History

Etymology

An ancient 'crater' or 'krater' is a specific jar or vessel. Unlike an amphora, which has a narrow upper opening, a krater has a wide opening. The difference is similar to that between a water bottle and a fruit bowl. For obvious reasons, the word for a volcanic crater is derived from this ancient Greek word.

Origin of the Constellation

The constellation is Greek and has no known Babylonian precursors; it probably originated during the transfer of Babylonian star knowledge to Greece and was then given a legend. Mythologically, it is therefore linked to a legend about the constellations Raven and Water Snake, because this group had already existed for thousands of years in Sumer, Assyria, and Babylonia. Raven and Snake are Babylonian figures and are considered a double constellation in Hellenism.

In Greek, only the fact that a crater can be seen next to the stars of the Raven is established – and a large chalice can easily be recognized from an arc of faint stars. However, Greek astronomers interpret its exact shape differently: for Hipparchus, it is a bowl on a stately pedestal of four stars and without a handle, while for Ptolemy, the crater has two handles and stands on a single point, i.e., it has no distinct pedestal.

No Babylonian Predecessor

The pun which created the constellation

McHugh (2016) uses the term MUŠ stating that this Sumerian word has the Akkadian counterpart "ṣēru" (also meaning the snake). However, the Akkadian word "ṣēru" is a homonym, i. e. it has two meanings: it can denote a snake or a ceramic jug for wine. This way, astronomers from other cultures (e.g. the Mediterranean ones) could have confused the ṣēru (snake) with the ṣēru (crater) and thus put a crater on the back of Hydra. Compellingly, there is also a preposition ṣēru which means "on top of, upon". McHugh (2016, 87-88) therefore, produces the phrase "wine-bowl on top of the water-snake" from the term MUŠ.

Kechagias and Hoffmann (2022) agree with the first idea concerning the homophony but reject the latter part: "the intercultural misunderstandings of a Sumerian word to transform a special deity to a usual Water-Snake and of a homophonous Akkadian term to change a snake into a wine-bowl, are rather convincing. In contrast, deriving the presence of a raven at the snake's tail from cuneiform wordplays is considered unnecessary."

The Sumerian cuneiform character MUŠ for this constellation can be expressed in Akkadian with the word Muschhuschu for the snake god. However, it can also stand for “the snake” in general, i.e., it can be rewritten with the word ṣēru. The word ṣēru is itself ambiguous in Akkadian: it can mean “snake,” but also “vessel.” In written language, this is clearly distinguished by a determinative, a defining particle, but these words sound the same when pronounced. It is therefore easy to imagine that in an international environment, e.g., among traders or in international cities where cultures mixed (Babylon or any port city), one person said to another, “Look, there is the constellation ṣēru.” Although the speaker meant a snake, the listener may have thought of a vessel and also identified this by seeing shapes in the stars. So perhaps a Babylonian teacher said, “This constellation is called Muschhuschu, a ṣēru,” and his Greek exchange student, who knew that Muschhuschu was the name of the snake god, thought that a snake and a vessel should be seen there.

the Babylonian version of the "Hydra, Crater, Corvus" super-constellation does not contain a cup or jar. visualized in Stellarium (drawing by Jessica Gullberg)

Depiction of Crater in Antiquity

the "Hydra, Crater, Corvus" super-constellation drawn on the Farnese Globe, visualized in Stellarium

The snake-like constellation called Hydra in Greek uranology used to be considered a straight line of stars at the celestial equator in the Sumerian and early Babylonian culture. It is depicted as a straight snake-body until the Seleucid period, particularly on the microzodiac clay tablets VAT 7847 and AO 6448. This traditional view is also represented on the preserved Greek silver globe (Galérie Kugel, Paris).

The super-constellation "Hydra+Corvus+Crater" is depicted on the other two globes preserved from Greco-Roman antiquity. On the marble Farnese Globe dated to Hellenistic times, the Hydra snake has a dip towards the south, forming a vessel for the smaller sub-constellations of Crater and Corvus. This depiction is reproduced in Roman and mediaeval images, possibly originally depicting the pun that the "snake" simultaneously "is" the jar it contains.

Greco-Roman Texts

Aratos

[448?] Midway on its coiling form is set the Crater, and at the tip the figure of a Raven [Corvus] that seems to peck at the coil.

[520?] the dim-lit Crater and the Crow

[600?] The Hydra rises higher as far as Crater,

(Kidd 1997)

Pseudo-Eratosthenes

see Hydra

erat.Cat.ID	constStarID	starName	ident.Bayer	ident.HIP	certainty
689	1	the Cup [at a considerable distance from the first coil of the Hydra, inclined toward the knees of Virgo] has two dim stars on the rim	eps Crt	55687	2
690	2	the Cup has two dim stars on the rim	zeta Crt	57283	2
691	3	two in the middle [of the Cup]	delta Crt	55282	1
692	4	two in the middle [of the Cup]	gam Crt	55705	1
693	5	two near the bottom [of the Cup]	beta Crt	54682	2
694	6	two near the bottom [of the Cup]	alpha Crt	53740	2

Hipparchus

Rising (Lib III Cap I §2)

The Rising of ...

	east		south
	lam1	lam2	lam1	lam2
	Leo 26 1/2	Vir 10 1/2	Tau 20 1/2	Gem 7 1/2
star	the northern one of the four at the foot (nu)	the southern one of the six stars at the vascular bulge
duration	1 1/4 hours = 75 min = 18 3/4 degree

Setting (Lib III Cap II §2)

	west		south
	lam1	lam2	lam1	lam2
	Cnc 21	Leo 12 1/2	Sco 11 1/2	Sgr 1
star	the northern one of those in the feet (nu Hya)	the southern and the northern one of those in the vascular bulge
duration	1 1/3 hours = 80 min = 20°

Hipparchus's "lost" star Catalogue

The star catalogue of Hipparchus is not preserved. Yet, several scholars have reconstructed it in the past century: Vogt (1925), Grasshoff (1990), Hoffmann (2017) and Glover (2026). Grasshoff's catalogue and computations are not published digitally, Hoffmann published three versions of the Manitius+Hoffmann star lists in the CDS VizieR "catalog of catalogs", and Glover printed the star lists constellationwise in his book.

Hipparchus's star in Aquarius (Glover 2026)

hipp.Cat.ID	constStarID	starName	ident.Bayer	ident.HIP	concordance
229	1		α Crt	53740	CPAE
230	2		β Crt	54682	CPAE
231	3		γ Crt	55705	CPAE
232	4		δ Crt	55282	CPAE
233	5		ε Crt	55687	CPAE
234	6		ζ Crt	57283	CPAE
235	7		η Crt	58188	CPAE
236	8		θ Crt	56633	CPAE

Ptolemy's Almagest Κρατήρ

	Greek (Heiberg 1898)	English (Toomer 1984)	ident.
	Κρατῆρος ἀστερισμός	Constellation of Crater
	ὁ ἐκ τῇ βάσει τοῦ Κρατῆρος κοινὸς τοῦ Ὕδρου.	The star in the base of bowl, which is [applied in] common to Hydra	alf Crt
	τῶν ἐν μέσῳ τῷ Κρατῆρι β ὁ νοτιώτερος	The southernmost of the 2 stars in the middle of the bowl	gam Crt
	ὁ βορειότερος αὐτῶν	The northernmost of them	del Crt
	ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς φοτίου περιφερείας τοῦ στόματος.	The star on the southern rim of the mouth	zet Crt
	ὁ ἐπὶ τῆς βορείου περιφερείας.	The star on the northern rim	eps Crt
	ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ φοτίου ὡτίου	The star on the southern handle	eta Crt
	ὁ ἐπὶ τοῦ βορείου ὠτίου	The star on the northern handle	tet Crt
	ἀστέρες ξ μεγέθους δ΄.	{7 stars of the fourth magnitude}

Convex Hull for the stars inside Krater (CC BY Youla Azkarrula).

Stars within the Constellation Area

id	Label	IAU design.	description	Vmag
1	δ Crateris	HIP 55282	Constellation lines	3.56
2	γ Crateris	HIP 55705	Constellation lines	4.06
3	Alkes	HIP 53740	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.07
4	θ Crateris	HIP 56633	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.673
5	ζ Crateris	HIP 57283	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.706
6	ϵ Crateris	HIP 55687	Constellation lines (Vertex)	4.802
7	η Crateris	HIP 58188	Constellation lines (Vertex)	5.16
8	ι Crateris	HIP 56802	Inside the hull	5.48
9	κ Crateris	HIP 55874	Inside the hull	5.923
10	-	HIP 56364	Inside the hull	6.044
11	-	HIP 57732	Inside the hull	6.122
12	VX Crt	HIP 56899	Inside the hull	6.19
13	-	HIP 56901	Inside the hull	6.198

Transfer and Transformation

• 
  Crater on Hydra: Kugel Globe (1st c. BCE), drawing by SMH 2024.
• 
  Crater and Corvus on Hydra: Farnese Globe (2nd c. CE, drawing and mapping by SMH 2021)
• 
  Hydra, Crater and Corvus on Mercator Globe (1551)
• 
  Crater and Corvus in Hevelius (1690)
• 
  Corvus and Crater in Fortin's Atlas Céleste, 3rd edition (1795).
• 
  Crater in Hall (1825)
• 
  (1952) H.A. Rey's stick figure of Crater
• 
  (1988) O. Hlad's stick figure of Crater

Mythology

In the Greek legend, the god Apollo gives a raven a crater to fetch water (see Hydra). This crater is depicted here next to the raven.

Weblinks

• Ridpath, Ian, Star Tales – Crater
• IAU WGSN: List of ancient images of the IAU-constellations: https://exopla.net
• Warburg Institute Iconographic Database – Crater