SAFAVID PERSIA, CIRCA 1600

Serpentarius (al-hawwa wa'l-hayyah), the serpent bearer and the serpent is a constellation in the Northern hemisphere. It appears in this form in the al-Sufi's Book of the Fixed Stars in the Bodleian Library in Oxford dated 1009 AD, one of the oldest illustrated Islamic manuscripts known. (Wellesz,E.: An Islamic Book of Constellations, Ars Orientalis, Oxford, 1965, pp. 9, fig.9)