Editing Cancer (constellation) (section)

==Illustrations==
[[File:Sidney Hall - Urania's Mirror - Cancer.jpg|thumb|210px|Cancer as depicted in [[Urania's Mirror]], a set of constellation cards published in London c.1825.]]

The modern symbol for Cancer represents the pincers of a [[crab]], but Cancer has been represented as many types of creatures, usually those living in the water, and always those with an [[exoskeleton]].

In the Egyptian records of about 2000 BC it was described as Scarabaeus ([[Scarab (artifact)|Scarab]]), the sacred [[emblem]] of immortality. In Babylonia the constellation was known as MUL.AL.LUL, a name which can refer to both a crab and a snapping turtle. On boundary stones, the image of a turtle or tortoise appears quite regularly and it is believed that this represents Cancer since a conventional crab has not so far been discovered on any of these monuments.

There also appears to be a strong connection between the Babylonian  constellation and ideas of death and a passage to the underworld, which may be the origin of these ideas in later Greek myths associated with Hercules and the Hydra.<ref name="white">{{Harvnb|White|2008|pp=79–82}}</ref>

In the 12th century, an illustrated astronomical manuscript shows it as a [[water beetle]]. [[Albumasar]] writes of this sign in ''Flowers of Abu Ma'shar''. A 1488 [[Latin language|Latin]] translation depicts cancer as a large [[crayfish]],<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |url = http://www.wdl.org/en/item/2997/ |title = Flowers of Abu Ma'shar |website = [[World Digital Library]] |year = 1488 |access-date = 2013-07-15 }}</ref> which also is the constellation's name in most [[Germanic languages]]. [[Jakob Bartsch]] and [[Stanislaus Lubienitzki]], in the 17th century, described it as a [[lobster]].