Leo ♌︎
The Lion. The king’s star at its heart.
Museum label
Catalogue note
The one constellation that looks like its name. A great recumbent lion crowned with a star the Babylonians simply called the King. This is the record of the Lion.
Babylon recorded UR.GU.LA, the Great Lion, where the sun burned at full summer strength. At the lion’s breast stands Regulus — Šarru, “the King” — one of the four royal stars Persia set as watchers over the quarters of heaven. The star’s name has meant sovereignty in every language that has kept it: Basiliskos to the Greeks, Regulus, “the little king,” to Rome.
Greece made the figure the Nemean Lion, whose hide no iron, bronze or stone could pierce — the first labour of Heracles. The hero wrestled it barehanded, and wore the invulnerable pelt ever after as his armour and his emblem. The lion in the sky is the trophy of the first great labour.
Leo has meant the same thing for three thousand years: visible sovereignty, the heat of presence, gold as the sun’s metal. The record of the Lion is one canonical asset, native on Solana with its official representation on Base.
Provenance
Recorded as UR.GU.LA, the Great Lion; its chief star Šarru, “the King”, counted among Persia’s four royal stars.
Fixed as one of twelve equal signs when Babylonian astronomers divide the sun’s path into the first zodiac — the frame still in use today.
Identified as the Nemean Lion of the first labour of Heracles, whose hide became the hero’s armour.
Canonized in Ptolemy’s Almagest among the forty-eight classical constellations; carried through the Arabic observatories into medieval Europe.
Engraved in Albrecht Dürer’s celestial planispheres, the first printed star charts of the Western sky.
Minted as the official Leo record — one canonical SPL asset, entered in the Zodiacs.org registry.
One identity, two official representations: the native Solana origin and its bridged Base counterpart, publicly verifiable in the registry.
The record
Market context
Acquisition
Leo trades on open markets. The routes below are provided for access; nothing here is a recommendation. Confirm the official mint against the registry before acquiring.
Leo on the Astrofolio shelf — the related consumer experienceOfficial mint: 8Cd7wXoP…48b8Qm · Read-only site — no custody, no signing, no transactions.