Qasr mosaic leopard and VMS Leo/August image

[Sam G]

Well,

arguing that a drawing in a 15t Century MS, and a mosaic from the 2nd century AD are copies of the same source
is a huge stretch

I don't see why it's a huge stretch at all, considering that many works from antiquity survive in only a single copy that was produced much later.

For me, the statements from a well-know expert in zodiac iconography:

"The signs of the Zodiac do not present problems - they are simply not of the Arateia type but were modernized.
[...]
The genre scenes, eg. Aries eating a bush, suggest that the signs were redrawn from a calendar. "

are far more convincing.

You cite these opinions as though she considered the evidence I presented above and dismissed it as irrelevant, but of course these opinions were offered before this evidence was available, so it is hard to see the relevance of this quote here.  In any case, the remark about "redrawn from a calendar" seems to imply that she perceived an outside influence of some kind in the VMS Zodiac imagery, which along with the point about the imagery being "modernized" is actually perfectly consistent with the scenario I outlined above.

Anyway, although you did not really say so in a direct way, I will interpret your remarks as indicating that you believe the similarities in the images I presented above to be purely coincidental.

I would still be interested to see if anyone else has any opinions on this.