For a long time, I've been wondering about that reference to the eye (it looks like her eye is being poked out).
These days we use the term "line of sight" to describe many kinds of measurements, but I don't know when the term originated. Certainly the cross staffs and sighting tubes used "line of sight".
As far as myths go, there are a few myths about eyesight but none of them seem to fit very well except maybe this one...
Myth 1: Teiresias, a shepherd and one of the prophets of Apollo, came across a pair of snakes and destroyed them. Hera was enraged at the killing of the snakes and turned Teiresias into a woman who then became a priestess and mother. In her seventh year in this form, she found another pair of snakes and let them be, instead of killing them, and was released from the spell and became a man again.
Myth 2: Teiresias happened upon Athena and spied her bathing. In retaliation, the goddess blinded him. Teiresias's mother begged the goddes to restore his sight, but she couldn't or wouldn't, so instead, she bequeathed him the power to understand bird song.
So Teiresias is associated with watching a female bather, for being female (for a time), being blinded, and for discovering a pair of snakes (could the "calipers" be snakes?). However, I don't see a connection between these myths and constellations or measuring instruments and it's a stretch to call the "calipers" snakelike.
These days we use the term "line of sight" to describe many kinds of measurements, but I don't know when the term originated. Certainly the cross staffs and sighting tubes used "line of sight".
As far as myths go, there are a few myths about eyesight but none of them seem to fit very well except maybe this one...
Myth 1: Teiresias, a shepherd and one of the prophets of Apollo, came across a pair of snakes and destroyed them. Hera was enraged at the killing of the snakes and turned Teiresias into a woman who then became a priestess and mother. In her seventh year in this form, she found another pair of snakes and let them be, instead of killing them, and was released from the spell and became a man again.
Myth 2: Teiresias happened upon Athena and spied her bathing. In retaliation, the goddess blinded him. Teiresias's mother begged the goddes to restore his sight, but she couldn't or wouldn't, so instead, she bequeathed him the power to understand bird song.
So Teiresias is associated with watching a female bather, for being female (for a time), being blinded, and for discovering a pair of snakes (could the "calipers" be snakes?). However, I don't see a connection between these myths and constellations or measuring instruments and it's a stretch to call the "calipers" snakelike.