 According to Ulansey, the tauroctony is a star chart.The bull is Taurus, a constellation of the zodiac.In the astrological age that preceded the time of Hipparchus, the vernal equinox had taken place when the Sun was in the constellation of Taurus, and during that previous epoch the constellations of Canis Minor (The Dog), Hydra (The Snake), Corvus (The Raven), and Scorpius (The Scorpion)—that is, the constellations that correspond to the animals depicted in the tauroctony—all lay on the celestial equator (the location of which is shifted by the precession) and thus had privileged positions in the sky during that epoch.