Saturn used to unearth and bring to light these things. Which is why it rules archaeology.
But I guess it didn't do a good enough job? Because now it's Pluto. Which is also responsible for mental illness. And healing. And sex.
So far per this thread. It's responsible for a lot more, I'm sure, but I can't be bothered to go back and look.
Do the classical planets serve any purpose anymore?
Of course, they do. Oddity, I don't know why you come up with these odd throw-away lines. (Must be Eris in the mix, eh?)
Look. Saturn is super as a generic overall ruler of archaeology: think antiquities, bones, and stone objects.
But archaeology really doesn't end there, does it? If the archaeological team finds jewelry or art objects such as figurines, they belong to Venus. Gold would belong to the sun. Iron implements, especially belonging to battles, would be Mars. Documents like scrolls would belong to Mercury. Something like a temple site might even be Jupitarian.
The very act of excavating seems Plutonian, however. I just looked up archaeology in Rex E. Bills,
The Rulership Book, and he assigns archaeology to both Pluto and Saturn.
The flip side is that I don't think anyone claims that Pluto rules mental illness in a generic way. Mental illnesses are not identical, for one thing. Depression plays out very differently than obsessive hand-washing, for example. I've looked at a lot of charts of mentally ill people, and an afflicted moon showed up in many but not all charts; yet it seemed to be a more common placement than a dinged-up Mercury. Unsurprisingly, because some highly intelligent people nevertheless suffer from mental health disorders.
Where did anyone write that Pluto is responsible for any and all healing? Again, you have to use some discernment. In medical astrology, Scorpio and the 8th house generically rule the genital and eliminative organs. Yet the moon, for example, more particularly rules the uterus So this doesn't mean Pluto as the modern ruler of Scorpio rules absolutely everything related to sex.
By comparison, Saturn generically rules the bones and teeth, but if we go through various parts of the body, we find different bones with different planet, sign, and house rules. Your ankles are an Aquarian/11th house matter, to cite one example. The 6th house generically rules sickness, but specific individual illnesses are likely to have different rulers.
I am really and truly not bothered by overlapping planetary meanings. If multiple testimonies in the chart point to the same conclusion, that's wonderful, in my opinion.
