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J: Late Egyptian Constellations

20: Denderah zodiac

Photograph of the astronomical ceiling (dating to the Late Ptolemaic
Period (i.e., late Hellenistic Period)) that was located at the temple of
Hathor in Denderah, Egypt. The temple of Hathor was built during the
Ptolemaic era. (The ruins at Denderah consist mainly of the remains of a
temple dedicated to the goddess Isis.  The Great Temple of Hathor at
Denderah is one of the best preserved of all the temples in Egypt. It is
devoted mainly to the Egyptian goddess Hathor.) The circular
representation of the Egyptian sky is commonly called the Denderah zodiac
(or Denderah E) because it depicts the Babylonian/Greek zodiacal
constellations. (All Egyptian zodiacs are late and originated in the
Hellenistic and Roman periods.) (The Ptolemaics were a Greek dynasty
originating from the break-up of the Greek Empire after the death of
Alexander the Great. The Ptolemaic Period lasted from 332 BCE until 30 BCE
(the early Christian era).) (The temple was used primarily for the
celebration of the new year.)

The zodiac was situated in the ceiling in a middle room (pronaos =
portico) of the small eastern Osiris chapel located on the roof of the
Hathor temple - specifically on the western half of the ceiling of the
central (i.e., first enclosed) chamber - and formed the greater part of
the ceiling. (It is essentially comprised of two concentric circles. The
entire disk is approximately 240 centimetres (2.5 metres) in diameter
(width). The circular star map is approximately 150 centimetres in
diameter. Its thickness is approximately 90 centimetres. The weight of the
two huge blocks of (red)  sandstone comprising the disc (after sawing to
reduce thickness to aid removal)  is approximately 3 short tons/2.72
metric tons (6000 pounds/2722 kilograms).) At the time of the removal of
the Denderah circular zodiac the ceiling was composed of 3 great slabs of
sandstone placed together so closely that the joins were not visible. One
of these slabs contained almost the whole of the zodiac. The 2nd slab,
which occupied the middle of the ceiling, contained the remainder of the
zodiac. The 3 slabs were almost of the same dimensions, each was 3 feet (=
0.9 metres) thick, and each weighed approximately 40,000 pounds (= 18,180
kilograms).  To aid ease of removal of the 2 slabs containing the circular
zodiac Jean Lelorrain reduced the thickness of each of these by
approximately 1 foot (= 0.3 metres). The largest of the 2 slabs taken is
approximately 8 feet long (= 2.5 metres) and 6 feet wide (= 1.8 metres),
the other slab is is about the same length as the first but only about 3
feet wide (= 0.9 metres).

Construction began on the temple of Hathor circa 125 BCE and was finished
circa 60 CE. The pronaos/portico was commissioned by the Roman emperor
Tiberius, as an addition to the late Ptolemaic chapel. (The Denderah
circular zodiac is dated circa 36 BCE or 30 BCE. It is the oldest known
representation of the zodiac.)

Accounts differ as to who discovered the Denderah circular zodiac. One
source states it was discovered in 1798 by Louis Chastel, a captain of
dragoons.  Another source states it was first discovered in 1799 by
Napoleon's General Louis Desaix (Dessaix) when he was pursuing the
remnants of Murad-Bey's army (up the Nile) across the Thebaid (near
Luxor). General Louis Desaix (Dessaix) made a brief visit as his army
marched by the temple. It would seem that Napoleon's troops reached
Denderah on 25th May 1799.

Accounts of who sketched (or re-sketched) the Denderah skymap, and when,
tend to be a bit confusing. The French artist Vivant (I have also seen his
first name appear as Dominique) Denon was the first to make a drawing of
the Denderah planisphere. Vivant Denon accompanied Napoleon's Egyptian
expedition and he was commissioned by General Louis Desaix (Dessaix) to do
such for the projected Description de l'Egypte. The ceiling was rapidly
sketched by the artist in 1799.  The artist published the drawing in his
1802 account (a massive folio book titled Voyage) of his experiences
traveling with Napoleon's Egyptian expedition.  Vivant Denon's published
drawing of what appeared to be a zodiac created immediate interest and
caused immense discussion in Paris. In 1820 it was redrawn by Vivant
Denon's compatriot the Italian scientist Girolamo Segato.

It would appear that the actual drawing/engraving of the Denderah zodiac
("The Round Denderah B Zodiac") that appeared in Description de l'Egypte
was made by the French scholars Jean Jollois and René Devilliers (both
scientists) also whilst accompanying Napoleon's Egyptian expedition
(1798-1801). This was a more exact drawing. It was later published circa
1815 in the multi-volume Description de l'Egypte (Volume 4). (The
drawing/engraving is not a completely accurate rendition of the actual
ceiling.)

The British consul Henry Salt had attempted to acquire the ceiling for the
British Museum but the French antiquities collector Sebastian Saulnier
employed a French engineer/master mason, Jean Lelorrain, to remove the
sandstone slab and arrange its transport to France by ship. Jean Lelorrain
left for Egypt in early October, 1820 with some specially constructed
tools. After considerable effort at sawing and pulling he eventually made
careful use of gun powder to blow holes in the temple roof to effect the
removal of the ceiling (= 2 key slabs). It took 16 days to cover the 6.5
kilometres (4 miles) to the River Nile. Other problems faced included the
River Nile was at its lowest ebb and an 18-metre (60-foot)  earth ramp had
to be built to slide the stone slabs down to the water's edge.  The boat
Lelorrain was trying to load the stone slabs onto nearly sank under the
weight. (One writer states that Desaix - with the permission of the
Egyptian ruler Mohamed Ali Pasha - made the decision to remove the ceiling
to France.)

The original sandstone carving was moved from Denderah in 1821 and arrived
by ship (the La Lorainne) at Marseilles on September 9, 1821. Due to
quarantine restrictions it was not off-loaded until November 27. It
arrived in Paris in 1822 and was put on show until it was sold to King
Louis XVIII for 150,000 francs. (Public pressure had led to Sebastian
Saulnier being paid this enormous sum of money for the zodiac.) It was
then placed in the royal library (which later became the Bibliothéque
Nationale). In 1919 it was moved to the Louvre Museum, Paris where it was
initially placed on display in the Grand Gallery on the ground floor. It
was then moved several times and even located on a stairway.  Since 1997
it has been in the Galerie D'Alger. (A plaster replica (a cast made from
the original zodiac) only is now in the ceiling of the Osiris chapel at
the Denderah temple. This mould from the original zodiac was made and sent
to Egypt in 1920.)

English visitors arrived at Denderah prior to 1820.

It would appear that a marble copy of the Denderah star map, carved by the
French artist and sculptor J. Castex (1731-1821) in 1819 from casts (i.e.,
squeezes) of a one-third size wax model previously made (during the actual
Napoleonic expedition to Egypt), is located in the Fitzwilliam Museum,
Cambridge, England. Napoleon had originally contracted with Castex to
produce a marble version of the wax model. However, the restoration
government refused to honour Napoleon's contract. After Castex's death the
marble carving came into the possession of a British speculator.

The first appearance in Egypt of our own 12 zodiacal constellations comes
from the so-called Zodiac of Denderah. All available evidence indicates
that the concept of the zodiac was not native to Egypt but that it was
imported at a late (but unknown) date. (Perhaps during the period of the
expansion of the Assyrian Empire.) The Denderah star map integrates
ancient Egyptian star-groups with the zodiacal constellations of the
Babylonians (and Greeks). The Babylonian zodiac has been integrated into
the Egyptian sky. (The French Egyptologist Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt
has argued for an Egyptian origin of the zodiacal signs.  She connects
them with the cycle of the sun and Osiris.) The constellation figures
outside the zodiac (except the Southern Fish, which was regarded as part
of the Waterman) are Egyptian. (The identity of most of the other (purely
Egyptian) constellation symbols remain unknown.)

The organisation of the zodiac is not haphazard but also it is not a very
accurate astronomical representation. (None of the Egyptian zodiacs were
very accurate astronomical representations.) (Like all the Egyptian
zodiacs it includes the signs of the zodiac (ultimately of Babylonian
origin), the old hour decans, the planets, and native Egyptian stars and
constellations.) The astronomical ceiling shows all 12 zodiacal
constellations (as well as other constellations, and the planets). The
constellations are shown in the centre. It is a syncretistic zodiac based
on Egyptian and Greek ideas and is most likely based on a Hellenistic
model (i.e., from the use of the zodiacal Ram). The figures of 36
traditional Egyptian decans (from the Tanis family of decans), indicators
of the hours of the night, are the outermost ring of figures in the
circle, depicted standing on the circumference (as walking men, snakes,
and other animals) (adjacent to the hands of the supporting figures). (The
36 decans/spirits, stand in a circle around the stars, = one for each ten
days in the Egyptian year.)  The signs of the zodiac are located inside
the decan ring and the planets in their exaltations and some
constellations are interspersed among them. (The planets are depicted as
gods holding staffs.) The innermost figures are Egyptian constellations.
The northern constellations are in the centre of the disc (and the north
celestial pole is approximately at the centre of the disc). (These
innermost figures are surrounded by Greek zodiacal constellation figures
mixed with images of gods representing the planets.)

The 12 zodiacal constellations form an inner (and properly offset) ring
(and follow a circle that corresponds to the ecliptic). All the 12 zodiac
constellations are easily recognizable. The Egyptians, however, have
varied the figures and also have varied the attitudes of the figures from
those of the Babylonian-Greek sky. The identification of the zodiacal
constellations can be made in clockwise sequence near the eccentric circle
at the centre of the star map. (The positioning of the constellations
Cancer and Libra is irregular.) To the right of centre are located the two
fishes (Pisces), next (below the fishes)  the Ram and the Bull, next the
Twins, the Crab (Cancer), and the Lion. More upwards the Virgin with the
Corn-Ear, the Balance, and the Scorpion. The next three zodiacal
constellations/signs are the Archer, the Goat-fish, (Capricorn), and the
Waterman.

Cancer the Crab is represented by the Scarab Beetle. The figure of the
Lion near the Scales (which is not the zodiacal Lion) is the constellation
Centaurus. A man and a woman with joined hands represent Gemini. The Ram
and the Bull are both reversed from their normal pose, and the figure of
the Bull is complete, not the usual truncated (half) figure. The woman
(Isis?) who holds a spike of wheat is an obvious representation of Virgo.
(Also, the female figure standing on the Lion's tail, which she grasps
with her hand, has been interpreted by some as representing Virgo.) The
Scales point in a different direction, the Waterman's vessel and stream of
water are on the reverse side of his body; the zodiacal Fishes swim in
parallel directions instead of divergent ones.

The familiar northern Egyptian constellations of the Bull's Foreleg ((part
of)  Ursa Major, the Big Dipper asterism) and the Hippopotamus (Draco, the
Dragon)  are easily identifiable. The figure of the Hippopotamus is in the
centre. (One controversial view is that a mark on the breast of the
Hippopotamus identifies the north ecliptic pole.) The figure of an Ape is
under the Scorpion. Instead of the Great Bear there is the figure of a
crocodile. Also, the small crouched lion next to (i.e., beneath) the
Bull's Foreleg on the Denderah zodiac is part of Egypt's indigenous
Northern group of constellations (near the celestial pole).  Currently
(circa 2002 onwards) there is a manufactured controversy over whether this
particular figure is a lion or a ram. The depiction does not suggest a
ram.  Unfortunately there is a lack of textual information to clarify the
identification. However, the star map depiction on the Heter coffin from
Roman Egypt indicates the figure is indeed a crouching lion belonging to
the northern group of early Egyptian constellations. (Many other figures
representing constellations have not yet been identified with those in
present use.)

Hydra and the Raven are in fairly correct positions under the Lion. The
representation of Orion and Sirius is not quite identical with that in the
"rectangular zodiac" in the Great Hypostyle Hall. (Below Leo is situated a
cow in a boat with a star between its horns. This figure is Sirius.) The
bow behind Sirius reminds us that "the Bow Star" was one of the Babylonian
names of Sirius. Orion is the figure holding a staff and standing near
Taurus. The jackal near the Hippopotamus is Ursa Minor.

The symbols of the planets are located in the constellations in which they
were thought to be particularly (astrologically) influential. The disc
between Pisces and Aries may be the full moon.

The zodiac (i.e., sky) is supported by four human-headed feminine figures
standing erect (at the four corners (or four columns/four pillars of the
sky) of the canopy of heaven), who are the goddesses of the cardinal
points of the compass (the other identification given is: four standing
figures of the sky-goddess Nut), and also four pairs of kneeling
falcon-headed deities/gods (the other identification given is: eight
figures of the kneeling earth-god Geb), between them. The four goddesses
on the outside, all holding up their arms and holding the planisphere (and
supporting the vault of heaven) are supposed to turn it around in their
hands.

A much larger "rectangular (straight) zodiac" is still situated in the
ceiling of the Hathor temple's Great Hypostyle Hall. (The term "hypostyle"
denotes a hall with a roof borne on columns. Its use first appeared in
Diodorus, 1st century BCE.) The capitals of the columns supporting the
decorated ceiling of the Hypostyle Hall are carved in the shape of a naos
sistrum. The naos sistrum is a musical instrument (a rattle) with its body
shaped like Hathor's head, and its upper part shaped like a shrine (naos).

The constellations depicted on the 2 zodiacs at Dendera do not bear any
relation to their actual size marked in the sky.

Appendix 1: Date of Temple of Hathor and Round Zodiac

(a) Source - Edited Contribution by the Canadian historian of astronomy
Mario Tessier to Hastro-L (2004):

Traditional dating of the Denderah temple puts it squarely in the late
Hellenistic period, in the first century BCE, notably on iconographic
details and inscriptions. For example, the south outer wall of the temple
have reliefs showing the famous Cleopatra and her son Caesarion
(http://egyptphoto.ncf.ca/EgyptPerspective31.htm).  The shrine was
probably built by the Ptolemies, and probably finished by Cleopatra VII
Philopator herself, who would have played on the Hathor worship as a
goddess of fertility, of women, and of childbirth (another Hathor shrine
was built by her in Philae). The temple we see today is the reconstruction
during the Ptolemaic period of a much older temple which already existed
in the 4th century BCE.

You should find good information about Egyptian temples in: Richard H.
Wilkinson's book The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt. (London, 2000).

A study on the conception of the zodiac, based on astronomical
computations, was published recently. I read about it first in a French
astronomy magazine, Ciel et Espace, if I remember correctly. The original
study, on which the article was based, is: "La date de conception du
zodiaque du temple d' Hathor à Dendera." by Eric Aubourg, Bulletin de l'
Institut Français d' Archéologie Orientale (BIFAO)  95, 1995, pages 1- 10.
"This new study of the Zodiac of Dendera, currently exposed at the Louvre,
is based on the principle of the conjunctions and oppositions of the
planets and their periodicity. It develops the idea that the Zodiac does
not reflect an instantaneous position of the planets (which can be
identified according to the constellations) but that the ancient
astronomers chose to represent the last stationary point of each planet
preceding the elaboration of the Zodiac. It can thus be calculated that
the Zodiac was composed in summer 51, in July or August. This precise
dating is confirmed by the identification of an eclipse of the moon and an
eclipse of the sun."

Source:
http://www.ifao.egnet.net/doc/Publications/DocNouvPub/Periodiques/BIFAO_95.htm

Jean Biot (1774-1862), an eminent French astronomer, presented papers to
the Academy of Inscriptions in 1822 and 1844 (Memoire sur le zodiaque
circulaire de Denderah), in which he stated that even though the round
zodiac was sculpted in the Roman era it either referred to a much earlier
time, or the background sky was copied from an earlier work which may have
been rendered on parchment or stone. Jean Biot pinpointed the sky drawn on
the ceiling of Denderah at precisely 700 BCE at midnight on summer
solstice. Sir Norman Lockyer (1836-1920)  concluded in his book The Dawn
of Astronomy that subsequent translated context from hieroglyphics related
the round zodiac to the period of 1,700 BCE. Of course, these first
attempts at dating the celestial Denderah ceiling were not supported by
later archaeological evidences or astronomical computations.

(b) Source - Edited Contribution by the Dutch astronomer Robert van Gent
to Hastro-L (2004):

In an 81-page booklet by Sylvie Cauville (Le zodiaque d'Osiris, Uitgeverij
Peeters (Louvain, 1997), the author - who has published extensively on the
temple which originally contained the planisphere - claims that the
planetary positions on the planisphere can be matched to various dates
around 50 BC. The author (and the astronomer who assisted her) appear to
be unaware of the fact that the planets on the planisphere are located in
their so-called exaltation points ("hypsomata"), i.e., the signs in which
they are assumed to have special powers. This is a well known tradition in
Late-Babylonian and Hellenistic astrology.

(c) Source - http://www.decodingtheheavens.com/blog/?tag=/zodiac (Blog:
Decoding the Heavens - Jo Marchant)

"The design is a representation of the sky. Egyptologist Sylvie Cauville
and astrophysicist Eric Aubourg used the positions of the star
constellations and planets to date the Zodiac to between 15 June and 15
August in the year 50 BC, during the period between the death of
Cleopatra's father, Ptolemy Auletes, in 51 BC, and the establishment of
joint rule between Cleopatra and Caesarion (her 5-year-old son by Julius
Caesar), in 42 BC. Two eclipses - the solar eclipse of 7 March 51 and the
lunar eclipse of 25 September 52 - are represented on the skyscape in the
locations where they would have occurred. But why would the Egyptians have
wanted to commemorate this particular moment? I emailed Cauville and she
says her hypothesis is that the total solar eclipse coincided in
Alexandria with the death of Cleopatra's father. "She [Cleopatra] may have
wanted to inscribe for eternity the passing of power from King-Rê to
herself, the female sun." I'm so glad I asked! Rê is another name for the
sun god, Ra, by the way. The pharaohs, including those of Cleopatra's
dynasty, often claimed that they were sons and daughters of Ra. Dendera
would have been chosen because the temple there was dedicated to female
royalty. (The temple at Edfu, where two similar zodiacs are located, is
dedicated to the male royalty.) The Dendera zodiac was on the ceiling of
one of the temple's two chapels dedicated to Osiris, the god of eternal
return. ? [Cauville's comments have been translated from French]"

Copyright © 2001-2010 by Gary D. Thompson

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