grandegyptianmuseum

The Dendera Zodiac

View of the original Dendera Zodiac. The sculptured Dendera zodiac is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera, containing images of Taurus and the Libra. This chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. The relief, which John H. Rogers characterised as “the only complete map that we have of an ancient sky”, has been conjectured to represent the basis on which later astronomy systems were based. It is now on display at the Louvre.