ARAM, 24 (2012) 175-192. doi: 10.2143/ARAM.24.0.

3009273

DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC –

EGYPT’S FAMOUS GRECO-ROMAN ‘ZODIAC’

Dr. ROSALIND PARK

(Edmonton, Alberta, Canada)
Mr. BERNARD ECCLES

Abstract

The most popular visitor attraction in the Egyptian Antiquities department in the
Louvre is the sandstone ceiling with bas-relief of a sky-map from Dendara temple. The
2.5 m ≈ 2.5 m artefact is dated to the 1st century BC by Neugebauer and Parker (1969)
who also claimed, albeit with sketchy discussion on the matter, that the planets shown
are merely placements in their zodiacal sign of astrological ‘exaltation’. Upon our
investigation, this postulation is not fully supported.
Aubourg (1995) who does not comment on the assumption of ‘exaltations’, interprets
two particular symbols as depictions of a solar and lunar eclipse in the years 52 and
51 BC, and hypothesises that the planets are at their last stationary point prior to his
deduced date for the summer of 51 BC. However these portrayals are otherwise unprec-
edented in sacred art.
Therefore such conclusions seem dubious, both in historic context and to the
received wisdom of the nature of celestial ideology in which Egyptian temple priests
were normally steeped, and who incidentally, were the only ones with access to the
roof-top sanctuary chamber where the zodiac ceiling was secreted.
This paper will attempt to unravel more intrinsic, political and practical meaning
behind the commissioning of the Dendara zodiac. A re-appraisal of the content inciden-
tally shows astronomical viability for the Sun, Moon and five planets, indicating a date
late in the reign of the then Pharaoh of Egypt, Caesar Augustus. And this is suggestive
of a more than likely horoscope present amongst the constellations. In his 2nd century AD
biography of Augustus, Suetonius tells how the youthful Octavian had consulted with a
Greek astrologer Theogenes and been told of his powerful destiny. This serves to remind
us how astrology, and particularly, horoscopes of destiny such as the Dendara zodiac
might turn out to be, had taken hold throughout the Roman Empire, in which Egypt was
a major player.

INTRODUCTION

Since the Louvre acquired the Dendara Zodiac in 1919, the artefact has been
the most popular visitor attraction in the section of Egyptian antiquities. Origi-
nally installed in the Ptolemaic temple of Hathor, the circular Zodiac depicting
176 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

an Egyptian sky-map is a carved bas-relief in sandstone measuring 2.5 metres

square. Despite a rich assortment of hieroglyphs and Egyptian deities, the
Dendara temple’s famous celestial monument receives curiously little scholarly
attention. This relative obscurity is partly due to studies by the Egyptologists
themselves who are generally focused on the ‘Pharaonic’ period; while the
Graeco-Roman occupation phase of Egyptian history tends to be covered by
Classical scholars. There is not always a coherent means of integrating data from
these disparate specialities. A further challenge arises from the reluctance of both
disciplines to incorporate any helpful role that the study of archaeoastronomy
may have to offer.
Today, the description in the Louvre’s accompanying panel, written by the
Egyptologist Marc Etienne, informs visitors that it is a ‘night sky-scape’ dated
between 15 June and 15 August 50 BC in the reign of Cleopatra VII. Lest per-
haps any of the visiting public have an overt enthusiasm for Egyptian astrology,
Etienne (2009) warns that the Dendara Zodiac must not to be thought of as
“… a giant horoscope or a perpetual astrological tool”. This caution protests,
perhaps in vain, at what much evidence suggests was the pervasive popularity
of Astrology in Hellenistic times. Does it not seem paradoxical that, although
this artefact is (mis-)named a “zodiac”, and with all the multiple astrological
innuendos for that term, that analysis of the astrological content has been virtu-
ally ignored by scholars?
Decorative zodiacs often featured in Late Period temples in Egypt especially
during the reign of the Ptolemies. Zodiacs for individuals are thought to date from
the first known personal horoscope from Mesopotamia 410 BC (Neugebauer &
Parker 1969: 140; Parker 1978: 725). These 5th century Babylonian astrologic
techniques for casting conception and natal horoscopes, presumably in adapted
form and variations, spread swiftly for popular use in Egypt and the Greco-
Roman world. If we define ‘astronomy’ as ‘measuring the heavenly motions’,
and ‘astrology’ as ‘applying the influence of the observed stars’ then both activi-
ties were basic requirements in the celestial religion that the Ancient Egyptians
practised. From the time of the Pyramid Texts (circa 2300 BC), night and day
observations of sky phenomenon were made by scribal priests – “the hour
watchers” – sworn to temple secrecy. The concept behind how different cul-
tures define a ‘career astrologer’ might not fall into our precise mindset of one
engaged exclusively in the casting and interpretation of horoscopes. Yet, as
perceived by the Ancient Egyptians, the “man who places hours” is the literal
translation surviving in the Coptic term for the occupation of “astrologer”
(Ritner 1993: 233).
By Hellenistic times, astrology had developed into a technical art that
did not require any specific form of worship, or considerations on how the
celestial bodies had been created. The more secular and philosophical Greeks
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 177

who all came to learn in Egypt were much impressed by the mathematical
astronomy of Hipparchus (died 120 BC) and C. Ptolemy (flourished 130 AD),
who in turn acknowledged their debt to Eudoxos (390-338 BC). Eudoxos
had come to Egypt in the reign of the Egyptian ruler Nectanebo I and spent
a year (366/365 BC) studying religious astronomy under an Egyptian priest,
Shunouphis at Heliopolis and Memphis (Keyser 2007: 344-6). A star-gazer’s
document dated two hundred years after Eudoxos visited Egypt’s northern holy
site, was recovered from this Memphis area, and is now housed in the Louvre,
although not on display. This is papyrus N2325, the so-called and sadly
understudied “Celestial Teaching of Leptines” circa 165 BC, which is an
illustrated astronomy and astrology text. The passing interest of this little-
known Egyptian papyrus is where its date falls in the Ptolemaic kings era;
a shadowy diplomatic Roman influence was evident in Egypt, for in 168 BC
(during the reign of Ptolemy VI) Egypt became become loosely a Roman pro-
tectorate, and in 163 BC, the Romans ousted him in favour of Ptolemy VIII
(Bagnall 2004: 14).

DENDARA ZODIAC BACKGROUND

65 km north of Luxor in a large temple surviving from the ‘Cleopatra-era’

(51-30 BC), the Dendara zodiac was ‘rediscovered’ by Europeans on 25th May
1799. This was during Napoleon’s expedition to Egypt, at which time the reli-
gious sanctuary was known by its Greek name Tentyris, from the Coptic word
tentore for ‘goddess’ (Daumas 1970: 13). At this site – the former ancient capi-
tal of the 6th Upper Egyptian Nome – worship for Hathor, Egypt’s major female
deity is attested from pre-Dynastic times (5500-3100 BC). As ‘Lady of the Sky’
and daughter of the Sun-god Ra, the cow-goddess Hathor inspired long-sustained
worship, as evidenced by devotional shrines or temple complexes built, rebuilt,
extended and embellished by ruling pharaohs and Roman emperors alike. When
the 1799 discovery happened, although no one could read Egyptian hieroglyphs,
the savants of Napoleon were enraptured by the exterior architectural beauty of
the Dendara temple, and especially excited by the ceilings depicting zodiacs.
They were located in the Great Hall and in an upper-roof chapel, with the latter’s
round ceiling – hereafter the Dendara Zodiac – which made the biggest impres-
sion. For interspersed with the enigmatic Egyptian art work, were recognizable
astrological symbols which the French explorers anticipated would be the key to
unravel ancient secrets.
Fruitful research on iconographical objects requires accurate epigraphy.
The first line-drawing of the original masterpiece was done on site in 1802 by
the Napoleonic expedition artist Dominique Vivant Denon (1747-1825), and
178 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

Fig. 1. Dendara Zodiac, drawn by Valerie Matthews

published in 1817. Denon’s illustration, or similar copies by other artists, has

achieved fame beyond academic Egyptology books by their almost de rigueur
inclusion in ‘History of Astronomy or Astrology’ publications (Figure 1).
Sylvie Cauville, renowned for her Ptolemaic epigraphic survey work, is the
most experienced person on what has been learnt during the last thirty years
about the archaeology site of Dendara. For want of a better name of the ‘Dendara
Zodiac’ artefact, Cauville (1997) calls it “The Zodiac of Osiris” due to its loca-
tion in the Osiris room of the Hathor temple. The circular zodiac, symbolically
close to the sky, was the ceiling of a satellite chapel atop the main temple on the
first-roof level. The chapel has many inscriptions to the chthonic deity Osiris,
including his important epithet ‘Lord of Eternity’ (Kaper 2009: 37). In one
of the major Egyptian creation myths, Osiris was the first-born child of the
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 179

sky-goddess Nut & her Earth husband Geb. He was a universal god, especially
as ruler of the underworld, and was a counterpart of the Sun god (Hart 1986:
171). As a Star-god, Osiris was celestially associated with appearances and
disappearances of the constellation of Orion.

Middle Kingdom Coffin, c. 2000 BC

Orion/Osiris
Sirius

Dendara Zodiac, 1st century BC

Fig. 2. Orion = Osisris

Cauville, in her book Le Zodiaque d’Osiris, gives a popular analysis of

newer ideas in scholarship with emphasis on the theological context of the
room where the Dendara Zodiac was housed. The chapel’s understood purpose
was for solemn rites concerning the re-assemblage of Osiris’s body parts, stated
to be associated with individual Egyptian towns, honouring the god’s annual
re-birth (Cauville 1997b: 66). Kaper (2009: 32) further interprets from the
180 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

Dendara sacred texts that, as each Nome (province) of Egypt was equated with
some anatomical part of Osiris, once the pieces were reassembled by the crea-
tor god Ptah in this Dendara chapel called ‘House of Gold’, the entire country
could consider itself unified. Whereas the Osiris chapel, housing the zodiac was
called the ‘House of Gold’, hieroglyphic text around the circumference of the
zodiac identify it as ‘Sky of Gold, which is highly suggestive to the authors of
the Sun in full glory, in the day time, rather than the assumed ‘night sky-scape’
that the Louvre claims.
Whatever Egyptian Solar religion liturgical rites went on, few visitors to the
temple could ever view the Dendara zodiac. Beyond the outside of the surround-
ing wall of the temple, the priests did business courting the many pilgrims who
attended Hathor’s great temple for healing purposes as well as partaking in
jubilant festivals. A statement in the temple made it clear that temple entry was
forbidden to Greeks, Bedouin, Asiatics and Phoenicians (Chassinat 1965: 6-8).
Thus it needs to be recalled that this elaborate carved monument, depicting an
unprecedented view of the heavens, remained exclusively accessible to Pharaoh
and his deputised senior priests only.
Downstairs in the temple’s hypostyle hall, there were ceiling relief panels
showing zodiac and Egyptian constellation imagery, similar to other decorative
ceilings at five other Greco-Roman temples such as at Edfu which may have been
seen by pious Egyptian laity. Although the chapel itself is clearly identified with
Osiris, it must be said that, in spite of the title of Cauville’s book, the evidence
is rather weak that the physical zodiac may represent a symbolic horoscope for
the god Osiris. The artistic portrayal of the Osiris-Orion figure is the same size
as dozens of other asterisms – the identifiable zodiac shapes and the speculative
and yet to be identified constellation signs.
What determines a horoscope, is its Rising Sign or Ascendant (horoskopos)
where the Sun rises over the local eastern horizon at the moment of birth. When
they carved the Dendara zodiac, the Egyptian priest-artisans were careful to
note the significant horizon pivots, strongly implying a horoscopic nature for
the sacred artefact – however this hieroglyphic labelling of the four cardines
(angles) in the outer rims has gone unremarked. In marking in hieroglyphs ‘the
East’ for the Ascendant, and opposite ‘the West’ for the Descendant, the cru-
cial horizon of the Dendara zodiac can be interpreted to rest on the Gemini –
Sagittarius axis.

DATE SORTING THE 26TH CHOIAK

The Osiris chapel features an Egyptian date of the 26th Choiak which, like all
other dates in their calendar, was a moveable date over time and frustratingly,
neither the year, nor the pharaoh, is stated. The month of Choiak (the last month
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 181

of Akhet the flood season) is the fourth month of the roving Egyptian calendar,
and chronologically will not always coincide with any fixed lunar or stellar
calendar simultaneously in operation. We know from the 300BC Papyrus
Hibeh 27 that “26th Choiak” was an official date for an annual Osiris festival
(Evans & Berggren 2006: 21). In the 239 BC ‘Canopus Decree’ of Ptolemy III
to his people, deploring how Egyptian summer and winter festivals had become
muddled, and resolving to fix them, passing mention is made of an Osiris
feast of 29th Choiak. We calculate this to have occurred 17th February 238 BC.
In the Thesaures Inscriptionum Aegyptiacarum, Brugsch (1883: II,409) in his
impenetrable German text notes that the Winter Solstice happened on the
26th Choiak – although the year to which he was referring remains unclear.
Brugsch further explained (ibid. 419) that the Winter Solstice was an important
time of rebirth and renewal to the Egyptians, with his example that this sacred
time was propitious for the commencement of restorations on Edfu temple. In
order to find a date for the construction of the Osiris chapel occurring in the
reign of the Ptolemies, and for which 26th Choiak occurred near the Winter
Solstice, Neugebauer (1975: 580) sought a range of dates between 300 BC
(reign of Ptolemy I) and 118 AD (Emperor Hadrian). However his proviso was
“…not later than 30 BC” – being the year of Cleopatra’s death. Neugebauer
found a date falling 5 days after the Winter Solstice, and thereby provided
scholars with the now set-in-stone Julian calendar date of 28 December 47 BC
for the dedicatory date of the Osiris chapel at Dendara.

ROME’S REVERENCE FOR THE STARS AND THE WINTER SOLSTICE

The first cases of Roman aristocratic leaders being associated with astrology
and its paraphernalia emerge at the beginning of the 1st century BC (Barton
1994: 39). One might speculate that discussion took place regarding future
extension plans and inclusion of the fashionable zodiac ceilings for the Cleopatra-
Hathor temple when Julius Caesar sailed past Dendara on his “honeymoon”
cruise. According to Pliny, Caesar was serious enough about the calendar to
engage the Egyptian astronomer Sosigenes “to bring the years back into con-
formity with the Sun”. To the Romans, the Winter Solstice week (“the best of
days” according to Catullus) incorporated the empire-wide celebration of the
festival of Saturnalia, and the birthday of the Unconquered Sun (Sol Invictus).
Also in the time of Julius Caesar, a Roman astrologer, Lucius Tarutius was
tasked with retro-calculating horoscopes of both the conception and the birth
events of Romulus, the founder of Rome (Plut. Rom. 12.3-6). In the paper
by Heilen (2007) on the ‘Horoscope of Rome’, we note with passing interest
that Plutarch reported the conception of Romulus in his mother’s womb
during a Solar eclipse in the 1st year of the 2nd Olympiad, as happening ‘on
182 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

the 23rd Choiak of the Egyptian calendar’, for which the modern conversion
gives us the date of 24 June 772 BC (Heilen 2007: 47).
Marcus Manilius, author of the five books in Latin poetry called Astronomica
commenced in 9AD, was much persuaded that the imperial rule of Caesar
Augustus was cosmically ordained. Caesar Augustus himself had an apparent
special fondness for Saturnalia, as he sent out in 2 BC an edict to the world to
honour the 25th anniversary of his self-proclaimed divinity as Roman Emperor
“Father of his Country”. Imperial cult days were designated to celebrate birth-
days of the ruling emperor as well as lavish celebrations of the date of accession.
In his own Res Gestae, Octavian (Augustus) officially dated his rule of Egypt
from the 1st August 30 BC (Bagnall & Rathbone 2004: 16). Immediately as
Pharaoh on the death of Cleopatra, Augustus would have had a say in the
regulating of rituals that would be permitted in the temples throughout Egypt.
Let us now return to Neugebauer’s above-mentioned derived date for the
26th Choiak on the Osiris chapel translating to 28 December 47 BC, and his cut-
off of 30 BC being the last dynasty date before the Roman conquest. Following
Cleopatra’s suicide in 30 BC, her son Caesarion, the rightful ruler of Egypt
“was afterwards put to death by Caesar” (Suetonius: Aug.18). 30 BC also hap-
pened to be the first year of the reign of Caesar Augustus, and as previously
noted the Romans were already having a say in Egyptian politics decades earlier.
The Winter Solstice of 29 BC occurred exactly on 26th Choiak according to
Neugebauer’s own Tables of Winter Solstice and Egyptian months – had he
sought to extrapolate them for one more year. While it seems likely that con-
struction of the sacred Osiris chapel commenced in the reign of Cleopatra, the
benefactor ruler’s cartouches never got to be filled in; thus which ruler finished
the job will never be known with certainty.

PHARAOH AUGUSTUS AND THE STARS

Within the temples themselves, Augustus sought much closer monitoring than
the Ptolemies had previously done over the economic activities throughout the
land. This raised extra taxes for Rome, and lessened the power of the indige-
nous priesthood who were an obvious focus for national resistance. In the time-
honoured tradition of foreigners who ruled Egypt appeasing their subjects, Caesar
Augustus assumed Egyptian dress and ritual posturing of pharaoh on newly-
commissioned temples throughout Egypt even to as far south as Kalabasha in
Nubia. His piety-building ‘works’ at Dendara included, at the back wall of the
main temple, a poignant small Isis chapel which nuzzled up to view the back
wall’s relief of Queen Cleopatra, guised as Hathor, presenting her son Caesarion
to a god. Augustus also commissioned the building of Dendara’s so-called “Roman
Birth House” (finished by Hadrian) dedicated to Hathor and her divine son Ihy.
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 183

In carved relief on the temple wall of the Roman ‘Birth House’ (mammesi)
at the Dendara complex, the new Pharaoh Augustus makes an offering to the
Egyptian deities of what appears to be an atlas-globe. Perhaps it was the very
same device, made by Posidonius (who died in 51 BC), and described by a con-
temporary Cicero (Nature of the Gods II.88) as: “…a globe which in its revolu-
tions shows the movements of the Sun, stars and planets by day and night just
as they appear in the sky”. We also know from Geminus (active in the middle
of 1st Century BC) that celestial globes and armillary spheres had already come
into use (Jones 1999). The numismatic icon representing Augustus denotes him
as a zodiacal goat (the sign for Capricorn) holding a globe instrument, or atlas,
between his front hooves. On his coinage in 27 BC and prior to ever reaching
Egypt, Augustus identified himself with the Tropical zodiac sign of Capricorn
where the Sun’s position travelled from the Winter Solstice until19th January.
This “goat-fish” imagery on the circulating coins of Caesar Augustus, is also
stylistically much in keeping with how the Egyptian artists portrayed Capricorn
in temples and tombs in the Greco-Roman period.
Capricorn was vaguely possible to be Augustus’s Moon sign, as he was known
to be born at sunrise 23rd September 63 BC, although Suetonius, the chronicler
of the lives of the Caesars writing several decades after Augustus had died, insists
that he was born in Capricorn. Or confusion for this nominated zodiac sign may
have been for the meaningful ‘horoscopic’ date of Augustus’s conception on the
23rd December, the day on which his mother dreamed that she had been visited
by the god Apollo (Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 95). With hindsight, Suetonius
(Aug. 94.5) reports that Nigidius Figulus interpreted the birth of Octavian Augus-
tus as that of a world leader. Suetonius also endorsed the youthful Octavian’s
flirtation with astrology describing his chance horoscope reading at Apollonia
by a Greek astrologer Theogenes who predicted Augustus’s powerful destiny
(Barton: 40). Although astrologers would consider Augustus a Libran, as did
indeed Virgil (Heilen 2007: 63), there were significant days in January when
the Sun was still in Capricorn that were of commemorative importance to Augus-
tus (Wallace-Hadrill 1993: 85). These celebration dates were his first command
(7th January), his restoration of the Republic (13th January), his renaming as
“Augustus” (16th January 27 BC), and his marriage to Livia (17th January) which
incline one to suspect that any one of these events may have warranted the birth
of a new “horoscope” for his serious political life.

EARLY MODERN WORK ON THE DATE OF THE DENDARA ZODIAC

In 1822, the first person to state that the Dendara zodiac was both ‘astrological’,
and of a Greco-Roman date, was Jean François Champollion, two years before
he published his famous decipherment of hieroglyphs based on the cartouche
184 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

of Cleopatra VII. However the philologist Champollion flew in the face of very
acrimonious arguments particularly from the physicist and astronomer Jean-
Baptiste Biot. For an extraordinary account of war amongst scholars over the
meaning of the Dendara zodiac, see Buchwald & Josefowicz (2010). Biot in
1822 had written imaginatively on the general astronomy of Ancient Egypt
which included a lengthy chapter on Dendara’s circular zodiac. Biot (and in his
revised work of 1844) remained adamant that the sky-map had a scientific date
of an earlier era, around 700 BC.
In 1894, using the site-orientation plan of Champollion’s nemesis Biot, the
English astronomer Sir Norman Lockyer concluded that: “however true it might
be that the circular zodiac had been sculpted in the time of the Roman emperors,
still it certainly referred to a time far anterior”. Lockyer then surveyed and
estimated that the Dendara temple was built to watch the dawn rise of Sirius,
and he saw no reason to challenge Biot’s date of midnight of the Summer
Solstice of 700 BC for the date portrayed by the stars on the Dendera zodiac.

RECENT WORK ON DATING THE ZODIAC

To this day, the seminal and authoritative corpus of Egyptian Astronomical

Texts, is the compilation done by Neugebauer & Parker whose definitive volumes
appeared 1960-1969. To distinguish the Dendera zodiacs, Neugebauer & Parker
(1969: 203-212) called them “E” and “B”. The rectangular “E” zodiac of the
hypostyle hall ceiling was assigned a date 14-37 AD during the reign of Tiberius,
presumably on archaeology’s say-so and not based on astronomical findings.
As to the circular “B” zodiac on one floor level above, their conclusion was
that it was “Late Ptolemaic, before 30 BC”. They provided no explanation to
this strange chronological sequence!
Neugebauer and Parker’s other pronouncement on the circular Dendara
zodiac was that, interspersed with active Egyptian constellations, was an arti-
ficial arrangement of fixed planets – as for example Mercury in Virgo being
180 degrees from the Sun – deemed to be in their hypsomata or ‘exaltations’.
No historical authority is footnoted or cited to support their use of technical
language peculiar to the working astrologer. The criteria of ‘planets in exalta-
tions’, is only useful for analysis evaluation of a Nativity Chart, yet no suggestion
that a hidden horoscope might exist on the Dendara zodiac was ever hinted at
by these authorities.
While adhering to Neugebauer and Parker’s theory that the Dendara Zodiac
dates from Cleopatra’s reign, and accepting their finding of ‘planets in their
exaltation’, astrophysicist Eric Aubourg (1995) published a suggestion of two
astronomical dates occurring on the Dendara Zodiac. He theorises that the
ceiling was erected with the planets marking the stations of each planet over
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 185

the years when the temple was built. Aubourg concluded that two circled areas
drawn on the zodiac’s ecliptic path in Pisces, the Udjat-eye normally the
Moon, and Isis holding a small animal, represented two eclipses. Aubourg’s
eclipses were firstly a Lunar Eclipse 25th September 52 BC, and then the Solar
Eclipse 7th March 51 BC (Cauville 1997: 12). None of the surrounding hiero-
glyphic texts of the Dendara Zodiac offer any mention of eclipses, which, in
Hellenistic times, were regarded as bad omens for kings and countries alike.
In the long established traditional religion of the Ancient Egyptians, to block
out the sun was anathema against Maat, for the Sun needed always to have
unhindered passage along the ecliptic. To be sure, eclipses happened, but they
were never celebrated or to our knowledge recorded on Egyptian theological
monuments.
Cauville is persuaded by Aubourg’s scientific eclipse dates, and explains that
the animal which Isis holds by the tail is required to be a baboon, one of the
manifestations of the lunar deity Thoth. Therefore, as ‘Thoth the Moon god’,
the animal must be restrained from hiding the Sun. If anyone is blocking out
the Sun, it is Isis (planet Venus) herself – conjunct the sun, and incidentally
exalted in Pisces. Next to this scene, we will shortly come to the planet close
to Aquarius represented as a ‘two-headed man’ which is another favourable
astrologic position called in his ‘Egyptian Term’ (see Houlding 2007: 292).
The animal which ‘Isis-in the-Solar circle’ holds is a mystery, for all published
drawings, and the eroded state of the carving of the Dendara zodiac are too
indistinct to positively identify a baboon; but has rather always appeared to us
as a drawing of a pig.
On the Dendara zodiac, there is a recognizable drawing of a pig in the
2nd decan of Taurus, the sign ruled by the planet Venus in Hellenistic astrology
(Figure 3). For the time-period we are dealing with, when Thoth is firmly
established as Hermes-Mercury, the unidentified animal being held by the god-
dess aflame within the solar circle possibly also argues towards the Greek’s
association of Isis to Demeter, the goddess of pigs. As mother of the god Min
(Pan to the Greeks), one of the rare Egyptian appellations for Isis was the
‘white sow of Heliopolis’.
The most recent work on the Dendara Zodiac is that by archaeoastronomers
Lull and Belmonte (2009: 157-194). Much of their essay is devoted to theoris-
ing over the identity of the Egyptian constellations, and they readily accept that
the “a very approximate dating to the middle of the 1st century BC” is in
accordance with Neugebauer and Parker pronouncement. As to the planets, Lull
and Belmonte concur that the planets featured on the Dendara zodiac happen
to have merely symbolic placement with no astronomical meaning (ibid. 185).
The ‘Eye of Horus’ they identify, as we do, with the Moon in Pisces, but do
not pick up on the Solar symbolism with an identifying hieroglyph (N8) as the
Sun also in Pisces. Their surmise is that an enthroned falcon-headed deity
186 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

Fig. 3. Middle Decan of Taurus on Dendara Zodiac, depicting pig

represents the Sun in Scorpio. On that point, we beg to differ; we see it as a

representation of the prominent constellation Hercules.
Another unchallenged acceptance of Neugebauer and Parker’s view that the
Dendara zodiac contains ‘planets in their exaltation’ is a paper by Conman (2009).
However, this point is more a side-issue to establish the antiquity of ‘exaltations’
per se. She speculates that they originated around 679 BC in Babylon, as ‘the
Places of Secret’ – which later came to be called hypsomata in the Hellenistic
era – and that they were one and the same doctrine, all traceable back to Egypt’s
Middle Kingdom. These, Conman argued, are Egyptian decans – called ‘the
Honoured Decans’ – singled out from amongst the regular 36 decans found to be
tabulated on several Middle Kingdom coffin lids from Asyut, circa 2000 BC.

HELLENISTIC EXALTATIONS OR HYPOSOMATA

It is in C. Ptolemy’s Tetrabiblios (Book I, Chap.4 &19) that we learn that

the place of exaltations, was a particular degree area, in a specific sign of the
zodiac, where individual cosmological ‘births’ of the Sun, Moon, and 5 planets,
and curiously the Lunar Nodes, took place. In the Roman era, horoscope read-
ing was more complicated than it is today, with mind-numbing terminology
and criteria to access the strength of the planets – e.g. planet’s Solar phase
(Oriental or Occidental?), Time Lords (chronocrators), Almuten (the strongest
planet), Doctrine of Sect, gender, peregrine, and the Essential and Accidental
Dignities (Rulership, Exaltation, Triplicity, Egyptian Terms, Face, Angularity, and
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 187

Retrogradation). From amongst these many arcane selections, we have no idea of

why or how Neugebauer and Parker, settled upon an incomplete set of ‘exalta-
tions’ to explain the reason for Egyptian planets on the Dendara zodiac. The long
established Egyptian planets are collectively named after the falcon-headed Lord
of the sky, the ‘Horus planets’ (Neugebauer & Parker 1969: 175). Many varying
descriptive epithets are attested in the astronomical works to sort out which planet
is which, with “Horus the Red” being most evident for the planet Mars.

The 9 Hellenistic exaltations are:

Sun exalted in 19 degrees Aries
Moon exalted in 3 degrees Taurus
Moon’s Node (Caput Draconis) exalted 3 degrees Gemini
Jupiter exalted 15 degrees Cancer
Mercury exalted 15 degrees Virgo
Saturn exalted 21 degrees Libra
Moon’s Node (Cauda Draconis) exalted 3 degrees Sagittarius
Mars exalted 28 degree Capricorn
Venus exalted 27 degree Pisces.

On the Dendara zodiac (omitting degree areas), Neugebauer & Parker identify
5 Exaltation placements; these are:
“Horus the Bull” is Saturn and is in Libra,
“Horus who bounds the two lands” is Jupiter and is in Cancer,
“Horus the red” is Mars and is in Capricorn,
“the God of the morning”, which appears to be a two-headed man, is
Venus and is in Pisces (but in fact is more into Aquarius),
“Sobek is Mercury and is in Virgo” – but is seen to be on a different plane
with positioning in the small centre ring of the zodiac and seems to take
up space from Cancer through to Libra.

MISTAKEN PLANETS IN THE SKY OF GOLD: VENUS, MERCURY,

JUPITER & SATURN?

Dendara’s temple was dedicated both in Greek and Egyptian writing to ‘Aph-
rodite who was Hathor’. At Dendara, as indeed throughout pharaonic history, the
roles and cross-over identities of Egypt’s foremost goddesses, Hathor and Isis,
often merged. Worthy stargazer priests of their cults would never permit a gender
lapse of morning or evening planet Venus, for Isis or Hathor, becoming a male
deity of one or two heads. Neugebauer and Parker tell us the ‘two-headed man’
is categorically Venus; whereas in another part of Egypt, on the zodiac ceilings
in the tomb of Petosisis and Petubastis, Neugebauer et al. (1982) identify a
188 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

selfsame ‘two-headed man’ as Mercury! It is a timely reminder that Thoth was

a two-headed deity of bird and baboon. Thus, restoring another morning or
evening planet, that is Mercury (no longer in exaltation), to a more realistic
placement nearer the Sun and Venus, it becomes safe to dismiss aforesaid
Sobek (crocodile) as Mercury in Virgo.
The Egyptian epithets of “Horus the Bull” for Saturn, and “Horus who
bounds the two lands” for Jupiter were entered into the Lexicon by Brugsch in
1856. Our opinion is that these identifications are wrongly recorded; scholars
need to switch the attributes of Jupiter and Saturn. Otherwise any attempt at
astronomic dating, other than years Jupiter and Saturn are in conjunction, will
never be correct. On stylistic grounds on the Dendara zodiac, it is hardly in
keeping with Egyptian concepts having “Horus the Bull” shown with a large
star determinative, known to have sired seven wives in the Book of the Dead, as
the Seth-ian planet Saturn. This has to be a more show-off deity with no limits,
namely Jupiter-Amun. Thus the more circumspect image of a “Horus who
bounds the two lands” suggests the more mysterious Saturn.
How sure can we remain that “Horus the Bull” is Saturn? In some early
work that Neugebauer (1943) did of the five Egyptian planets described on the
Strasbourg Ostracon, and dated by him to between 250-126 BC, Neugebauer
insisted a Mesopotamian planetary order would have been used which forced
a translation of the Sun-god Ra being Saturn who is “Horus the Bull” – which
clearly has to be an anomaly. This strangeness recently noted by Micah Ross
(2007: 14) alerts us to the necessity that pioneer research on Egyptian records
of planets, with questionable modern results needs re-checking. On the Stras-
bourg Ostracon, Mercury, with the determinative of the god Thoth, is spelled
out in Egyptian transliteral as swg3 which is translated in the German lexicon
as ‘dumb’, ‘foolish’, ‘stupid’, or ‘infantile’. This word swg3 designating the
planet Mercury occurs elsewhere on the papyrus CtYBR inv.1132 (B), pCairo
50143, and in pBerlin 8345 (Bohleke 1996); however it does not appear on the
Dendara Zodiac. Parker (1974: 60) identifies for Mercury the simple word
Sbg(w) of unknown meaning. On the Dendara zodiac, it is the word Sbk along-
side a sky deity and therefore an assumed planet, which may have introduced
confusion for modern scholars over the illogical role of Sobek, who was revered
as the fearsome Crocodile god, being transposed into Mercury. To the Romans
and Greeks, there would have been no confusion – Mercury, as both god and
a planet, was Hermes recognisable as the Egyptian deity, Thoth.

THE CELESTIAL CROCODILE SOBEK

Dendara itself could be identified by a flag symbolism for the southern

6th nome as a crocodile (Sobek)-on-a-standard, and this may have called for
 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 189

some sort of ‘crocodile trade-mark’ having inclusion in the Dendara art work.
As a long established god of the Ancient Egyptians Sobek, with a name like
“The Rager”, had his own cult temples and priests. At least a dozen or so
sinister epithets – metaphorical as well as animal descriptive – are known to
describe the crocodile.
The Calendar of Lucky and Unlucky days records the curious feast days of
propitiating the “cutting out the tongue of Sobek”. The crocodile god’s promi-
nent astral role, as featured in notable astronomical ceilings from the 18th Dynasty,
remains enigmatic. Archaeoastronomers have arrived at no real consensus as to
what possible planet, fixed star or constellation the Egyptians intended the croc-
odile to be other than of a threatening nature. In royal inscriptions, the king’s
enemies were often described as crocodiles.
Sobek in Cancer on the Dendara Zodiac makes one ‘planet’ too many. On
the Dendara Zodiac, Sobek occurs where the Cauda Draconis (the ‘Dragon’s
Tail’ or descending Lunar Node) is estimated to be. The ascending and descend-
ing nodes indicate the points in the zodiac where the plane of the Moon’s orbit
intersects the plane of the ecliptic (the Earth’s orbit). In Hellenistic astrology
criteria, the Lunar nodes are identified as two draconic creatures who sought
to devour the Sun and moon at eclipses and, were accorded the strength of a
planet.

THE DENDARA ZODIAC OF CAESAR AUGUSTUS?

Caesar Augustus, with a personal interest in astrology, was Pharaoh of Egypt

for 44 years, far longer than Cleopatra; he had abundant time on his hands to
leave behind stone-work legacies in sacred sites of Egypt. The question remains:
‘Was the Dendara Zodiac commissioned by the doomed last rulers of the Mace-
donian Ptolemaic dynasty, Cleopatra and her son by Julius Caesar; or was it a
stellar magnum opus by the longer-reigning king of the new Dynasty?”
Augustus intended to found a ruling dynasty from the beginning of his reign,
as his construction of a family mausoleum indicated. The public and the army
needed the notion of a ruling family with a successor known. Finding his heir
troubled Augustus throughout his long life, and he especially rested on his
grandsons Gaius (20 BC - 4 AD) and Lucius (17 BC - 2 AD). These young
Julio-Claudian princes, whom Augustus had accompany him, were especially
groomed by his personal supervision of their welfare and education including
how to read, copy his handwriting, and swim. Augustus held the consulship in
order to preside over their entry into the adult community of Roman citizens in
5 BC and 2 BC. At a precocious age, Gaius and Lucius were themselves desig-
nated for the consulship – the highest Roman public office. Were the grandsons
to be the neo- Romulus and Remus in the new Augustian world order, when
190 DATING THE DENDARA ZODIAC

Augustus proclaimed himself to the world as Pater Patriae? This 2 BC Winter

Solstice event announcement to the Empire may have called for grand gesture
monuments in certain locations.

CONCLUSION

Our work suggests to the authors that the Dendara Zodiac was optimistically
commissioned in the latter part of the reign of Augustus; on the advice of his
astrologers, he chose the date to be portrayed to be in the Spring. The concen-
tration of texts in Aquarius suggests the Midheaven (Medium Coeli). The Sun,
Moon and Venus are located adjacent in Pisces (Fig. 4). Taking into account
that Mars (Horus the Red) is unequivocally in Capricorn, we have concluded
that the planet identified by Neuberger & Parker as Saturn in Libra is in fact
Jupiter at the end of Virgo; the planet identified as Jupiter in Cancer is in fact
Saturn at the end of Gemini; and the ‘Sobek planet’ positioned between Cancer
and Libra, identified as Mercury, is likely to be the descending Lunar Node
which occurs in Cancer for that time period. Depending on the planetarium
programme used, we derive a New Moon date in early Spring somewhere
between 2 BC and 2 AD when Caesar Augustus was Pharaoh of Egypt.

Aries
Mercury (Two-headed Man)

Pisces

Sun conjunct Venus (holding pig)

Aquarius

Fig. 4. Sky of Gold, “Planets”

 R. PARK & B. ECCLES 191

The rising sign of Gemini the Twins, perhaps denoting Augustus’ grandsons,
would have had acceptable resonance with the temple priests as denoting the
Two Lands of Egypt. But in any event, an auspicious human outcome wasn’t
so divinely ordained, as the young heirs were dead from accident and illness in
2 AD and 4 AD, outlived by a despairing Augustus. He introduced a decree in
11 AD banning the use of astrology to predict anyone’s death (Bohleke 1996: 11).
In 14 AD the succession went to the 50 year old Tiberius, notoriously himself
a practicing astrologer (Cramer 1954: 94).
The argument of this paper has been two-fold: firstly, contrary to all the
scholarly work done by Egyptologists, the Dendara “Sky of Gold” actually
contains a viable horoscope timed for when the Sun and Venus approached the
local Midheaven – i.e. a day-time horoscope. Secondly, we tentatively maintain
that, rather than being commissioned in the reign of Queen Cleopatra VII, the
date portrayed was chosen by Augustus to mark an important event in the ongo-
ing history of Rome ruling the world.

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