The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian bas-relief from the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of a chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and Libra (the scales). This chapel was begun in the late Ptolemaic period; its pronaos was added by the emperor Tiberius. This led Jean-François Champollion to date the relief to the Greco-Roman period, but most of his contemporaries believed it to be of the New Kingdom.
The relief, which John H. Rogers characterised as "the only complete map that we have of an ancient sky",[1] has been conjectured in the past to represent the basis on which later astronomy systems were based.[2] It is now on display at the Musée du Louvre, Paris.
- ^ John H. Rogers, "Origins of the ancient constellations: I. The Mesopotamian traditions", Journal of the British Astronomical Association 108 (1998) 9–28
- ^ Zodiac of Dendera, epitome. (Exhibition, Leic. square). J. Haddon, 1825.