Dendera zodiac

Attribution:

tutincommon

Key Dates

This planispehre from the Hathor temple at Dendera was created in 50 bc. The temple was built during the late Ptolemaic period, which gives a clue to dating; it has now been shown that the zodiac shows the stars and the planets exactly as they were placed in 50bc. Vivant Denon's drawings were published in 1802, after the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. There was a major controversy over the dating of the zodiac, with some Egyptologists believing it to date from as early as 2500 BC. To his credit, Champollion supported a much later date. The Louvre now gives the very precise dating of betwee 15th June and 15th August, 50 BC.

Key People

Vivant Denon was an intriguing character - born a baron, he became a playwright, adviser on antiquities to Madame de Pompadour, attaché to the Embassy at St Petersburg, and friend of Voltaire. Accompanying Napoleon's expedition to Egypt, he published his drawings of the antiquities there and was later appointed Director-General of Museums. But the quiet life never suited him - he also followed Napoleon on to most of his battlefields, where he continued to make sketches. and advise Napoleon on what art works to pillage from conquered cities.

This 2.5 metres wide sandstone relief is a planisphere - a map of the stars on a plane projection. In the centre, the constellations are shown. 36 spirits - one for each ten days in the Egyptian year - stand in a circle around the stars. On the outside, the four pillars of the sky are shown in the form of standing women, with pairs of kneeling falcon-headed gods between them, all holding up their arms to support the vault of heaven. The zodiac was originally sited on the ceiling of the pronaos of the chapel dedicated to Osiris in the Hathor temple at Dendera. The pronaos (or portico) was commissioned by the Roman emperor Tiberius, as an addition to the late Ptolemaic chapel.

Origin & Collection

Discovered at:

Temple of Hathor at Dendera

On display at:

The Louvre

Additional information on display location:

Sully wing, room 12 bis

Reference Number:

D 38

Physical properties

Width:

255.00cm