Dendera zodiac

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.

[5] Four women and four pairs of falcon-headed figures, arranged 45° from one another, hold up the sky disc, the outermost ring of which features 36 figures representing the 36 asterisms used to track both the 36 forty-minute "hours" that divided the Egyptian night, as well as the 36 ten-day "weeks" (decans) of the Egyptian year (with 5 days excluded).

[7] Sébastien Louis Saulnier, an antique dealer, commissioned Claude Lelorrain to remove the circular zodiac with saws, jacks, scissors and gunpowder.

In 2022 Egyptologist Zahi Hawass started a petition to bring the ancient work back to Egypt, along with the Rosetta Stone and other artifacts.

[9] The controversy around the zodiac's dating, known as the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC).

[14] The solar eclipse indicates the date of March 7, 51 BC: it is represented by a circle containing the goddess Isis holding a baboon (the god Thoth) by the tail.