Roz Park has been investigating the history and stars of Ancient Egypt for 29 years. Establishing the date of the Dendera Zodiac was her dissertation topic for her MA in Cultural Astronomy & Astrology (2004), and she has continued this pursuit ever since.
Title: “Reflections on the Dendera Zodiac – addressing the what, when and why”
The greatest celestial icon of antiquity is a circular Zodiac now in the Louvre, with a replica in situ at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera. Egyptology scholars are often dismissive of any analysis of the Dendera Zodiac which suggests that it had an astrological purpose – namely the depiction of a birth horoscope – set within a planisphere of Egyptian deities. There is much evidence to suggest that astrology was popular in Egypt with Ptolemaic and Roman rulers down to the ordinary citizen. In this talk, I examine the rise of Egyptian zodiac imagery from the Late Period Pharaoh who went into legend as the inventor of western astrology, to the 2nd century AD Soter family’s penchant for zodiac symbols in coffin artwork. We are still perplexed by certain enigmatic constellations recorded in the Pyramid Texts and illustrated in some New Kingdom tombs. But with my identification of 41 constellations on the Dendera Zodiac, all within their Egyptian frames of reference, scholars are now better enabled to unlock earlier Egyptian astronomical secrets.
