Egyptian Astronomical Ceilings

Definition

The Egyptian astronomical ceilings are the painted and carved ceiling schemes of New Kingdom royal tombs and Ptolemaic-Roman temples — programmes showing star deities, constellations, decan lists, the boats of the planets, and the sky-goddess Nut. The group runs from the 18th-Dynasty tomb of Senenmut (TT 353, around the 15th century BCE), through the Ramesside royal tombs (Sety I, Ramesses VI, Ramesses VII, Ramesses IX), and on into the late-Ptolemaic temple ceilings at Dendera, Esna, and Edfu.

In Tradition

Egyptologists (Parker and Neugebauer's Egyptian Astronomical Texts I-III, Belmonte and Lull, Clagett's Ancient Egyptian Science Vol. II) treat the astronomical ceilings as the chief monumental record of native Egyptian sky-religion and decan astronomy. Parker and Neugebauer's EAT III sorts the surviving decan lists into six families, with Senenmut's ceiling at one end of the time-range and the Harendotes BM 6678 coffin (Ptolemy III, 3rd century BCE) at the other.

In Practice

Astrologers and historians of astronomy use the ceilings to recover the native Egyptian decan cosmology that lies beneath Hellenistic horoscopic decan-doctrine and the Greco-Egyptian Hermetic tradition. The Senenmut ceiling, the Sety I tomb, and the Dendera Zodiac together form the visual chain from Old and Middle Kingdom decan-clocks to the zodiac blend of the Ptolemaic era. Archaeoastronomers use what the ceilings show — alongside Pyramid Text references — to match Egyptian constellation names to their modern counterparts: Sah (Orion), Sopdet (Sirius), Meskhetiu (the Foreleg, the Big Dipper), Reret (the Great Sow, a hippopotamus polar marker), Mai (the Lion), Anu, and Serqet.

Historical Origin

The earliest surviving ceiling is in the unfinished tomb of Senenmut (TT 353, Deir el-Bahari, in the reign of Hatshepsut, mid-15th century BCE). Parker and Neugebauer's Egyptian Astronomical Texts I-III (Brown University, 1960-1969) is the canonical full edition of the corpus; Belmonte and Lull give Chapter 4 of In Search of Cosmic Order to a systematic re-identification of the constellations shown; and Clagett's Ancient Egyptian Science Vol. II treats the texts and ceilings together.

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading