Meskhetiu (Big Dipper / Bull's Foreleg)

mes-KEH-tee-oo

egyptian: msḫtjw

Definition

Meskhetiu (Egyptian msḫtjw, also spelled Meskhetyu) is the Egyptian name for the star-group we call the Plough, in the constellation Ursa Major; the Egyptians saw it as the foreleg of a bull. Because it is circumpolar — it never sets — it counts among the imperishable stars (ikhemu-sek), the eternal home of the transfigured akh, the blessed dead. Meskhetiu is also the name of a celestial adze used in the Opening-of-the-Mouth funeral ritual, and Pharaonic astronomical ceilings draw it as a bull's foreleg.

In Tradition

For Belmonte and Lull and for Neugebauer and Parker, Meskhetiu is the native Egyptian name for the Plough, in Ursa Major. It appears in three places: the Stretching of the Cord ceremony from the 1st Dynasty on, where the king sighted a celestial object opposite him (named as Meskhetiu in Ptolemaic sources); the astronomical ceilings at Senenmut, Dendera, and Esna; and the Old Kingdom monument-alignment tradition, where Phecda and Megrez (γ and δ Ursae Majoris) have been proposed as the Giza pyramid target.

In Practice

Meskhetiu is one of five native Egyptian northern-sky constellations named in the Onomasticon of Amenemope (about 1069 BCE), alongside Sah (Orion), Anu, Nekhet, and Reret. We identify it today as the seven brightest stars of Ursa Major — the Plough, or Big Dipper. The Egyptian image of it as a bull's foreleg, rather than a dipper or a wagon, holds steady across thousands of years of temple-ceiling art. In funerary belief Meskhetiu is sometimes tied to the hostile northern powers, linked to the god Seth and needing ritual binding, while at the same time serving as an orientation reference for building Old Kingdom tombs. Belmonte (2001) places the peak of that orientation tradition at about 2562 BCE, using the Phecda-Megrez pair, which then pointed roughly toward the pole star of the age, Thuban (α Draconis).

Historical Origin

The Stretching of the Cord ceremony is attested from the 1st Dynasty (about 3000 BCE). Meskhetiu is identified with the Plough in the Onomasticon of Amenemope (about 1069 BCE; Gardiner 1947) and explicitly in Ptolemaic temple inscriptions. Ceiling depictions: the Senenmut tomb TT 353 (18th Dynasty), the Ramesseum, the Seti I cenotaph (19th Dynasty), and the Dendera Hathor temple (Ptolemaic). Modern study: Neugebauer and Parker, EAT Vol III (1969); Belmonte (2001); Belmonte and Lull, Astronomy of Ancient Egypt (2018).

Definition

In Tradition

In Practice

Historical Origin

Further Reading