The Dendera Zodiac from 1st century BCE Egypt

    Figure: The Dendera Zodiac from 1st century BCE Egypt

    Caption: "The 1st century BCE Dendera Zodiac (19th-century engraving)".

    The zodiac was probably been formulated in the first half of the 1st millennium BCE by Babylonian astronomers.

    Yours truly is NOT sure he can recognize any zodiac constellations unambiguously. The artists may have been more interested in decoration than astronomy. Well, maybe Pisces and Taurus are there. Holding up the zodiac seems to be Egyptian gods Horus (with the falcon head) and maybe Isis.

    Cleopatra could have explained it all to us.

    Credit and/or file tracking information follows to the divider line:

    Credit/Permisson: ancient Egyptian artist, 50 BCE as known from the embedded astronomical positions, and thus actually from the late Ptolemaic Kingdom---the reign of Cleopatra (69--30 BCE), in fact---(uploaded to by User:Jic, 2005) / Public domain.
    Image link: Wikipedia: File:Dendera.jpg.
    Local file: local link: zodiac_dendera.html.
    File: Zodiac file: zodiac_dendera.html.