The Dendera zodiac and astronomical dating

Record summary

The circular zodiac from the Temple of Hathor at Dendera is a late Ptolemaic or Roman-period astronomical relief now displayed in the Louvre. Its imagery has generated arguments about whether it records an exceptionally ancient astronomical age, an exact historical date, or knowledge of precession unavailable to Egyptians. Specialists generally interpret it within Egyptian temple astronomy and Greco-Roman visual traditions, while astronomical reconstructions differ over how literally its celestial arrangement should be read. The relief is securely ancient, but extraordinary chronological inferences are not established.