Addendum 3.
Modern condition of the Egyptian zodiacs from Dendera and Esna.
In July 2002, one of the authors (G. V. Nosovskiy) took part in an expedition to the historical centres of Egypt together with the famous Russian traveller V. V. Soundakov, photographer Y. L. Maslyaev and cameraman V. V. Soundakov Jr. The parties that organised the expedition were A. V. Martynov, author of the “Unknown Planet” television programme (Russia) and Abdel Rahman Imam, owner of the “Helios Tour” travel agency (Egypt). The authors would like to express their heartfelt thanks to all of the parties mentioned above. Among other things, the expedition gave G. V. Nosovskiy an opportunity to study the temples of Dendera and Esna in detail and to compare the zodiacs kept there to their drawn copies in the Napoleonic album ([1100]).
1.The zodiacs of Esna.
At the centre of Esna (or Isna) one sees a temple, which is still in a good condition; its drawing as found in the Napoleonic album is accurate around ([1100]). In our research we refer to it as to the Greater Temple of Esna, qv in CHRON3, Part 2. It only has one room – the hypostyle hall, divided into parts by six rows of columns, with one entrance and a symmetrical exit. The artwork on the inside of the dome has been preserved in a great condition – including Zodiac EG (the Zodiac from the Greater Temple of Esna). All the details of the artwork are visible perfectly well, the layers of bat excrement notwithstanding.
It must be pointed out that the ceiling artwork of the Greater Temple of Esna (as well as the rest of the temple, actually) bear no visible restoration marks – it appears that the temple has been preserved in its original condition to a large extent. Nevertheless, it strikes one as a genuinely old building. The age of the Greater Temple of Esna is reflected in the fact that the ground level in the town of Esna is eight metres higher than the floor of the temple. Nowadays the temple stands at the bottom of a pit made in the course of the excavation works, almost completely lower then ground level.
The Greater Zodiac of Esna is located in the second segment of the ceiling on the left as seen from the side of the entrance. In 2002 we photographed it in detail and compared the photographs to the drawings from the Napoleonic album. The two turned out almost completely identical to one another. It was thus proved that the “Napoleonic” version of Zodiac EG as used in CHRON3, Part 2, is complete enough and contains no errata that could affect the astronomical dating. We must therefore conclude that such high representation fidelity of Zodiac EG makes us assume that Napoleon’s artists copied Zodiac EL just as faithfully – the zodiac found in the XIX century in a small temple to the north of Esna, half destroyed. In CHRON3 we call this zodiac the Lesser Zodiac of Esna.
Unfortunately, neither the Lesser Temple, nor its zodiac survived until the present day. The temple in question neither exists in Esna, nor in the environs of the town, and none of the locals remember anything about it. We have been nothing short of inquisitive in our enquiries with the local police and the residents of Esna – however, none of them recognized the drawing of the Lesser Temple from the Napoleonic album. According to the locals, the only temple they remember in and around Esna is the one we refer to as the “Greater Temple”. There are no other ancient temples or constructions anywhere near, except for a few old sepulchres laying to the North of Esna. We have visited the sepulchres in question, but found no traces of the Lesser Temple. Therefore, the zodiac from the Lesser Temple was either destroyed or taken away to Europe a long time ago – its current location is a mystery, at any rate. Nevertheless, let us reiterate that the Greater Zodiac was reproduced very faithfully by Napoleon’s artists (see [1100]); one might expect the Lesser Zodiac to be represented with sufficient accuracy as well. This is the very reproduction of the Lesser Zodiac that we used for our research as described in CHRON3.
2. The Zodiacs of Dendera.
The temple of Dendera, unlike the temple of Esna with its single hypostyle hall, comprises quite a few rooms and annexes. The exit from the hypostyle hall does not lead outside, the way it does in Esna, but to other parts of the temple – one eventually comes to the last room, which greatly resembles the altar-room of the Christian temples (with a stone altar standing at the middle of the room, for instance).
Several small rooms can also be found on the roof of the Dendera Temple. The Round Zodiac of Dendera was found on the ceiling of such a room during the Napoleonic invasion. Nowadays it is kept in the Louvre, replaced by a copy. The rest of the ceiling artwork appears to be authentic. In particular, there are two bas-reliefs portraying the “goddess Nuit”. They are in a very poor condition. One of Nuit’s effigies was damaged gravely – and most likely deliberately. The face has been chiselled off completely.
In general, one sees that the temple fell prey to vandals at some point – and nobody has considered it worthy of restoration since then; this appears to be a common condition among the “ancient” Egyptian temples that we have seen. One gets the impression that the history of Egypt ended in a large conquest of some sort, which was accompanied by fanatical and furious destruction of the old temples and monuments of the “irregular kind” – they have never been reconstructed. According to our reconstruction, it was the Ottoman = Ataman conquest of Egypt in the XVI century; another wave of enraged destructions came with the Napoleonic invasion.
We must point out the uniqueness of the Round Zodiac of Dendera. It has to be noted that several temples of the Dendera type have survived in Egypt – the temples of Edfu, Abydos etc. However, the Round Zodiac from the Temple of Dendera is the only such finding. Why would that be? One gets the impression that this zodiac (carved out of a single stone slab, by the way) already existed and had been considered famous to boot. It must have been placed in the Temple (inside a special room built for this particular purpose like an ancient relic or halidom. Otherwise, if the Round Zodiac was crafted during the construction of the Dendera Temple, one finds the absence of such relics and rooms from other temples suspicious.
As for the Long Zodiac of Dendera found on the ceiling of the hypostyle hall of the Dendera temple – we may only assume that similar artwork adorned the domes of other Egyptian temples as well, but most of it hasn’t survived. This is what we deduce from the fact that zodiacs were found in the temples with their entire artwork intact (Dendera and Esna being the only such temples that we know of). In other temples most of the artwork on the ceilings of hypostyle halls was destroyed, although the surviving fragments thereof prove completely identical to the temples of Dendera and Esna.
An in-depth study of our photographs of the Long Zodiac revealed the following: parts of the Long Zodiac are authentic, whereas other parts turned out counterfeited. Let us recollect that the Long Zodiac is made of painted plaster attached to the ceiling. The dome of the hypostyle hall rests on a row of flat stone blocks supported by beams and columns. The Long Zodiac covers many such stone blocks at once – some of them must have been taken away to Europe and replaced by copies. For instance, the rightmost blocks of the Long Zodiac’s right section (as seen from the entrance) are very obviously a copy – we are referring to the head of one of Nuit’s effigies. This becomes very apparent when we compare this part to the corresponding blocks of the left section. Other parts of the zodiac look authentic – what we see is an old zodiac with certain alterations.
A comparison of the Long Zodiac of Dendera in its modern condition to its Napoleonic drawn copies revealed the following differences that concern the astronomical symbolism of the zodiac.
1) Instead of the female ten-grade figure that follows Virgo in the Napoleonic copy, modern artwork portrays Saturn with a scythe. This makes no sense astronomically, since the figure of Saturn in the primary horoscope of the Long Zodiac is located at a great distance from this place, and Saturn is physically incapable of covering it over the course of an Earth year. Therefore, we presume the artwork to be a replacement copy made in the absence of the original, with Denon’s low fidelity copy and the Round Zodiac used for reference. Saturn is the very figure we find on Denon’s drawing (although in the latter case the figure is carrying a planetary rod and not a scythe). However, Saturn with a scythe can be found on the exact same place in the Round Zodiac. The author of the copy must have been following Denon’s copy as a general prototype, but decided to “add precision” due to the prototype’s poor quality, referring to the Round Zodiac and making an error thereby.
Should said part of the Long Zodiac prove authentic, which is very improbable, in our opinion, we shall have to assume that the figure of Saturn with the scythe on the Zodiacs of Dendera pertains to the constellation of Virgo. However, in this case it would be an idiosyncrasy of Dendera zodiacs, since there is absolutely nothing of this sort to be found on any other Egyptian zodiac known to researchers. This is possible theoretically, but looks very odd indeed.
2) Both figures with planetary rods that represent Venus on the artwork of the Dendera temple are male. Furthermore, one doesn’t see a single female figure bearing a planetary rod (the young woman that rests her rod on the figure of Capricorn in the Napoleonic drawing hasn’t got one here, qv below). This does not affect the identification of planets in the Long Zodiac, since Venus can still be identified unequivocally by the accompanying symbol of two dawn beasts with their backs grown together, just like the one on the Round Zodiac, and also by the leonine face of one of the wayfarers, qv in CHRON3, Part 2. We have to reiterate there are no female figures with planetary rods on the Long Zodiac in its modern condition as found in the temple of Dendera. However, these male symbols look odd as a representation of Venus; furthermore, nothing of the kind can be seen in any other known zodiac. Therefore, the most likely explanation is that we’re dealing with a copy, or a forgery.
We must emphasise that the abovementioned Venus discrepancy doesn’t affect the decipherment of the Long Zodiac and therefore doesn’t need to be dated anew.
3) The girl resting her rod on the back of the Capricorn figure in the “Napoleonic” artwork carries no rod today. This obviously betrays the influence of the initial copy made by Denon, where the young woman doesn’t carry any rod, either. However, in the present case we have more than enough reasons to identify parts of the artwork as replacement copies. This is the very part of the Long Zodiac where we see the head of Nuit’s effigy – it is obviously different from the symmetrical effigy of Nuit right across the ceiling and more similar to Denon’s rough copy than to the other effigy. However, this detail doesn’t affect dating, either – it only introduces minor differences into the summer solstice horoscope, leaving all the major points just as they were.
To sum up, we must say that the differences in question do not introduce any new astronomical information into the Long Zodiac. On the contrary, they slightly mar a fraction of astronomical data already contained in the Long Zodiac, wiping out the secondary horoscope of summer solstice. The important thing is that the astronomical dating of the Long Zodiac remains the same, even considering all the facts related above.
