Zodiacs and monuments: An early pictorial “horoscope” from Egypt

Abstract

A pictorial horoscope in a late Ptolemaic papyrus ( P.Kramer 17) may be assigned more precisely to late 56 or early 55 BC based on the preserved astronomical data, making it the earliest such representation from Egypt. Instead of a copy for presentation to a client, the papyrus is rather a draft for the depiction of a zodiac, probably in a funerary monument, where it would have represented the planetary positions at the time of birth of the person commemorated. The central pictorial element can be identified as a dog, and contextualized in a complex tradition of Egyptian and Greek concepts and iconography related to Sirius-Sothis, and the beginning of the new year.