mysteries of egyptian zodiacs - HiddenMysteries Information Central

244 8 The Dates Shown on the Zodiacs form Ancient Egyptian Tombs and Sarcophagi
chamber, which is shown on Figure 8.18, is called by us the
inner Petosiris zodiac.
Figure 8.19: Few details of the zodiac from the outer chamber
in the Petosiris tomb.
On Figures 8.21 and 8.22 we present the contour drawings
of the outer and the inner Petosiris zodiacs. From these pictures
it is clear that both Petosiris zodiacs are of the round
type, and from that point of view they are similar to the
Athribis zodiacs and the Round Denderah zodiac. Moreover,
the dimensions of the Petosiris zodiacs are also comparable
with the size of the Round zodiac. These dimensions are: the
outer Petosiris zodiac (P1) (see Figure 8.17) 2.34 × 2.63 meters,
and the inner Petosiris zodiac (P2) (see Figure 8.18)
2.12 × 2.62 meters 10 .
One can immediately notice that the inner Petosiris zodiac
(P2) contains more details than the outer zodiac (P1).
Therefore, it seems that it is the main zodiac for this tomb,
probably commemorating the date of the death of the person
buried there. On the other hand, the outer zodiac (P1) most
likely contains the date of the birth or another secondary date
related to that person. Notice that from the point of view of
religious rituals the death of a person (and not the birth) is
considered as the main event. Since the birth date precedes
the date of the death, we expect that the outer Petosiris zodiac
(P1) should indicate an earlier date than the inner zodiac
(P2). However, we should point out that in our computations
we did not introduce any additional requirement related to
this issue, and in fact, we have considered all the possible
pairs of solutions regardless which one is earlier than other.
Since the both zodiacs were found in the same tomb, the
difference of their dates should not be loo large. For the pur-
10 See [5], pp. 96-97.
Figure 8.20: Few details of the zodiac from the inner chamber
in the Petosiris tomb.
pose of our computations we allowed 150 years difference between
those dates. This restriction was motivated by the assumption
that the both zodiacs are related to the life of a one
person, which was buried in this tomb. Therefore, the difference
between the two dates encoded into the Petosiris zodiacs
shouldn’t be larger than a human lifespan. In order to make
sure that we do not omit any admissible pair of solutions, we
extended this time by some margin to 150 years. At the end of
our computations, we found out that for any possible variant
this difference was always smaller than 50 years. In addition,
the dates for the outer zodiac (P1) were always earlier than
the dates for the inner zodiac (P2).
It is clear that (see Figures 8.21 and 8.22) the both
Petosiris zodiacs are very similar one to another. On the both
zodiacs, the zodiacal constellations are arranged around a circle,
inside which are located the planetary symbols. All the
planets are represented in an unusual for traditional Egyptian
zodiacs way — in a form of human busts. The outer zodiac
(P1) is partially damaged, but still it is possible to recognize
that the same planetary symbols — human images, are shown
on the both zodiacs. In this situation, it is completely natural
to expect that these two zodiacs are in fact only the parts of a
larger artistic composition painted on the walls and ceilings of
the Petosiris tomb. The symbolism of the entire composition
should be the same in all its fragments and parts. On Figures
8.21, 8.24–8.26, we included a series of photographs showing
the murals from the Petosiris tomb. On Figure 8.27 we show
for comparison a photograph from the Petubastis tomb. The
design of this tomb is much simpler than in the case of the
Petosiris tomb, but the style and symbolism are very similar.