Astronomical Ceiling

Charles K. Wilkinson

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The ancient Egyptians were dedicated astronomers, as illustrated by this schematic guide to the night sky that decorated a ceiling in the tomb of Senenmut (TT 353) at Deir el-Bahri. The figures represent constellations or protective deities, and the columns of text in the upper part list planets and stars known as the decans. The twelve circles in the lower part, each divided into twenty-four segments for the hours of the day and night, are labelled with the names of the months of the year. Senenmut (48.149.7) was a high official in the court of Hatshepsut (29.3.2), Egypt's most successful female pharaoh.

Egyptian Art

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Met collection of ancient Egyptian art consists of approximately 30,000 objects of artistic, historical, and cultural importance, dating from about 300,000 BCE to the 4th century CE. A signifcant percentage of the collection is derived from the Museum's three decades of archaeological work in Egypt, initiated in 1906 in response to increasing interest in the culture of ancient Egypt.

Metropolitan Museum of Art