Ancient Cosmology and Planetary Influences: The Dendera Zodiac

This is a Zodiac that was found at the center of the temple of Isis Hathor at Dendera and celebrated the birth of the world from primordial waters. You can see here the primordial sea is represented and from this infinite sea, symbolized by this reclining woman, the world arises. From these primordial waters indeed arises a square that manifests the 4 Universal Powers that we see here represented by these four deities at the corners corresponding to those special constellations we had mentioned before (the Bull, Aquarius or Man, the Lion, and Scorpio or Eagle). These represent the primordial forces that structure all of Nature and give rise to the formation of the Universe.

Here is the Universe represented with the 12 signs of the Zodiac, by the way, you see that the Zodiacal signs are represented in reverse as if whoever was observing this creation of the world was outside the Universe, so much so that indeed they also see what is outside the Universe like these primordial Waters. This plausibly makes us understand that in this hall rituals were celebrated in which the mystic identified with the Creator God himself.

In this Universe then, as you see, there are many figures therefore many qualities, many deities, many forces, many powers, but first among all are the 7 planets. It's important here to understand that for the ancients these seven planets are like 7 instruments of creation, 7 deities that express 7 fundamental qualities of a single being. In the idea of the ancients the deities represented the personification of pure ideas and forces, they were conceived as beings so pure and specialized in one direction as to be able to identify with the very quality they were associated with.

For example:
• Saturn is the Wise one who spreads Wisdom in Creation
• Jupiter is the Priest who presides over Sacrifice
• The Sun is the Source of all Power
• Mars is the Warrior and spreads Force
• Venus Beauty and spreads Love
• The Moon is the Mother who presides over Generation
• Mercury is the Son who spreads the Word

Each of these Forces acts and has meaning to exist in relation to what is the receptacle of its influence, that is the Earth. This is important, in the vision of the planets was geocentric not so much in relation to the motion of these planets, as to their influence. Already indeed in the Corpus Hermeticum we read:

"But a vision of the sun is not a matter of hypothesis, since it itself is the ray of light that is seen, the sun illuminates all around the cosmos with its blinding brightness on the upper part as well as on the lower one. Since the Sun is placed at the center of the cosmos, which dresses it like a crown."
— Corpus Hermeticum, discourse XVI

But instead regarding influences these are the forces that govern the world and that act on the world shaping it, regulating it and marking the stages of its development. We read for example in Hesiod in the book Works and Days (we are around 700 BC) that all humanity passes through phases, as if humanity seen as a single consciousness passed through phases of development in relation to the fundamental qualities represented by the individual planets:

• Golden Age (Period of the Sun): during the age of Kronos (Period of Saturn) men lived without worries, perpetually young they were nourished by the earth itself without doing any work. They died as if taken by sleep and after their extinction they were transformed into guardian spirits of men.

• Silver Age (Period of the Moon): first age of men under Zeus in which men lived for a hundred years with their mothers; foolish, even once grown up they did not refrain from quarrels among themselves and did not venerate the gods. For this they were made to become extinct by Zeus and became inferior demons.

• Bronze Age (Period of Mars): in this age lived mighty and violent men who had no other concern than to clash and kill each other; they became extinct through their own wickedness despite being invincible.

• Age of Heroes (Period of Jupiter): in this age lived precisely the heroes, god-men or demigods, just and better race compared to the previous one. The heroes fought at Troy and at Thebes, and there many of them perished, others were brought by Zeus himself to the Isles of the Blessed where they lived in peace in fertile lands rich in flocks. This age is the only one not to be defined with the name of a metal.

• Iron Age (Period of Earth): it is the race that still lives on earth characterized by suffering, injustice and the fact of having to work to survive. Hesiod does not glimpse any possibility of salvation for man.

So these planets represent forces manifested in creation that guide and develop humanity that is sometimes more sensitive to one influence, sometimes to another in a particular way or more generalized. These planets therefore acted on the Soul of the world, making it take various colorations and forming within it various centers of influence. For this reason these same celestial powers that influenced and shaped the Soul of the World were then found in the peoples who lived on earth.

Humanity as a whole was seen as a unity receptive to the influences of the planets that shaped it, but within it each people was receptive to one or more of the qualities expressed by these powers. Each people therefore incarnated some of these forces that acted on the Soul of the World. So, how do you understand which peoples were influenced by which influences? Ptolemy tells us, the first great astrologer of antiquity who takes the trouble to compile a whole series of traditions that until that moment were oral.

It's important to say that Ptolemy's purpose was to put order and rationalize what was a discipline that at the time was extremely complicated, full of different traditions, contradictions, etc... so essentially he deals with subjects rearranged specifically to fit better with a rational vision of Astrology. In this sense, to try to give a rational systematization to the influence of planets on...