Dendera zodiac from the Temple of Hathor. The Temple of Hathor in Dendera, Egypt, was built during the reigns of the last Ptolemies and the Emperor Augustus (first century BC) on the site of an earlier temple. The sculptured artefact contains images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the balance) and has been conjectured to be the basis on which later astronomy systems were based. Vivant Denon, a French archaeologist, drew and distributed the Dendera zodiac in 1802, publishing it in his Voyage dans la Basse et la Haute Egypte (Travels in Egypt) in 1829.