Egyptian decans
Egyptian decans are a series of stars or small groups of stars used in ancient Egyptian astrology.
Motion
The decans each appear to rise consecutively on the horizon throughout each daily earth rotation. The rising of each decan marked the beginning of a new decanal "hour" (Greek hōra) of the night, and they were used as a sidereal star clock beginning by at least the 9th or 10th Dynasty (2100 BCE).
Because a new decan appears heliacally every ten days, thus marking the start of a new 10 day week in the Egyptian Calendar, the ancient Greeks called them dekanoi (δεκανοί; pl. of δεκανός dekanos) meaning "tenths".
History
Decans first appeared in the 10th Dynasty (2100 BCE) on coffin lids found in tombs of noblemen in the region of Asyut. The sequence of these star patterns began with Sopdet, the star Sirius, and each decanal star had a corresponding deity. As measures of time, the rising and setting of decans marked 'hours' and groups of 10 days which comprised an Egyptian year. The ancient Book of Nut covers the subject of the decans.
After Alexander the Great invaded Egypt, Egyptian astrology melded with Greek and Persian astrology and the original system of decans gave way to a lunar division of 27 or 28 lunar stations, also known as manzil, lunar mansions and to a zodiac of 12 signs, based on an anthropomorphic pattern of constellations, and their use can be seen in the Dendera zodiac dated to circa 50 BCE.
Decans continued to be used in astrology in medieval Islam, Renaissance, 17-century astrology, 19-century Theosophy, and in cosmology, theurgy, and hermeticism, as well as in religion and magic.
In 2021, occultist Travis McHenry created a system of divination based on the Egyptian decans. He incorporated this system into a deck of cards called The Egyptian Star Oracle.
Number of decans
Although it is commonly believed that there are only 36 decans, in fact, there are around 100 decanal stars, although only 36 were used in the course of any given Egyptian year. The reason for the large number of stars has to do with the Sothic shift and the fact that the 365-day cycle of the star Sirius does not perfectly align with earth's 365.25-day solar cycle. To compensate for this minor variation, the Egyptians allowed for subtle shifts in the decanal stars they used throughout the year.
Additionally, five days were added to the end of the Egyptian Calendar each year, and these days had their own decan in addition to have a specific deity rule over each individual day.
List of decans
This is a list of the 37 decans that were most commonly used across a broad time period from 2100 BC until the demise of the Egyptian religion in 365 AD. The order presented here represents the order in which each star's heliacal rise occurs over the course of the year. The end of the year coincided with the rise of Sirius, followed by the five epagomenal days, after which the cycle would start again with the rise of Tepy-a Kenmet on I Akhet 1 at the beginning of a new year.
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| 1 | Tepy-a Kenmet | Predecessor of the Cow | New Beginnings and Jubilation | Cow | Unknown |
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