Discussion of the Konstellations

[Koen G]

If the nymph lying in the water is Hydra, it fits rather well. The dog looks like a guy with breast implants. I don't know if it has any relevance, but there are only a few places where breasts are drawn this way (circles rather than bumps). It looks so oddly deliberate but I suppose it could be a different hand.

Since this path of analysis is both extensive and somewhat intricate (I've been trying to follow it), I can't remember if you've done the left side of this page yet.

I'm not 100% sure how to interpret the Dog since this nymph is so plain. But yes, you are right about the breasts. My tentative explanation is one I dare not write in full, so I will imply it; if the arms point to the constellation, they are likely a dog's ears. Like a dog with hanging ears. And if the arms are the ears, then the totally weird breasts are.......

Also note, to add to the creep factor, if you look at the original image, that the nipples are red. 

The biggest clue is not in the figure itself, however, but in its surroundings. The Dog = Sirius = start of the flooding of the Nile. All of Egyptian astronomy was focused around this event, the rising of Sirius together with the sun. Being properly aware of this timing meant the difference between life and death. This is not some obscure "buried with the pharaohs" mythology, since it was still written about by Roman authors.

From Wiki: Sirius was worshiped by the Egyptians as the goddess Sopdet, as she would be ruling the important Nile flooding, providing the fertility of the Nile. As Sirius is visible together with the constellation of Orion, the Egyptians worshiped Orion as the god Sah, the husband of Sopdet, with whom she had a son, the Egyptian sky god Sopdu. The goddess Sopdet was later conflated with the goddess Isis, Sah was linked with Osiris and Sopdu was linked with Horus, and their names were then joined, as in Sopdet-Isis. The joining of Sopdet with Isis would allow Plutarch to state that The soul of Isis is called Dog by the Greeks, meaning Sirius worshipped as Isis-Sopdet by Egyptians was named the Dog by the Greeks and Romans.

All constellations in this cluster are associated with the Nile and/or its annual flood cycle. And see, on the right of the page there is a small river coming down the mountains, which becomes much, much wider at the bottom of the page. Then look again at our Dog, and see how the river completely leaves its bounds around it.

But these considerations are more advanced than identifying the constellations, and I would like to nail those down first. That's complicated enough

About the left side of the page: the problem is that I don't understand the next figure yet. It surely looks beastly. Would it provide more clarity if I made a quick overview of the constellations I have found so far just by marking them on the folios? I'd differentiate between "almost certain", "tentative" and "unknown".