Home›Open Questions›By what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign?Open QuestionsBy what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextDivinity Atlas. "By what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/by-what-principle-were-the-egyptian-terms-fixed-and-in-what-order-were-the-five-rulers-assigned-to-each-sign.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextDivinity Atlas. (n.d.). By what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/by-what-principle-were-the-egyptian-terms-fixed-and-in-what-order-were-the-five-rulers-assigned-to-each-signCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{divinityatlas-by-what-principle-were-the-egyptian-term, author = {Divinity Atlas}, title = {By what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://www.divinityatlas.com/open-questions-index/by-what-principle-were-the-egyptian-terms-fixed-and-in-what-order-were-the-five-rulers-assigned-to-each-sign}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)Open QuestionThe table reaches us as a table. Vettius Valens transmits it in the Anthology and Claudius Ptolemy records it in the Tetrabiblos, and Ptolemy is himself the source of the complaint: he objects that the Egyptian writers set out no proof and no ordering principle for the boundaries they give, which is his stated reason for offering a set of his own. Nothing in the surviving sources states the rule that produced the sequence of rulers or the width of each of the sixty stretches. Modern scholarship has not established one either. This is not a disagreement between camps with positions a reader could go and weigh; it is a gap nobody has filled, which is why the atlas records the sixty figures as transmitted and supplies no rationale behind them.What would resolve this A Greek or demotic astrological papyrus that gives the bounds together with any statement of how they were arrived at would settle it directly. Failing that, a securely dated table earlier than Valens showing the boundaries in an intermediate state would show whether they were computed or inherited. A third route is arithmetical rather than documentary: the five planetary totals in this table are Venus 82, Jupiter 79, Mercury 76, Mars 66 and Saturn 57, summing to exactly 360, and a systematic comparison of those figures and of the individual widths against the planetary period numbers used in Babylonian and Hellenistic astronomy would show whether the table is derived from them or independent of them.OpenHistory of ancient astronomy and astrology; Greek and demotic papyrology; Babylonian mathematical astronomyClaudius Ptolemy, TetrabiblosCross-Tradition ConnectionsQuestion OnWestern Astrology, Disciplines Well-attested By what principle were the Egyptian terms fixed, and in what order were the five rulers assigned to each sign? The question concerns how the sixty Egyptian term boundaries within Western astrology were fixed.SourcesTetrabiblostier 1Claudius Ptolemy, W. Foulsham, 1900Tetrabiblos, Book IView the SourceComments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year