What ancient Egyptian artifact depicting a zodiac is in the Louvre?

The ancient Egyptian artifact depicting a zodiac in the Louvre is the Dendera zodiac.

This sandstone bas-relief originally decorated the ceiling of a chapel dedicated to Osiris at the Temple of Hathor in Dendera, Upper Egypt. Created around 50 BC during the reigns of Cleopatra VII and Ptolemy XIII, it combines Egyptian religious imagery with Greco-Roman astronomical ideas. It shows the twelve zodiac constellations, planets known to ancient Egyptian observers, and representations of a solar and lunar eclipse.

The zodiac was documented during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign in 1799. It was removed from the temple in 1821 with permission from Egypt’s ruler Muhammad Ali and acquired by Louis XVIII in 1822. After spending many years in the Royal Library, it returned to the Louvre in 1919.

A common mix-up is the Rosetta Stone, another famous Egyptian artifact connected with the Napoleonic expedition. Unlike the Rosetta Stone, which helped decipher hieroglyphs, the Dendera zodiac is chiefly an astronomical and religious relief.