Ursa Major

    On the Denderah Zodiac, Ursa Major is seen as a large thigh and leg of some kind of hoofed animal in the very middle of the Denderah Zodiac circle.
    Since Ursa Major is seen as a netjeru as a part of an animal form, therefore it represents a part of a pure force of nature.

    Of interest is one of its stars
g Phad or Phecda, which is the Arabic Al-Fakhidh, meaning "the thigh."

    Seen above is Draco with a crocodile on its back with a folded feather on its wrist, while holding a chain attached (or mooring post) to the leg of an animal (Ursa Major) as seen on the lower section of ESNE Plate 87 (Also see Tauret).
    In "The Dawn of Astronomy" a study of the temple-worship and mythology of the Ancient Egyptians by J. Norman Lockyer, New York, The McMillian Company 1897, as seen on page 148 in reference to his question - Is Isis the chain?, "In the square zodiac at Denderah (as seen in the column to the right) we find an illustration of the Hippopotamus and the Thigh (Mesket) and the chain referred to in the inscription is there also.    It will be quite worthwhile to see whether this chain is not justified by some line of stars between the chief stars in Draco and those of the Great Bear."
    I am proposing as you will see in Draco that the chain may actually be the Denderah version of the constellation of Corona Borealis.

    Sagitta may be the arrow in the hands of a deity on the Grand Temple located above Decan 16-17, between Capricornus and Sagittarius.    This seems to be out of sequence for the traditional position with Cancer, but then Cancer also has a dual position in the heaveanly scheme.
    The bull-like animal (Ursa Major) is seen attached to the chain (or mooring post) held by Draco in the image below.

    In "Hamlet's Mill" by Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Gambit Inc. 1969 it states on the Appendices page 414 "This mnj.t wr.t - Mercer writes it min.t - the 'great landing stick,' is said 'to mourn for the soul of the dead in the Pyramid Texts ... The constellation transcribed menat by Brugsch, mnit by Neugebauer - occurs in two categories of astronomical monuments, namely (1) in the Ramesside Star Clocks (Theban hour tables), and (2) in the ceiling pictures of royal tombs in the zodiacs of Dendera, etc.    In every case the peg or post rests in the hands of Isis disguised as a hippopotamus; fastened to the mooring-post is a rope or chain, the other end of which is tied Maskheti, the bull's thigh, i.e. the Big Dipper, and in one of the texts it is stated (Brugsch, Thesaurus, p. 122) that 'it is the office of Isis-Hippopotamus to guard this chain'."

    From Massey’s ANCIENT EGYPT Vol. 1 (T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1907) pp. 310-312: "Massey has a picture from the ‘rectangular zodiac’; it shows a hippopotamus on the left with a chain running to the one and only leg of a cow.    He calls the leg the haunch or thigh of the milch (kept for milking) cow Nut (he also says it is of Hathor, the great mother as a cow).    It is in the constellation Meskhen meaning ‘womb,’ the birth of the celestial waters and ‘the place of rebirth for the souls in the heaven of eternity."

    "The Haunch (an animal’s loin and leg together) is a pole of heaven around which the stars revolve.    In the center of the circular zodiac there is an animal leg, much like that of a cow.    It is the center around which the whole representation revolves."

    Ad de Vries in his Dictionary of Symbols and Imagery says the thigh stood for strength and support in Egypt.

    In "The Witness of the Stars," by E.W. Bullinger, page 154-157 he reports nothing as to Ursa Major on the Denderah Zodiac, as if it is being ignored.   

    From www.siloam.net/denderah it states Bootes is holding or reaching out to the plow or Big Dipper (i.e. Ursa Major) and entitles it as "Cultivating the Field."    Siloam promotes that "the ox leg does not signify the Big Dipper," justifying this with the ancients believed it was known as "the Heavenly Plow."
    "On the Denderah zodiac, it is clear that the labor of providing for the cosmos is signified by the male bovine (Bootes) with the plow," standing after Lupus, and "This bovine man is none other than Atlas."