The Hen and Chickens (Oedipus Aegyptiacus)

A line engraving depicting a hen in profile, facing right, with her head lowered to eat grains scattered on a flat surface. The hen stands atop a rectangular block inscribed with Hebrew characters on its front and side faces. Seven small chicks are positioned around the mother hen in various states of movement, some walking and others feeding on the grains. The style is that of a scientific or emblem book illustration, rendered in stark black ink lines on a light background.

This image appears in Athanasius Kircher's encyclopedic work 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus', where he attempts to synthesize Hermetic, Coptic, and Kabbalistic traditions. The use of Hebrew text on the pedestal suggests an alignment with the early modern scholarly endeavor to find the 'prisca theologia' (primordial theology) within ancient languages.