Serapis and the Symbolism of the Nile

A woodcut print of the Greco-Egyptian deity Serapis, shown as a bearded man wearing a calathus (a basket-shaped crown) with palm fronds. He stands with one foot on a large crocodile in the river. His right hand rests on the head of a hybrid creature featuring the heads of a dog, a wolf, and a lion, all supported by a coiled snake. The figure wears drapery over his left shoulder and holds a staff (measuring rod) in his left hand. The image is densely annotated with letters keyed to a list of symbolic definitions regarding time and the flooding of the Nile.

This plate from Kircher's 'Oedipus Aegyptiacus' (1652-1654) represents the 17th-century syncretic effort to interpret Egyptian hieroglyphs and deities through Neoplatonic and Hermetic lenses, specifically drawing upon Macrobius's description of Serapis as a solar and temporal deity.