This posting expands on the previous presentation in the Ancient Egypt Blog CHEOPS explaining the Lower and Upper Nomes of Egypt as hermetic geodetic astronomy.
See explanation of the Lower Egypt Nomes and the Upper Egypt Nomes.
See also Lower Egypt Nome 4 (in English) and Egyptian Nomes (in German)
LOWER EGYPT NOME 4
4. Spica in Virgo, nt, read by Egyptologists as "Southern shield", it is also possible that this is a reference to Centaurus and/or the Southern Cross, Crux, below Virgo. Centaurus was pictured with a shield in later eras. See Richard Hinckley Allen, Star Names, p. 151.
Update, June 16
Nomes 4 and 5 of Lower Egypt are the southern and northern parts of the "province" of Neit, divided after the Old Kingdom, and this large size makes it look as if Centaurus is intended rather than Spica and Virgo, Virgo being almost directly on the ecliptic, although the Arabic name for Virgo, Al Adhra al Nathifah (the innocent - or pure - maiden), may through Nath-ifah have given the name Neith to these two nomes, assigned to it by the Egyptologists.
The main city in Nome 4 is Tanta, which might be a variant of Kenta-urus, but this is speculation as there is no other evidence to support this conclusion as yet.
The idea of a "Southern Shield" has its comparable in Chinese astronomy where Nan Mun marked the lucida of the Centaur and was called the "South Gate".
RHA writes that alpha-Centauri was known as Serk-t in Egypt, but this seems not to explain the Sobek applied to it on the White Chapel (see Digital Egypt).
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