In the New Kingdom Abydos was once again an important cult center. As the ruler of a reunified Egypt, Ahmose chose Abydos for a monument which associates him with the god Osiris, and as a commemorative site for females of the royal family. Beginning in 1993, Stephen Harvey (University of Chicago) has been excavating in South Abydos where Ahmose’s monuments were constructed. The site was first investigated in 1898 by the Egypt Exploration Society when Ahmose’s pyramid was found by Arthur Mace. In 1902 Charles Currelly located a terraced temple over 1 kilometer away from the pyramid, as well as a small mud-brick shrine (probably a pyramid) for the king’s grandmother Tetisheri, a subterranean shaft tomb, and a town and small cemetery.
Harvey’s work at South Abydos first concentrated on mapping the site, which had been razed in antiquity to build later monuments, collecting surface finds, and doing test excavations. Ahmose’s pyramid is now a mound of sand and stone debris, ca. 80 meters x 80 meters and 10 meters high. Many fragments of reliefs were found that originally decorated the pyramid temple. Some of these are from battle scenes with Asiatics (with the earliest known images of horses) - probably depicting Ahmose’s victory over the Hyksos. Harvey also located a previously unknown temple dedicated to Ahmose’s chief wife, Queen Ahmose-Nefertari. Excavations of the town, where temple priests, personnel, and workmen probably lived, have uncovered evidence of bakeries, which fed the workers. A huge wall ca. 90 meters x 60 meters which surrounded the town was located with a magnetometer, an on-ground remote sensing device used to locate buried archaeological remains.
The only well preserved royal mortuary temple of the early 18th Dynasty is that of Queen Hatshepsut at Deir el-Bahri, which had associations with the goddess Hathor (see Figure 8.2 and Plate 8.1). Built next to and strongly influenced by the temple of the 11th-Dynasty king Mentuhotep II (see 7.3), who reunified Egypt to found the Middle Kingdom, Hatshepsut’s temple takes full advantage of its spectacular natural setting in a semicircular bay in the cliffs. Investigations were first conducted there by Auguste Mariette, and from 1893 to 1904 by Edouard Naville (for the Egypt Exploration Fund), who, working with Howard Carter, recorded the temple’s reliefs and architecture, extensively published in seven volumes. Since 1961 the Polish Center of Mediterranean Archaeology (of Warsaw University) in Cairo has been restoring and recording the temple architecture, painted reliefs, and inscriptions.
Originally connected by a causeway to a valley temple, now lost, is a walled lower court with a western colonnade. From this a ramp leads to second level with the temple’s large second court. A second ramp then leads to the third level, with an upper colonnade, pillared upper court, and sanctuary, which was modified in Ptolemaic
Figure 8.2 Plan of Hatshepsut's mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahri. Source: G. Robbins, The Art of Ancient Egypt. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997, p. 126
Times. The sanctuary contained a stand for the bark of Amen-Ra, which was brought there during the Perfect Festival of the Wadi. Shrines include those to Hathor, Anubis, Amen, and an open solar court. Temple mortuary chapels were dedicated to Hatshepsut and her father Thutmose I. On the north side of the middle colonnade are reliefs of Hatshepsut’s divine birth, which, as inscriptions indicate, legitimized her rule. As king, Hatshepsut is depicted in most of the temple’s reliefs and statues as a male. Intentional destruction of the king/queen’s cartouche, inscriptions, and statues occurred after her death, when Thutmose III finally reigned by himself.
The famous Punt reliefs are on the south side of the middle colonnade (see Plate 8.2). The composition depicts the successful Punt expedition, of which Hatshepsut was undoubtedly proud, including the sea-faring journey there and back. Scenes in Punt show indigenous houses, animals, and people, including the supposed “king” and very heavy “queen” of Punt. Gold ingots and other raw materials of Punt are given to the Egyptian soldiers/sailors, who also return to Egypt with live incense trees carried on shipboard in pots. The logistics required to traverse the Eastern Desert, navigate the Red Sea, and return to Thebes, while supplying food - and fresh water for the humans (and trees) - makes this expedition a truly remarkable feat.
Senenmut, the official (and probable architect) who oversaw the construction of Hatshepsut’s magnificent temple, built a chapel overlooking the temple and a tomb beneath the temple’s first court. Perched on the rock above Hatshepsut’s temple is a similar though smaller temple built by Thutmose III, with three levels with colonnades reached by ramps. The temple was destroyed by a landslide in the late New Kingdom, and much of what remained was removed for reuse in other monuments. It was discovered by the Polish archaeologists in 1962, and they have reconstructed temple scenes from the remaining fragments of painted relief, now in the Luxor Museum. Thutmose
Map 8.3 New Kingdom map of the region of western Thebes
III also built a mortuary temple within the floodplain to the southeast of the Deir el-Bahri temples, but not much remains of this temple.
In the New Kingdom a few private individuals were also granted permission to build mortuary chapels in western Thebes. The largest of these non-royal mortuary temples was built for Amenhotep son of Hapu, to the west of the mortuary temple that he constructed for his king, Amenhotep III. Considerably larger than the nearby mortuary temple of Thutmose II, Amenhotep son of Hapu’s temple consisted of a sanctuary, entered through two pylons and courts, the first of which contained a large pool surrounded by trees.
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