Some of the inscribed labels from the ist Dynasty bear scenes with structures that are temples or shrines, such as the walled compound for the goddess Neith in the top register of a wooden label from Aha’s tomb at Abydos. Early writing also appears on some of the small votive artefacts that were probably offerings or donations to cult centres. Early Dynastic carved stone vessels were sometimes inscribed, and signs on some of these suggest that they may have come from cult centres. A number of such stone vessels may have been usurped from cult centre(s) of gods and buried in Djoser’s Step Pyramid at Saqqara. Such evidence points to the existence of cult temples outside the royal mortuary cult in the Early Dynastic Period, but there is very little archaeological evidence of such architecture.
Perhaps the most impressive examples of early temple art are the three colossal limestone figures of a fertility god (Min?) that Petrie excavated at Koptos. One restored figure in the Ashmolean Museum is over 4 m. high. Stylistically, the colossi seem to date either to Dynasty o or the early ist Dynasty. Buried in a deep deposit beneath the floor of the later temple of Isis and Min were figurines (possibly votive items) that are now thought to date to the Old Kingdom, but there are also Potsherds that are clearly from late Predynastic (Naqada) wares. Such evidence strongly suggests the existence of a temple or shrine at this location since Predynastic times. Given the huge size of the colossi, they were probably placed in a temple courtyard, although no remains of any early structures were found. The quarrying, transport, carving, and erection of such large pieces of stone imply large-scale (community) organization for renovating and furnishing a cult centre. Given that such expenditure of energy is much more evident in the royal mortuary cult of the ist Dynasty, the association of the Koptos colossi with a cult centre is remarkable.
During the 1980s and 1990s, German Archaeological Institute excavations on Elephantine Island at the first cataract revealed the remains of a shrine dating to the Early Dynastic period, a fortress built during the ist Dynasty, and a large fortified wall encompassing the town in the 2nd Dynasty. What cult was practised at this early shrine cannot be identified, but it was located beneath an 18th-Dynasty stone temple of the goddess Satet. The early shrine is very simple, consisting only of some mud-brick structures less than 8 m. wide nestled into a natural niche formed by granite boulders. Hundreds of small votive artefacts, mainly comprising human and animal faience figurines, were excavated beneath the i8th-Dynasty temple. Many of these date to the Old Kingdom, but some are Early Dynastic, including a fragment of a small statue of a seated king with a sign that has been identified as Djer’s name. Such a concentration of so many votive figurines made over the course of six dynasties (c.8oo years) suggests a craft workshop associated with this temple where worshippers and/or petitioners could obtain such artefacts to leave during their visits.
Similar figurines have been also found in deposits at Abydos, beneath an Old Kingdom structure that has been identified either as a temple of the god BChenti-amentiu or a ka-chapel of the 6th-Dynasty ruler Pepy 11. Probably some of these figurines derive from an Early Dynastic temple. At Hierakonpolis, more animal figurines in faience, fired clay, and stone, which belong stylistically to the late Predynastic and Early Dynastic, have been found in Quibell and Green’s ‘Main Deposit,’ beneath a later temple. The same archaeological context (near the Main Deposit) produced the Scorpion Macehead, the Narmer Palette, and the Narmer Macehead, as well as another ceremonial palette (the Two Dog Palette) which appears to be stylistically earlier than that of Narmer, a number of small ivories inscribed with the names of Narmer and Den, two statues of King Khasekhemwy of the 2nd Dynasty, and inscribed stone vessels made during his reign.
Structural evidence for an early temple is found in the same area, where a low oval revetment of sandstone blocks, about 42 x 48 m., encased a mound of sterile sand that had been brought to the site from the desert. This structure was made sometime between the late Predynastic period and the 3rd Dynasty; it was located within a walled enclosure, which O’Connor has suggested was a temple compound similar in design to Khasekhemwy’s funerary enclosure and mound at Abydos.
If O’Connor is correct, the main Early Dynastic cult temples at Abydos, Hierakonpolis, and Elephantine have not yet been located and excavated, but what evidence there is points to the existence of cult temple compounds within towns. Such temples served a different function from those associated with the funerary complexes, which were located outside the towns. The architectural evidence of Early Dynastic Egyptian cults (of unknown deities) is much less impressive than the contemporaneous remains of temples in southern Mesopotamia. Nevertheless, town cult centres in Early Dynastic Egypt may have served to integrate society in towns and nomes in a shared belief system that was perhaps of more immediate significance to the lives of the local peoples than the mortuary cults in royal and elite cemeteries.
World History
