The identification of temples in the archaeological record from Predynastic and Early Dynastic Egypt is based upon location of the building under a later sequence of temple buildings, particular structural features or the material objects found in the structure. In the town of Nekhen, on the edge of the floodplain at Hierakonpolis, the later Eighteenth Dynasty temple of Horus seems to have been constructed on top of a sandy mound encased in sandstone blocks, dating perhaps to the Late Predynastic period some 1600 years earlier. Material from an early building connected with it had been collected together and buried in a series of pits under the floor of the Old and Middle Kingdom structures built on top of the first sanctuary. The Main Deposit contained slate palettes, including the Narmer palette from the Egyptian state-formation phase, while small faience objects and ivory figurines are most likely from the Early Dynastic period (Quibell and Green 1902; Kemp 2006: 121-4). Whether they were offerings or represented gods or specific powers is unknown. Similar material from the Khentiamentiu temple at Abydos (Petrie 1903), a shrine at Elephantine (Dreyer 1986), and a non-contextualized find at Tell el-Farkha in the Delta suggest that these figures were an important focus for cult practice in Early Dynastic Egypt - wherever that was carried out.
The shrine at Elephantine could not be more different in origin, yet seems to have a similar logic behind its eventual development. The Early Dynastic shrine lies underneath the later Middle Kingdom through to Ptolemaic-Roman stone temple buildings. It was situated in a cleft between the natural granite boulders. A roughly rectangular courtyard and then other mud brick walls had been built around this area and additional walls were added in several phases in the Old Kingdom (Dreyer 1986; Kemp 2006, 116-21). The later temple buildings in stone continued to demarcate the same sacred space for over 3000 years.
The hidden, underground nature of this sanctuary is not the only possible cave shrine in Egypt, and there may have been a strong tradition of such sacred places embodied in the dark interiors of temple buildings. At Serabit el-Khadim in the Middle Kingdom, Wadi es-Sebua and other Nubian temples in the New Kingdom (Pinch 1993: 3-80) there were rock-cut temples using a mountain or hill as the location of a shrine and perhaps evoking access to hidden cave-worlds or delving for the sources of the inundation.
In the north-east of Egypt at Tell Ibrahim Awad, in the Delta, there was a sequence of buildings upon a natural sand gezira (island) or hill which were identified as six phases of temple building from Dynasty 0 to Dynasty 11. The Nagada III/ Dynasty 0 shrine building was made of mud brick and consisted of a rectangular building, 2.25 m wide, with an interior L-shaped wall thought to be intended to mask off the cult image. A votive deposit of pottery and a faience baboon’s head were found in this place. The excavators interpreted the interior room as the sanctuary, with restricted access to the sacred area and with a dark and confined interior. In the
First Dynasty, further buildings and a tomb were built on the site, and the presence of a palette also suggests that the building did have a cultic function. In the Old Kingdom the shrine was reconstructed within a busy settlement. The excavators were struck by the careful way in which the building had been planned to provide accommodation for its lord. The rectangular ‘‘shrine’’ room was laid out on a system of 5 by 5 cubit squares on a north to south axis, 5.25 m by 9.25 m in all. An L-shaped wall masked off the shrine in a protective niche with a brick platform in front of it. Votive and ceremonial deposits from earlier buildings were integrated deliberately into small chambers in the floors in the southern portion. They included pottery, faience objects, a per-nu shrine, and meat offerings. As offerings were made in the shrine, they would have been cleared away and perhaps buried within the shrine in order that they might remain in sacred space and be part of its fabric. In the Eleventh Dynasty a much larger building some 35 m by 70 m was laid out in an east-west orientation over this earlier shrine. This building may date to the reign of Montuho-tep Sankhkare, and its size suggests that there was royal interest in the place (Eigner 2000: 17-36). The temple at Tell Ibrahim Awad had changed from a small mud-brick, perhaps village cult place, with a hidden shrine and a tradition of votive deposits, to a ‘‘formal’’ (that is, given state expression in stone buildings) Eleventh Dynasty temple made of limestone. Each phase of building activity may be better understood on its own local terms and within its own time rather than as ‘‘developments’’ one from the other, stressing the changing emphasis of Egyptian cult buildings.
The sand-hill aspect was also important in the major cult site of Heliopolis, to the east of the Delta apex and the center of the cult of the sun god Re. Although the site is extremely destroyed, excavations and a unique inscription on stone suggest that the sun temple originally consisted of a central open-air platform within a large courtyard inside an enclosure almost 1,100 m by 475 m. Offerings were made to the sun god upon the altar, and other gods were housed in shrines around the central area. Within the central area there was a stone with a rounded top called the benben-stone, perhaps connected with a meteoric event and found near Heliopolis. The stone was attributed with great creative power, its shape becoming a truncated obelisk, similar to those built at the center of the sun temples at Abu Ghurob, directly to the west next to the mortuary complexes of the kings of the Fifth Dynasty. The Heliopolitan kings may have taken advantage of direct sight lines between the temple in Heliopolis and the pyramids at Abusir to suggest that the king was at the center of the sun’s cyclical journey for eternity (Jeffreys 1998; Quirke 2001: 73-114). The openness of the sun cult was included in the design of the Aten temples at Akhetaten (Amarna) in the Eighteenth Dynasty. The central part of the Great Aten temple contained an open space with altars for every day of the year, with a larger platform at the center upon which the king would stand under the rays of the sun near a rounded benben-stela. There were service rooms and small storage areas at the sides and pylon gateways were retained, as they provided the horizon for the sun on his daily journey (Peet, Woolley, and Pendlebury 1923-51). It is also likely that the open courts of earlier and later temples embody open-air sun worship and were an important part of the temple. The way in which the priesthood and the king presented this combination of natural local features, a collected ‘‘revered’’ natural object, and their relationship with them are the key to understanding the state manipulation of sacred sites.
A further aspect of early cult practice which finds elaboration in later times may be the installation of colossal statues and stone gateways at cult buildings. The two figures of Min from the Late Predynastic period at the temple of Koptos are the best example of the investment of time and effort in representations of ‘‘power,’’ but how they were housed or used by communities is unclear (Kemp, Boyce, and Harrell 2000). The myriad statues, including colossal images associated with temples at all periods, may be part of the practice of the cult of the ‘‘revealed’’ image that they represent.
In the case of the early structures, there is little evidence for the decorative scheme of the buildings. It is not known if the walls were painted with colorful patterns or scenes, or hung with colored matting or whether the mud walls were moulded in such a way as to create decorative bands, as appeared in stone buildings later.
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