Egyptian tradition, partly informed by the way that the Egyptian state-machine saw the past - accurate or not - and partly shown in evidence from excavation and objects with early representations, typically emphasizes a dualistic tradition, especially where the king is involved. Two types of shrine, known as the per-wer, ‘‘Great House,’’ of Upper Egypt and the per-nu, ‘‘House of the Nu,’’ of Lower Egypt, are believed to have been rectangular buildings of wattle and daub or matting on a reed and wood frame, and were also ‘‘formalized’’ in the Step Pyramid complex of Djoser in the Third Dynasty (Arnold 1982: 931-5). The per-wer had a convex roof which sloped downwards from the front towards the rear and had cattle horns above the entrance, whereas the per-nu had a uniformly convex roof supported by four main posts at the corners, which projected above the maximum height roof. Both were envisaged within enclosures and with rectangular plans, but that of the per-nu is more obvious in depictions, perhaps suggesting that it had added protection from flood waters. When comparing the tradition of the two shrine types with the archaeological remains, it is not clear, however, exactly which part of a ‘‘temple’’ is depicted. It seems most likely that the ‘‘Houses'' were only the sanctuary areas, while there is little information about the whole sacred complex in which they were located. The court of stone chapels at the Step Pyramid contains one chapel type with the convex roof, supported by three posts with floral capitals and the front supported by two massive pillars at each end; a second type had a flat roof top with cavetto cornice and torus moulding at the top and sides of the walls, which were slightly inclined. As the shrines were ‘‘dummy’’ shrines, only the external appearance was elaborated, so that the interior remains unknown.
The temple plans preserved best from the Old Kingdom are those from the pyramid complexes at Giza, Saqqara, and Abusir. The emphasis in them on resemblance to the burial apartments of the king, statue cults, magazines for the storage of offerings, as well as the pylon mass at the entrance is striking and helpful in understanding how the architecture of the funerary cult of the king was connected to that of gods, especially in the New Kingdom mortuary complexes (Stadelmann 1997).
In the Middle Kingdom it is clear, even from the meagre remains excavated, that temples were used as instruments of royal authority throughout Egypt, so that major city shrines were reinstated as investments of the king as the servant of each and every cult place. The scale of what was attempted can best be seen in the Fayum, in whose vicinity the ‘‘new’’ capital city of Itj-tawy was situated. The most mysterious Middle Kingdom temple is that at Qasr el-Sagha, on the north of the Fayum. Only the sanctuary of seven shrines, with an offering hall in front of its two side chambers to the west and one to the east, was finished. The remainder of the structure was perhaps never built, if there was any intention to create a larger structure. The temple was built of monolithic blocks of calciferous sandstone. The larger sanctuary in the center is flanked by three chambers on each side. The balustrade around the roof had a convex top, and there may have been some kind of podium on the roof. The uncertainty over the nature of the building is compounded by the fact that it has no inscriptions or traces of painting, the walls being smooth and bare. The temple has been dated by comparing its construction techniques with other temples of the Middle Kingdom, as well as from pottery discovered in its vicinity and dating to the Middle Kingdom (Arnold and Arnold 1979). Although the building itself is not so informative about Middle Kingdom temple decoration, it may be part of a much more elaborate landscape, including the square-topped mountain to the north of the temple as well as the mortuary temples of the Middle Kingdom kings on the southern edge of the Fayum, the great obelisk or pillar at Abgig, and the colossal statues at Biahmu. The whole area of the Fayum may have been artificially reclaimed to create more land for the royal city and for the royal funerary cults (Hayes 1971: 505). The new area was crescent-shaped, extending from Itsa, to Biahmu and El-Agamiyin. The sacred landscape focused on the cults of gods, such as Sobek, a primeval crocodile water and swamp god and so the creation of a green and swampy environment would reflect his natural habitat. Furthermore, the area was framed by the temple of Renenutet built by King Amenemhet III at Medinet Madi, and, therefore, the multiple shrine at Qasr el-Sagha may act as the northernmost mountain limit of the sacred land. Containing these temples, the pyramids, royal mortuary temples and palaces of the kings, the Fayum may have been an almost truly realized microcosm of the world, using temple structures themselves as focal points and ‘‘decoration’’ within the landscape.
At Medamud, el-Tod, Koptos and Thebes large stone and mud-brick structures of the Middle Kingdom kings dominated the sacred areas with emphasis placed upon the gateways, columns, and storage areas and all based upon earlier structures and providing a base themselves for later buildings. In general, a few stone elements have been preserved, along with parts of the foundation bases, so that it is difficult to determine the layout and decorative schemes of the temples. From the Delta, the ground plans of two temples have been found, one at Ezbet Rushdi and one at Tell Ibrahim Awad (see above). They show that temples were still constructed largely of mud brick with stone door elements and consisted of an open court at the front, a columned hall inside, and then a three-part sanctuary at the rear. The basic design conforms to the simplicity and direct axis which seems to have been important in these buildings. The barque shrine of Senwosret I at Karnak, however, with its simple
Scenes of ritual action, suggests that the principles of decoration design had been long established and derived from extensive ritual documents and local theologies (Lacau and Chevrier 1956).
Parts of temples from the New Kingdom are preserved much better than from previous eras, but even so it is sometimes difficult to see the intentions of any one ruler at a particular time because of later additions to the temples, which changed and redefined the space inside the buildings. The Temple of Luxor is superficially complete, but an earlier Middle Kingdom building and one of Hatshepsut were removed by Amenhotep III when he built the greater part of the standing temple for the use of his ka in the Opet Festival (Bell 1997). Even this building was augmented under Tutankhamun by the addition of an enclosed colonnade-kiosk, consisting of fourteen papyrus columns, with clerestory lighting. Ramesses II further shifted the orientation of the entrance towards the processional route entrance into Karnak by the addition of a courtyard, pylon, and obelisks at the front. The sequence of the buildings is typical of the way in which the basic layout of temple buildings could be developed in subsequent building programmes.
The building history of Karnak is much more complex, but gradual work in rediscovering buildings which were completely removed and used as packing for the pylons for example has begun to rehabilitate the building schemes of groups of kings (Blyth 2006), including Amenhotep I to Thutmose II, Thutmose III, and Ramesses I to Sety I. Although the main axis of the temple and its buildings was towards the east and the sanctuary of Amun, an alternate axis to the south and Luxor temple was also significant. With multiple wall surfaces for decoration, including huge pylons and free-standing monuments, such as statues, stelae, and obelisks, the impression given at Karnak is that the building space was a continuously changing kaleidoscope. The ‘‘classic’’ layout, however, is clear, with the series of pylon-gateways leading to open courtyards, then to the enclosed pronaos of the temple with wide, columned halls and rooms diminishing in size. Finally, at the rear of the complex, inside the naos, there is a small room, the sanctuary, which would have contained the precious metal and stone cult image of the god - Amun in this case - with side sanctuaries, in this instance of Amun’s consort, the goddess Mut and their ‘‘child,’’ the moon god Khonsu. The basic plan can be compared favorably with reconstructed plans of royal cult palaces, such as that of Merneptah at Memphis (cf. O’Connor 1991; Stadelmann 1996). Extra features within the now standard complex included a sacred lake or water source beside the main temple, the mud brick enclosure wall around the whole area, a special area containing the ‘‘tomb’’ of Osiris and banks of magazines for the storage of grain and resources from the god’s possessions. Each part of the whole could be included in the festival processions and rituals carried out for the gods, but each part was also selfsustaining, with its own rituals and texts, giving each area its particular identity and purpose.
The limestone Temple of Sety I at Abydos gives a sense of unity and overall plan, focusing upon the cult of Osiris, but ensuring that the Daily Rituals were performed, the links to the ancestors were maintained, and the main cult centers of Egypt were honored in the seven sanctuaries. The central sanctuary is dedicated to Amun, the three to the north are for Osiris, Isis, and Horus, while the three to the south are for Re-Harakhty, Ptah, and King Sety. The temple could be regarded also as a mortuary-cult temple, mainly for Osiris, and from his shrine a door leads to a further series of rooms for his cult. There is also a further suite to the south for Ptah-Sokar and Nefertum, mortuary gods of Memphis, and a buried ‘‘tomb of Osiris’’ behind the temple in the ‘‘west,’’ which provided an elaborate setting for Osirian mysteries. The purpose of the temple seems to have been to assure Sety’s legitimacy as ruler, but it also established an ironic cultic dynamic in that his name embodies the presence of Seth the challenger and murderer of Osiris, but an important god for the eastern Delta Ramesside dynasty to which Sety belonged. The form of the temple, originally with a pylon gateway leading to two terraced porticos with stairways and the front of the temple, with its squat shape and row of square columns without decorative capitals, may have been a reminder of the terrace temple of Ahmose I at Abydos, although the latter does not survive.
The surviving royal mortuary temples of New Kingdom kings give a clear sense of the design of temple structures. The temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu, ‘‘United with Eternity,’’ gives an excellent sense of the cosmic scale and permanent aspirations embodied in the temple building (Murnane 1980). Community religious practices have also survived at Deir el-Medina and el-Amarna, where small mud-brick or part stone-built chapels were constructed for gatherings of people to honor local deities and ancestors and at festival times. These contained an outer and inner hall leading to an inner sanctuary. Other rooms could be added to the main building, perhaps for gatherings or additional cult focal points. One of the main elements of the buildings were T-shaped or square water basins in the outer halls for libations (Bomann 1991). The basins may have been accompanied by incense burners for the ritual incense and water offering to the dead. Such gatherings of rooms around a courtyard with a basin can be traced back to early funerary offerings and even state-supported cults ofinfluential local ‘‘ancestor heroes,’’ such as Hekayib at Elephantine (Franke 1994). The idea is very influential in major state temples where shrines for other gods were built around that of the main god.
In the Late Period, there is very little surviving that is representative of possible different traditions in the north, where many kings had their strongholds, but the Tanis layout of the Twenty-first Dynasty and the Temple of Hibis from the Saite/ Persian period in the Khargha oasis give a sense of development based on the Karnak traditions influenced by the Amun cult center. In the Ptolemaic and Roman Period temples were used to maintain the status quo between the Hellenistic rulers in Alexandria and the Egyptian elite in the rest of Egypt. At Edfu, Dendera, and Philai, excellent sets of building remains provide information about the design layout of temples at this time. More ruined or uninscribed structures at Kom Ombo, Esna, Kalabsha, Taposiris Magna, and Dakhla Oasis allude to diversity within the coda for temple building. For example, the temple of Tutu at Kellis (Ismant el-Kharab) in the Dakhla Oasis shows that the walls of temples could be painted in a mixture of Classical decorative motifs as well as Egyptian ritual scenes and, in this case, dedicated to non-standard Egyptian gods (Kaper 1997). The plastered and painted vaults of the temples in the Oases and in the Fayum, as well as the nature of gods themselves, hint at other traditions throughout Egypt.
World History
