The phrase ‘‘grammaire du temple’’ (Derchain 1962; Winter 1968) or ‘‘Temple Program’’ (Arnold 1962) has been used by Egyptologists to describe the relationship between the temple building design and the text and scenes inscribed on the walls. It alludes to the way in which the inscriptions were laid out to complement and work with the building itself in order to create the most harmonious and power-filled environment for the gods within the temple. At the simplest level, for example, the space within the temple must be pure and clean for the god, so rituals for the purification of offerings, people or god’s statues are often placed symmetrically on the doors into the temple. Elements of chaos had to be kept outside the temple, so scenes of battles or hunting were confined to the outer walls of the building. If the killing of an animal or enemy had more symbolic meaning, then the sacrifice could be shown inside the temple, but the animal or enemy was always dead, tied up, dismembered, or being immobilized and made safe. At a more complex level, individual scenes within one room or integrated space of a temple complement one another, either to cover the same ritual and symbolic meaning, or to provide a double version of a ritual, so that it was enacted for Lower and Upper Egypt.
Cult temples in Egypt are built according to no fixed orientation, while the mortuary temples of kings have a fixed east-west orientation (Shaltout et al., 2003). For cult temples, influences on the orientation may include the relative position of the river; landscape features such as mountains; astronomical aspects, such as at Abu Simbel, where the shrine is aligned to be directly illumined at the winter and summer solstice; local conditions, including the position of previous buildings or the town; and also wider considerations such as virtual sight-lines to neighboring features, such as cemetery areas or other temples.
The basic understanding is that the axis of the temple - a notional line drawn down the middle of the building from back to front - divides the building into two halves. In the ‘‘god’s view’’ from the sanctuary, the left-hand half of the temple represents Upper Egypt, where the king wears the White Crown and the right hand half represents Lower Egypt, where the king wears the Red Crown. Such an orientation would also make the shrines on the ‘‘right’’ (imnt) the ‘‘west,’’ where the funerary chapels associated with Osiris were situated, while the ‘‘left’’ side (iAbt) is the ‘‘east,’’ where the solar chapels of Re were located, as if one were sailing down the Nile towards the south. When the two halves combine they are the totality of Egypt and, therefore, the Universe. Sometimes the real orientation of the temple matched its virtual orientation, but it is not always the case, and such readings suggest that the temple axis embodies the two main orientations of Egypt - river direction and sun route.
The points at which the axial-center line go through walls are the centers of the walls and the rituals radiate out from them. Therefore, in the center of the back wall of the sanctuary, the god stands back to back with him or herself and the king faces both of them on the right and left side. All of the other rituals in the room respect this arrangement as the starting point. In some key areas, such as the outside wall of the sanctuary and the outside and inside wall of the naos-enclosure, the designers took the opportunity to create more important scenes, perhaps focusing the power of the temple along its axis. The inside of the stone enclosure wall at Edfu shows Horus Behdety on top of (that is, by the rules of perspective, inside) his shrine in four scenes in the first two registers. In all of the scenes the king and queen offer to the temple triad, in two groups back-to-back. At Dendera, the exterior of the back wall of the temple is carved with a huge head of Hathor. The holes in the stone around it suggest that it may have been veiled or covered so that it was revealed only for certain ceremonies or for consultations (cf. Brand 2007: 61-4). The image may be an attempt to bring the focal image of the temple to more people than otherwise would be able to see it. At Karnak, a special shrine was built at the back of the temple to allow access to the axial line from the outside and perhaps for ‘‘ordinary’’ Egyptians.
The main groups of rituals in the temple were derived from the Daily Cult, whose ritual sequence survives not only upon the temple walls but also in papyrus books (David 1981: 58-62). Excerpted versions of the ritual were used to fill the wall space and ensure their permanent performance. Sometimes it was necessary for a ritual in one half to be balanced by a complementary or the very same ritual in the other half. In some cases, the attribution of the ritual to northern or southern Egypt would be given by the crown worn by the king, by the god in the scene, or by the content of the text. Particular areas of the temple, such as the sanctuary, rooms holding cultic objects, or rooms with another god as focus, would also have specifically designed and appropriate rituals. In addition, hymns and prayers to the gods could also accompany the rituals.
At the smallest level of detail individual walls would also be designed with the ‘‘grammaire’’ in mind. The wall was divided into registers by strong horizontal lines and then the registers were divided into scenes by vertical lines. Each scene could be read individually but also interacted with scenes next to them, other scenes on the same wall or with complementary scenes on the wall opposite, no matter if they were actually on the other side of the temple in the case of enclosure walls. Together, these scenes empowered the functionality of the individual room and thus contributed to the overall power of the whole temple in housing, protecting and reinforcing the god’s aura of power.
The lower levels of the wall pertain to more earthly aspects of the cosmos and, therefore, contain the processions of flood and field offering bearers relating to the productivity of Egypt. In the first register, the scenes may allude to the king building the temple, including a procession from his palace, the marking out of the temple space and finally its handing over to its owner. In addition, they may mark the beginning of the ritual cycle depicted on the rest of the walls. The reading of the texts begins at the bottom of the wall and moves up register by register to the top, sometimes zig-zagging across the room from side to side, sometimes reading along one wall and then onto the next. The middle registers can deal more explicitly with matters specific to the room and to the function of it or to the god housed in it. This is where the bulk of the basic rituals based upon the daily service are depicted. As the lower and middle registers are more comfortably at eye-level, they often show the most important aspects of the temple, such as the king performing his duties and the main gods of the temple (Kaper 1995). The other gods tend to be relegated to the upper registers. The upper registers and decorative bands at the top of the wall contain rituals and texts pertaining to more cosmological or sky-related issues, although earth-bound rituals can occur at this level depending upon the exact function of the wall and the space that it shielded. The dedication and building texts of temples also tend to be situated in the long bands running above and below the main registers.
The topmost band of the wall often contains cosmic symbols designed to protect the king. His name therefore could be written in a double cartouche and protected by various creatures, including winged cobras (uraei), interwoven with shen-protective signs and crowned appropriately, but holding symbols of protection for the king, as for example, at Luxor (Brunner 1977: 16-20). In many places, including areas above wall registers as well as over doors, the winged sun disk is depicted, sometimes with the symbols of east and west and the horizon to show that this is a sign for the whole world. Individual columns in the hypostyle halls and courtyards also fit into the patterns of the design; for example, they can be read as if written in four quarters forming two halves of each column. Groups of columns relating to the east and west can be complementary and all of the columns act as if they were holding up the sky (Kurth 1983).
The ritual scenes depicted upon the temple walls comprise a large image showing the ritual and actions being performed by the king, sometimes accompanied by a queen or his son, facing a god or gods (figure 35.2). Each figure is accompanied by a band of text with the individual’s name, titles and epithets to show what ‘‘role’’ they are playing. For example, in ointment offerings, the king is often called son of Sheshmu, the god who makes ointment. There is also a band of text where the king explains exactly what he does and the deity explains what they will do in return for the ritual offering. The role of the king, the god shown, the type of ritual and the position on the wall or in the temple can all be used to coordinate with other rituals or scenes.
World History
