The Temples

by Jean Smith, the President of the Egyptian Society of South Africa in Cape Town.

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Abydos

Temple built by Seti I at Abydos

The temple is about 140km from Luxor; it was the chief place of worship for the Underworld god, Osiris and necropolis of the very earliest kings of Egypt. However, the reason for visiting Abydos (Aabju to the Egyptians) is to visit the beautiful temple built there by Seti I and completed by his son Rameses II.

Entrance to the temple is via its ruined outer courts; the first has large tanks for the priests ablutions, also visible are rows of mudbrick storage magazines. Inside the vestibule are squat lotus bud columns. The raised relief inscriptions are very fine and depict the king making sacrifices to the gods as well as presenting the image of Maat.

Rameses II also had inscriptions carved here but they are less fine than those of his father. One unusual scene depicts the young Rameses lassoing a bull with his father Seti.

An interesting feature are the seven chapels dedicated to seven gods, including Osiris. All have false doors on their rear walls except that of Osiris, where the door opens into a suite of rooms dedicated to him.

Another interesting feature is the so-called king’s gallery - this features the names in cartouches of all Egypt’s kings, beginning with the traditional 1st king Menes and ending with Seti I himself. However the list is selective and omits the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut as well as those Pharoahs connected with the Amarna period - Akhenaton, Tutankhamen and Ay.

The Osireon

The partially-flooded Osireon at Abydos

Behind the temple proper but carefully aligned on the temple’s axis is the unusual structure called the Osireon. It was mainly built by Rameses II's son, Meren-ptah and is in the form of a royal tomb. A long passage contains scenes from the funerary book, The Book of Gates; at its end, there is a sharp turn that takes you into the huge hall. It is similar to the massive pillared tombs of the Valley of the Kings. In the middle of this structure is a sarcophagus and canopic chest (for the royal viscera). Originally, this stood on an island of ground water symbolising the Waters of Nun, the waters of creation. Other rooms at the end of this hall have funerary and astronomical texts including a depiction of the sky goddess Nut. It is popularly supposed to be the tomb of Osiris.

Dendera

Inside the Temple at Dendera

The temple that today stands at Dendera is Graeco-Roman although it was built over the ruins of a much earlier temple from the Old Kingdom and embellished by several New Kingdom Pharaohs. The temple is dedicated the cow-headed goddess Hathor and like most Egyptian temples is built facing the river.

The temple area has several Roman period kiosks that were built during the reigns of Trajan and Domitian. There is a huge hypostyle hall with twenty-four massive Hathor headed columns. The ceiling of the hall has retained much of its original colours.

And is decorated with a symbolic chart of the heavens, including signs of the zodiac (introduced by the Romans).

There is a smaller six-columned hall from which the goddess ‘appeared’ from her sanctuary for religious ceremonies.

There are a number of crypts sunk into the floor where it's presumed temple treasures were stored. (Some of these may be entered if you ask). An important object kept there was the statue of the goddess which was taken from its sanctuary and onto the roof at the important New Year festival.

The figures of Cleopatra VII, Caesar and their son Caeserion can be viewed in the exterior back wall. The whole area is enclosed by ‘wavy’ mudbrick walls.

Karnak Temple

Karnak Hypostyle Hall

The Karnak temple complex is the biggest religious centre ever built; it covers an area of about 100ha and consists of a series of pylons or gateways and courts. Within the courts are temples, statues and colonnades.

The temple is dedicated the god Amun-Ra but there are also chapels to other gods, including the wife and son of Amun-Ra, Mut and Khonsu.

The site was first built on by some of the Pharoahs of the Middle Kingdom and from then on most of the Pharoahs did some building to mark their presence there.

The temple complex is entered through the west gate and between two rows of ram headed sphinxes each with a statue of the Pharaoh between its paws. The first court has, in addition to a triple chapel dedicated to Amun and his family, the remains of a colonnade built by the Nubian king Taharqa.

But it was the mighty Pharoahs of the New Kingdom who built the really monumental temples. The most impressive is the Hypostyle hall – this was begun by an earlier Pharaoh but finished by Seti I and his son, the great Pharaoh Rameses II. It has been called a ‘forest of stone’ because of the one hundred and thirty-four papyriform columns, some with open and some with closed capitals. The outer walls depict numerous battle scenes recording battles undertaken by Seti I and Rameses II.

Two obelisks still stand; one belonged to Pharaoh Thutmose I (ca.1504-1492BCE) and the other to the female Pharaoh Hatshepsut. (Ca.1473-1458). Both are of red granite.

Another temple of note is the so-called festival hall of Thutmose III; directly behind this is a sanctuary that has what is called the Botanical record that depicts the plants and animals brought back to Egypt from Syria after one of his campaigns there.

Another feature is the sacred lake, the waters of which were used by the priests of the complex. At the north-west corner stands the massive red granite scarab mounted on a plinth. Other features worth seeing and not usually on the schedule are the newly renovated red chapel of Hatshepsut and the chapels dedicated to the gods Ptah and Sekhmet.

This most beautiful of all Egyptian temples was once called ‘Ipet-Isut’ variously translated as ‘the Most Select of Places’ and ‘The Northern Palace’ - and was once connected to the Luxor temple by an avenue of ram headed sphinxes.

Luxor Temple

Luxor Temple

This is the most southern of the temples on the East bank and like Karnak, was dedicated to the god Amun-Ra. It was built on much earlier structures. The female Pharaoh Hatshepsut built extensively here but much of what she did was replaced by the buildings of the 18th dynasty Pharaoh Amenhotep III. Building here was stopped temporarily during the reign of the ‘heretic Pharaoh’ Akhenaton and only resumed under Rameses II the Great. The ram-headed sphinxes of Karnak are here replaced by human-headed sphinxes built in the time of the last native king of Egypt, Nectanebo.

The present entrance is through the pylon gateway built by Ramses II and was once fronted by six huge statues of the Pharaoh (two seated and four standing). The outer walls have scenes of the Battle of Kadesh, but the reliefs on the inner walls were added by the Nubian king Shabaka in the 25th dynasty.

The walls of the processional colonnade built by Amenhotep III were actually decorated by the well known Pharaoh Tutankhamen with scenes depicting the great Opet festival. Beyond this is the sun court which was decorated by many people right up to Alexander the Great. The side walls still retain some of their colours and it was there that a number of beautiful statues were found in 1989 – these are now in the Luxor museum. Like Karnak this also has a hypostyle hall although this is very much smaller. The hypostyle hall, with its soaring papyrus-bundle columns, leads into an inner temple; in Roman times this was transformed by a Roman legion based there into a chapel dedicated to the cult of the Emperor

Other features are the original sanctuary of Amenhotep temple, a small suite of secluded rooms that give the temple its name of 'Opet temple' and  the so –called 'birth room' where depicted on the walls is the divine birth of Amenhotep and his later presentation to the gods.

This temple retained its importance throughout the ages and in the 4th CE (Common Era - coinciding with the Christian era or AD) the whole temple was incorporated into a Roman fortified camp whose massive stone paved avenues can still be seen today. After Egypt became Christianized a number of Christian churches were built inside the complex and later in the 13th Century, the mosque of Abu el-Haggag was built on the same site. The mosque is still there today.

The ancient name of this place, Iput Rysit is translated variously as Southern Opet or 'Place of Seclusion' as well as Southern Palace.

To find out how you can visit these fascinating sites, please contact us on +27 11 678 4777 or +27 11 478 2884 or email us on: info@egyptandbeyond.co.za.

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