THREE TEMPLES SELDOM VISITED

By Anthony Holmes

Tourists to Egypt are generally taken to the major attractions; the pyramids and museums in the Cairo area; the tombs of royalty and nobility on the western bank of the Nile at Luxor; the great stone temples from Luxor to Aswan and a short flight to Abu Simbel if they are fortunate. They may also visit the beautiful temples at Abydos and Dendera. There are however many other wonders of ancient Egypt that have survived and it takes many visits to the country to see them. Three small temples south of Aswan barely get a mention in the travel books, but each has its own intriguing story to tell. The three temples are those of Rameses II at Wadi el Sebua dedicated to Amun; the Greco Roman temple at Dakka dedicated to Thoth and the Serapis Isis Temple of Maharraka.

The Temple of Wadi el Sebua

During the New Kingdom's 18^th and 19^th Dynasties two temples were built about 140 kms south of Aswan in ancient Nubia on the west bank of the Nile. In the 1960s, when the Aswan High Dam was being built, one of these temples was rescued and moved to a new, elevated site several kms to the northwest. The temple was built by Rameses II, and is now known as the Temple of Wadi el-Sebua. The earlier temple of Amenhotep III was left to be submerged beneath the rising waters of Lake Nasser. Both of these temples were part free standing and part spéos, meaning that sections of the temples were hewn from the surrounding rock.

The temple of Rameses beloved of Amun in the field of Amun to give it its full title, was used as a quay or resting place for boats during their descent of the Nile River. The local people were inspired by the stone sculptures of sphinxes that lined the entrance to the temple and called the place 'Wadi es-Sebua' or the Valley of the Lions. It is wonderful to visit this temple in the cool of the early hours of the morning just as the sun is rising. The early golden rays shine on the large third pylon and illuminate the avenue of sphinxes. Regrettably the first and second pylons which were built from inferior Nile mud-bricks are no more and only the stone gate passageway through them has survived. The six sphinxes in the first court have human heads, but the four in the second court closest to the temple have falcon heads, the only example of this type of sphinx in Egypt.

The statue of Rameses at the entrance to the third court features his daughter Bint-Anath (possibly the daughter of one of Rameses’ Hittite wives). The Temple is dedicated to Amun-Ra and Ra-Harakhte and to the deified Rameses himself. The third court has ten Osiride (engaged) pillars in two colonnades. A ramp leads to the innermost part of the temple, which is cut from the rock. It features a hypostyle hall with 12 pillars. Offering rooms are on either side of the sanctuary. Rameses is shown making offerings to Amun, Ra-Harakhte, Ptah, Horus, Atum, Thoth, Maat, Hathor and Mut.

In the 5th century AD, the temple was converted into a Christian church. Some temple reliefs were covered with a layer of plaster on which religious scenes were painted. The plaster layer helped to preserve the original reliefs; the best examples being scenes depicting Rameses adoring the sacred boats of Amun-Ra and Ra-Harakhte. There is also an interesting scene in the central niche of the temple where two statues of Amun and Ra-Harakhte were hacked away by later Christian worshippers and replaced by an image of St. Peter. When the plaster coating was removed from the carved reliefs, it revealed an image of Rameses II offering flowers to St Peter instead of Amun-Ra.

The Temple of Dakka

The tourist walks along a well-constructed causeway to the Temple of Dakka. It is an easy walk, but with a bit of a rock climb at the end. The temple was originally sited about 100kms south of Aswan High Dam, but was relocated to el-Sebua to save it from the rising waters of Lake Nasser. Today, the temple sits dramatically on a small bluff overlooking Lake Nasser. This is the only Nubian temple with a façade that faces to the north and is oriented north-south to parallel the course of the Nile. The pylon of the temple is now separated from the remainder of the temple due to the missing enclosure walls of the open court. Above the entrance in the pylon, a solar disk with a uraeus extends its wings. On the southern side of the temple, a small entrance leads into the interior of the huge pylon and to a stairway that communicates with several internal rooms.

The Temple of Dakka was dedicated to the god “Thoth of the Sycamore Tree”, the god of wisdom and of scribes. Thoth was held to have two aspects and was depicted either as a Sacred Ibis or as a Baboon; both were considered to be very wise animals. The temple is a relatively recent structure dated to 200 AD or thereabouts. It was not finished because of the onset of Christianity. The capitals of the columns were not carved to completion. A niche that originally held a statue (possibly of Thoth) is over-painted with a picture of St. Peter.

Dakka is intimately connected with the ancient Egyptian myth of the destruction of mankind. As the sun god Ra grew old and feeble he began to fear the power of the Nubians. He sent his daughter Sekhmet the lion-headed goddess to deal with the problem. Sekhmet indulged in an orgy of death and destruction, devouring flesh and drinking blood. This horrified Ra. He sent his trusted god Thoth in his aspect of a baboon to entice Sekhmet back from Nubia. Thoth arranged for copious quantities of red coloured wheat beer to pacify her. (Some versions of the myth say red wine). He promised Sekhmet that she would be worshipped along the way back to her home in Heliopolis and he built temples along her return route. Dakka was one of the temples.

Dakka is unique among temples in that it has an entrance facing south to receive Sekhmet and an exit facing north to make sure she proceeds on her way home. The story of Sekhmet is supported by the carvings in the temple that show the baboon, sent to entice Sekhmet home and later show him lying exhausted and resting under a tree!

The Temple of Maharakka

This is the third temple in the Wadi es-Sebua area and the tourist walks downhill from Dakka to the temple. It is a modest building and is unremarkable from the outside. Inside it is decorated with bas-relief carvings.

A shoulder high wall is built between the columns on one side. The temple is dedicated to the god Serapis, a hybrid of Osiris, Apis and Zeus. This Roman-built Egyptian temple cannot be securely attributed to any Roman emperor's reign since it was never fully completed nor inscribed. However, since it is known that temple building declined in Nubia after the rule of Augustus, the temple of Maharraka might be datable to his reign. The only part of the structure that was finished is a court surrounded on three sides by columns. The temple sanctuary was never actually built and in addition the temple lacks a formal pylon.

The Temple of Maharraka however features an architectural curiosity at a corner of the court where a winding spiral stone staircase leads to its roof. This is the only Egyptian temple in Nubia with a spiral staircase.

Since its former location was threatened by flooding from the Nile due to the construction of the Aswan High Dam, this small temple was dismantled in 1961 by the Egyptian Antiquities Service. It was subsequently rebuilt along with the Temple of Dakka in 1966 at the New Wadi es-Sebua site.

THE BOOK OF THE DEAD

Comments by Anthony Holmes

The Book of the Dead is the common name for the ancient Egyptian funerary texts more correctly known as “The Spells of Coming Forth by Day”. The Book of the Dead was not a single document. It was a compilation of spells, hymns and illustrations. By teaching passwords, giving clues, and revealing routes, the Book of the Dead enabled the deceased’s spirit to overcome obstacles in the underworld. The Pyramid texts of the Old Kingdom (2,600BC) were the earliest recorded way of providing this instruction to the dead. The “hymns” or “utterances” were carved into the walls of pyramid chambers.

Later similar information was carved inside the coffins of the Middle Kingdom (2,000BC). By the time of the New Kingdom (1600 BC), the Book of the Dead had developed further. It was written on a papyrus scroll and interred with the mummy.

Most people desired to have a Book of the Dead interred with them. We are fortunate to have several examples that have survived to modern times. Each papyrus was hand written in hieroglyphs and illustrated by the scribes. The longer and more decorative the version, the more it would “cost” in terms of offerings of goods and time to the temple. If the prospective owner of a Book was wealthy and his death not untimely, he might commission a scribe to write a text based on his personal choice of spells and chapters.

The papyrus scroll compiled for the Royal Scribe of the Divine Offerings who name was Ani was originally 78ft (23.8m) long, separated into 37 sheets. The scroll is now in The British Museum. We will examine this Book in more detail later. Less wealthy clients would have to make do with a ready made text, turned out in funerary workshops, with spaces being left for the name of the deceased to be inserted later.

In the New Kingdom, spells were illustrated with pictures. In many manuscripts the vignettes constitute a row of pictures, with texts placed beneath them. The texts are divided into individual spells or chapters, about two hundred in total, though no single papyrus so far discovered contains them all.

Egyptian religion was based on the worship of up to 2000 gods and goddesses. The two chief gods were Amun-Ra and Osiris. Amun the “king of gods” and Ra the “sun god” were combined into a single deity. Osiris was the “god of the netherworld” who ultimately decided on the fate of the deceased’s spirit. The dead were given the title “Osiris” to indicate their deceased status.

Extracts below are taken from “The Egyptian Book of the Dead” [The Papyrus of Ani – Royal Scribe of the Divine Offerings] translated by Dr Raymond O. Faulkner (printed in 1994) with illustrations based on the facsimile volume produced in 1890 under the supervision of P. le Page Renouf and E.A.Wallis Budge. Printed by The American University in Cairo Press. A complete translation of Ani’s Book of the Dead by E.A.Wallis Budge may be found at http://bit.ly/aMixqO, but Dr Faulkner’s more recent translation is considered by many to be far superior to that of Wallis Budge.

What did Ani’s spirit expect to find and what did he have to do as he stepped through the False Door of his tomb into the world of the dead?

The spirit’s first activity was to recite a hymn of praise to the Sun-god Ra, often depicted as being raised above the horizon by the scarab beetle god called Kheper. The hymn commences with the words “Hail to you, you having come as Kheper, even Kheper who is the creator of the gods,” and continues with fulsome praise of Ra in all its forms. Ani then requests to be permitted to journey with Ra on the Night-bark (through the underworld) and on the Day-bark (across the sky). “May he grant that I see the sun-disk and behold the moon unceasingly every day.” The hymn ends with the words “may I be received into the presence of Osiris in the Land of Vindication. For the Ka of Ani.”

The second hymn is to Osiris. The god of the dead is lauded with titles such as “Great God”, “King of Eternity” and “Lord of Everlasting” and ends with the plea for the pleasures of the afterlife, “May there be given to me bread from House of Cool Water and a table of offerings from Heliopolis, my toes being firm-planted in the Field of Reeds. May the barley and emmer which are in it belong to the Ka of the Osiris Ani.”

An important aspect of the final judgement of the spirit of the dead is the ‘declaration of innocence’ . In a form of “negative confession”, the spirit recites a list of all the transgressions he has not made. He calls on the names of each of the 42 assessor gods (one for each nome or province of the ancient land). The declaration states such things as:-

O Wide-strider who came forth from Heliopolis, I have done no wrong.

O Fire-embracer who came forth from Kheraha, I have not robbed...

O Swallower-of-Shades who came forth from Kernet, I have not slain people...

O He-who-sees-what-he-has-brought who came from the house of Min, I have not (wrongly) copulated…

And so forth. Some of the sins do not seem particularly serious to our eyes 3,500 years later, but they must have had relevance in their day.

O Ihy who came forth from the Primordial Waters, my voice was not loud…

O Possessor of Faces who came forth from Nedjefet, I have not been impatient…

O Upraised of Head who came forth from the shrine, I have not stolen the Khenef-cakes from the Blessed.”

”The most important chapter occurs early in Ani’s Book. Straight after the hymns of praise comes a Chapter known as the ‘Chapter for not letting Ani’s heart create opposition against him in the God’s Domain.’ This chapter contains “The weighing scene” and “The introduction of Ani to Osiris”. Ani’s heart is placed on one pan of the balance and a feather (the symbol of Ma’at the goddess of justice and order) is placed on the other. Anubis, the canine god of embalming controls the balance while Thoth, the god of wisdom stands by to record the outcome. A horrible beast called Ammit waits hopefully, because if the heart fails the test it is thrown to the beast to consume. Geb the earth god, his daughters Isis and Nephthys and other gods are present. Ani pleads that his own heart will not let him down “Oh my heart I had from my mother!....do not make my name stink to (the) Entourage who make men. Do not tell lies about me in the presence of the god,”

The judge of truth, the god Thoth, declares his findings to the Great Ennead. Thoth says, “I have judged the heart of the deceased, and his soul stands as witness for him. His deeds are righteous in the great balance, and no sin has been found in him...” The assembly of gods of the Great Ennead reply to Thoth, “This utterance of yours is true. The vindicated Osiris Ani is straightforward, he has no sin…let there be given to him the offerings which are issued in the presence of Osiris and may a grant of land be established in the Field of Offerings as for the followers of Horus.” At this point Ani’s heart has passed the test of the balance and he is led by Horus into the presence of Osiris who is shown on his throne with his sisters Isis and Nephthys and with the four sons of Horus standing on a lotus flower. Ani the Scribe is shown sitting before the throne of Osiris.

Ani says, “Here am I in your presence, O Lord of the West. There is no wrong doing in my body, I have not wittingly told lies; there has been no second fault. Grant that I may be like the favoured ones who are in your suite, O Osiris, one greatly favoured by the good god, one loved of the Lord of the Two Lands (the Pharaoh), Ani, vindicated before Osiris.”

With the blessing of Osiris, the Royal Scribe Ani passes into the Field of Reeds to enjoy eternity in the afterlife.

This short article cannot hope to present a full appreciation of the beauty and depth of content of the Book of the Dead. My recommendation for further study would be to obtain a copy of Dr. Faulkner’s translation of the Papyrus of Ani and, if possible, to visit the special exhibition of The Book of the Dead in the British Museum to be held from 4 November 2010 to 6 March 2011. This short article cannot hope to present a full appreciation of the beauty and depth of content of the Book of the Dead. My recommendation for further study would be to obtain a copy of Dr. Faulkner’s translation of the Papyrus of Ani and, if possible, to visit the special exhibition of The Book of the Dead in the British Museum to be held from 4 November 2010 to 6 March 2011.

.

FALSE DOORS IN TOMBS AND TEMPLES

The ‘Spirit Door’ is the threshold between the mortal world and the eternal space where the spirits of those who have died go to enjoy the pleasures of their afterlife. Because it was not a real door, archaeologists have chosen to call this spiritual access a “False Door”, a rather unfortunate choice of name that tends to demean its important role.

In ancient Egypt it was believed that a person was formed from clay on the wheel of Khnum the divine potter. At the same time Khnum also fashioned a duplicate of the person. The duplicate or copy was indistinguishable from the person except that it was contained within the person’s body and it was immortal. When a person died and was mummified, this spiritual copy called the person’s Ka was released in ceremony called “the opening of the mouth”. The Ka drew its energy from the memories of mortals and it was invigorated each time the deceased’s name was spoken with love or reverence.

Ancient Egyptians understood the need to demarcate the supernatural access through which the Ka could pass between the worlds of the living and the dead. A newly released Ka, unfamiliar with the ways of eternity, would be directed by spells on the walls to the spirit door. The door frame was often decorated with portraits of the deceased mortal. It was inscribed with the deceased name and the offices held and honours bestowed on the dead individual. In some instances a figure of the deceased was erected in the doorway as if emerging from the spirit world. The Ka passing through the spirit door was able to read the achievements of which it should be proud; statements that could be made to the assessor gods to justify its position in the afterlife.

The access doors to the world of gods and spirits were usually made of stone. The ideal stone would have been granite from Aswan, the stone used to line the King’s Chamber in the Great Pyramid, but this stone was difficult to work and not easily obtained. Many doors were made of limestone painted to look like granite. Occasionally false doors were made from wood such as the one on the left.

Spirit doors were not confined to the inside of tombs, but could also be found on the exterior of the walls of some temples where they represented a channel of communication between the god of the temple and the mortal world. A spirit door might also be associated with “the hearing ear” chapel of a temple. The god to whom the temple was dedicated resided in the temple and the general public did not have access to the interior of the temple. The spirit door was on the outside wall of the temple so that a plea or prayer meant for “the hearing ear” of the divinity would be heard by the god within the temple. Offering tables or slabs were placed at the spirit door for the petitioner to leave offerings for the god who could use the spirit door to access and partake of the offerings. Naturally it was the priests who benefitted from this arrangement.

What did the Ka expect to find when it went through the spirit door? The first task for the Ka was to take the heart (called the Ib) of the deceased to the home of the gods to be weighed in the balance against a feather. The feather was the symbol of Ma’at, the goddess of justice and order. If the heart was filled with the lightness of good deeds and if the Ka proclaimed its innocence of any evil acts, the life of the deceased was judged by the assessor gods to have been justified and the Ka was recommended to Osiris, the god of the dead for a place in eternity. Thereafter the Ka would return to the tomb and whenever it wished to go through the spirit door it would find fields of plenty, a feast-laden table and a life of pleasure, meeting those who had gone before while awaiting the arrival of those yet to die. Heaven to the ancient Egyptians was a perfect and eternal version of their life on earth in the land of their birth.

The spirit door or false door was a concept that enabled the spirits to access their vision of a perfect afterlife. Without this gate to the spirit world, the Ka might forever be denied the pleasures of eternity.

SIX ICONS FOR REPATRIATION

Dr Zahi Hawass, Secretary General of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) has made it his mission to repatriate as many ancient Egyptian artifacts as possible. He has already achieved remarkable results. His stated ambition is to recover six major icons of ancient Egypt that currently reside in foreign museums. They are, in no particular order; the bust of Nefertiti in Berlin’s Neues Museum, the Zodiac from Dendara Temple in the Louvre Museum; the Rosetta Stone in The British Museum; the statue of Rameses II in Turin; the bust of the vizier Ankhaf in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts and the statue of Hemiunu in the Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany. In a short series of articles we will describe each item and where possible, determine its provenance.

The first three items on the list, the Bust of Nefertiti, the Zodiac from Dendera Temple and the Rosetta Stone are the subjects of my previous articles. The final three items on the list of icons for repatriation to Egypt are a statue of a young Rameses II; the painted limestone bust of the vizier Prince Ankh-Haf and the statue of the vizier-architect Hemiunu.

THE STATUE OF RAMESES II

The longest reigning monarch of all time, Usermaatra Setepenre Rameses, known to us as Rameses the Great was the third ruler of the 19^th Dynasty. He came to the throne at the age of 18 and ruled Egypt for 67 years.

Rameses, the son of Seti I was crowned in 1279BC. During his long life, Rameses’ likeness was captured in stone and pigment more that any other pharaoh. Statues, carvings and paintings have been discovered in Egypt from the northern-most part of the Nile delta to the southern border at Abu Simbel.

The seated statue in the Turin Museum depicts a very young Rameses, probably at the time of or shortly after his coronation around 1250BC. Rameses had many wives, the primary royal wife being the beautiful Nefertari. Ramses died at the age of 85, an extremely old age when the average life expectancy was around 30 to 35 years. He had over 100 sons and one presumes because it was not recorded, just as many daughters. The seated statue of Rameses is a portrait of the young King in which grace and grandeur are intermixed. The statue is remarkably well preserved, although broken in antiquity it has been reassembled.

Rameses the Great was well known for his military prowess and his exploits at the battle of Kadesh are displayed in the Temple at Abu Simbel. According to the Egyptian version of the battle, Rameses was facing the army of Muwattali, King of the Hittites and found himself surrounded by 2500 Hittite Charioteers with only his personal bodyguard to help him. As the enemy closed in around him, Pharaoh Rameses leaped into his chariot, tied the reigns around his waist to leave his hands free, sent forth a great cry for help to the state god Amun and charged six times against the Hittites, finally breaking through and winning the battle. According to the Hittite version, Rameses barely escaped with his life and the battle was inconclusive, but sufficiently costly for the Egyptians that they returned to Egypt and sued for peace with the Hittites, a peace treaty that was duly recorded.

Despite the large number of existing statues of Rameses II in Egypt, Dr Hawass would like this one to be repatriated from the Museum of Turin. There appears to be no reason to justify his demand other than a desire for Egypt to repossess this beautiful work of art.

THE LIMESTONE BUST OF ANKH-HAF

The painted limestone bust of Prince Ankh-Haf dates to the reign of Khafre, 2558-2532BC in the 4th Dynasty.

Ankh-Haf’s tomb was excavated by the Harvard University-Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition in 1927, and the bust was assigned to the MFA in the division of finds by the government of Egypt.

The bust is made of limestone covered with a thin layer of plaster, into which details have been moulded. The face is individualistic rather than the more common stylised form of the period. From inscriptions in his tomb, we know that Ankh-Haf was the son of King Sneferu, half-brother of King Khufu, and that he served Khafre as Vizier and Overseer of Works. In this last capacity, he may have overseen the building of the second pyramid at the Giza complex and also the carving of the sphinx.

Ankh-Haf is depicted as a mature man with a receding hairline. His eyes were originally painted white with brown pupils. He has a strong mouth over a probable short beard lost in antiquity. He was clearly a man of determination well used to giving orders and being obeyed.

Ankh-Haf's mastaba was the largest in the great Eastern Cemetery at Giza. His bust faced the entrance to a small mud-brick chapel on the east side of the tomb.

In accordance with the terms of the Museum's contract with the Egyptian government, Ankh-Haf’s bust should have gone to the Cairo Museum. It was awarded to Boston in 1927 by the Antiquities Service in gratitude for the Harvard-Boston Expedition's work to excavate and restore objects from the tomb of Queen Hetepheres. It appears that the Supreme Council of Antiquities in Egypt has no justifiable claim on this artifact.

THE STATUE OF ARCHITECT HEMIUNU

Hemiunu was a son of prince Nefermaat and a grandson of king Sneferu of the 4th Dynasty. There is no information about any wives of children of Hemiunu. He was a vizier during the reign of his uncle, Khufu, and is credited for having been the architect of this king's pyramid at Giza, known today as the Great Pyramid. Among the references to his titles are several priestly titles. Hemiuni was a priest for Bastet, Sekhmet, Mendes and Thoth, although it is possible that some of the priestly titles were honorific. Hemiunu is said to have lived until the 19th year of the reign of Khufu, which means that the Great Pyramid was either completed by then, or that it was completed by a different architect. He was buried in a mastaba (mortuary enclosure) at Giza, near the royal pyramid.

The life-size statue was found in a niche of his mastaba. It depicts Hemiunu, seated on a block throne, his right hand decisively clenched, his left hand resting on his knee. His body is heavy with large breasts, perhaps an indication that Hemiunu was fat or a recognition that he was a wealthy individual. The statue's head has been restored around its eyes, which were originally likely to have been inlaid with crystals.

Hemiunu’s statue was discovered in 1912 by the German/Austrian Expedition, inside the chapel of his mastaba in the western cemetery and is now exhibited in the Roemer and Pelizaeus Museum in Hildesheim, Germany. Although it appears that the Egyptians have no real or moral claim on this ancient statue, it may be loaned back from Germany to Egypt to take part in the opening of the Grand Egyptian Museum in at Giza 2011.