Temple of Amenhotep III by el-Kab

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Temple of Amenhotep III

The temple of Amenhotep III. von el-Kab is the ruin of a small sanctuary dedicated to the goddesses Nechbet and Hathor from the first half of the 14th century BC. Chr. In Upper Egypt . The sandstone structure is located about 3.4 kilometers northeast of the surrounding wall of the ancient Egyptian town of Necheb , today's el-Kab on the east bank of the Nile . The temple stands on the edge of Wadi Hilâl in the Arabian Desert . In ancient times the area around the place of worship of the sanctuary was called Ra-inet ( R3 jnt 'mouth of the valley'). The temple was a storage chapel for the sacred barque that was used for the Nechbet processions.

history

Temple of Amenhotep III from el-Kab (Egypt)
Temple of Amenhotep III
Temple of Amenhotep III
Location in Egypt

Since two kings of the 18th dynasty are represented in the reliefs of the temple , Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III. is not sure when the building was built. Either he was completely at the beginning of Amenhotep III's reign. (around 1385 BC) or started by his father Thutmose IV and completed by his son.

In the time after the death of Amenhotep III. His proper name Amenhotepheqawaset ( Jmn ḥtp ḥq3 W3st ' Amun is satisfied, ruler of Thebes ') was chiseled out of the cartouches , while his throne name Neb-maat-Re ( Nb-m3ˁt-Rˁ , Lord of the mate is Re ') remained intact. Even the name of the goddess Nekhbet was sämtlichst scraped and only later in the restoration of the temple by King Seti I. replaced. Here, after Richard Lepsius , who visited the temple in 1849, another deity could possibly have been worshiped beforehand, whose name was replaced by that of Nechbet. Lepsius uses the Greek name Eileithyia for the goddess Nechbet when describing the temple in his work Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia . The destruction of cartouches and god names is generally attributed to Akhenaten's time .

Seti I let in some of the cartouches of Amenhotep III. his own throne name Men-maat-Re ( Mn-m3ˁ.t-Rˁ ‚Bleibend (constant) is the world order of Re '), among other things in the reliefs of the door post to the left of the temple entrance (after Lepsius) and the lintel where in a double scene the king's races in front of two enthroned goddesses are depicted. Another change on the facade is the Proskynema of Prince Chaemwaset in front of his father King Ramses II with the date of his 41st year of reign on the right of the entrance door. In Ptolemaic times, the temple was restored again. He received a porch supported by eight columns and six pillars. The ceiling in the actual temple house was painted, on which the cartouches of King Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II can be seen.

Entrance to the temple
Entrance reliefs 1843

Modern European scholars first visited the temple in 1799 as part of Napoleon Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition . During the royal Prussian expedition to Egypt (1842–1845) under Richard Lepsius, at the end of 1843, copies of the reliefs and inscriptions were made. The first photographs of the temple were made in 1898 by Joseph John Tylor .

description

The temple of Amenhotep III. is about 10 meters wide and over 16 meters long including the former Ptolemaic porch. Four stumps of the former six pillars and the lower parts of the eight columns still stand from the vestibule. The floor behind the open access to the vestibule in the southwest is covered with sandstone slabs. The area is limited by six preserved lower outer wall remains and the front of the temple house. The remaining parts of the vestibule are unadorned, they have neither reliefs nor paintings. In contrast to the vestibule, the adjoining temple house has been almost completely preserved. It is a building on a rectangular floor plan, the entrance of which is now closed with a metal door. The roof of the temple is supported by four 2.95 meter high polygonal Hathor columns, with the capitals of the sixteen-sided columns only showing one head of the goddess Hathor facing the inner passage. The middle corridor between the columns leads to a niche at the rear of the temple in which the cult image was located.

The door posts to the left and right of the entrance door reflect the same dedication inscriptions in two differently damaged columns of hieroglyphics . The inner columns read: " Horus , strong bull, who appears as mate, the king of Upper and Lower Egypt , the lord of the two countries, Neb-maat-Re, ... loved." On the outside it says: " The two Mistresses who endure the laws, who calm the two countries, the son of Re , loved by his own body, [Amenophis ('Amun is satisfied'), ruler of Thebes] ... ”In contrast to the left door post On the lintel, the cartouche of Seti I's own throne name Men-maat-Re is still recognizable. However, the names of the two goddesses enthroned next to it are missing. In front of the goddess on the left the king, originally Amenophis III, can be seen doing the ritual running of the vase, and in front of the goddess on the right doing the rowing. Like the depiction of Chaemwaset before Ramses II on the occasion of his fifth anniversary of the throne in the 41st year of reign on the right side of the entrance, the carved naves next to the left door post also seem to come from the time after the restoration of Seti I.

The interior of the temple, the sanctuary or sanctuary, is framed on the walls below the ceiling by a painted frieze showing a change of royal cartouches from Amenhotep III. and Hathor heads, with the king's proper name cartouches removed, as everywhere. The frieze also runs, here worked out as a relief, along the lengthwise sandstone beams above the Hathor pillars in the center of the temple. On the southwest wall of the interior, to the left and right of the entrance door, the kings Thutmose IV and Amenhotep III, father and son, are shown sitting in front of sacrificial tables with their backs to the door. In contrast to those of his son, Thutmose IV's proper name cartouches are undamaged. The portraits of the kings are separated from one another by the vertical hieroglyphic line of a parenthetical dedication note , which contains both throne name cartouches. The dedication reads (after Wolfgang Helck ): “But it was His Majesty the King of Upper and Lower Egypt Neb-maat-Re (Nb-m3ˁt-Rˁ) who created this monument to his father, the good God Men-cheperu-Re ( Mn-ḫprw-Rˁ) , has beautified for all eternity. ”Further inscriptions about the kings are each flanked by a vulture spreading its wings , the symbol of the Nechbet ( Nḫbt 'mistress') and of Upper Egypt.

At this point it must be pointed out that in the state of the temple restored by Seti I, the goddess Nechbet appears in two different forms. Next to the main form appears Nebet-ra-inet ( Nbt r3 jnt 'mistress of the valley entrance'), an embodiment of the suckling aspect of the Nechbet, which was especially venerated in this temple. Nebet-ra-inet is a split from the Nechbet, but iconographically corresponds to the goddess. The Egyptologist Wolfgang Waitkus sees in it, with reference to the writing Necheb and Nechbet: Investigations into the history of the cult site Elkab by Hartwig Hartmann , a Hathor form that has entered into a connection with the local goddess Nechbet. The goddess Hathor ( Ḥwt Ḥr 'mother's womb of Horus') embodied an all-embracing mother goddess in the ancient Egyptian religion .

Amenhotep III before Nebet-ra-inet, the mistress of the valley entrance

The reliefs on the inner side walls of the temple have a similar structure. One of the differences relates to the manifestations of the goddess Nechbet. On the right side of the sanctuary, the southeast wall, it is called Nebet-ra-inet. First is Amenhotep III. next to the corners of the entrance wall at the presentation of sacrifices to the gods' barque of the Nechbet or the Nebet-ra-inet. Behind the barges he stands with holy vessels in front of the goddesses, Nechbet on the left, Nebet-ra-inet on the right, and offers a libation . Amenophis III. the Henu crown on the head, the goddesses each have an Atef crown . In the following scene in front of the back wall with the cult niche, the king standing in front of them receives eternal life from the enthroned gods, symbolized by the ankh sign, on the left of Amun ( Jmn 'The Hidden One'), on the right from Hor-nechen ( Ḥr-Nḫn 'Horus of Hierakonpolis ').

The cult niche in the back wall, the northeast wall of the temple, is empty today. There are also no reliefs or paintings in the niche. On the badly damaged reliefs on the back wall to the left and right of the niche , Amenhotep III with the Henu crown presents . again offerings to the goddesses, as on the side walls on the left to Nechbet, right to Nebet-ra-inet. The king's faces and large parts of his body on the right side of the wall have been destroyed.

literature

  • Richard Lepsius : Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia . Volume 4: Upper Egypt . Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1901, p. 41 ff .:  Temple of Amenhotep III. ( online [accessed January 2, 2012]).
  • Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing : Erasures in the temple of Amenophis III. to El Kab . In: Adolf Erman , Georg Steindorff (Hrsg.): Journal for Egyptian language and antiquity . Forty-first volume. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1904, p. 126–130 ( digitized version [accessed April 12, 2016]).
  • Joseph John Tylor, Somers Clarke: Wall drawings and monuments of El Kab. The temple of Amenhetep III . Bernard Quaritch, London 1898 ( online , English [accessed January 2, 2012]).
  • Hartwig Hartmann: Necheb and Nechbet: Investigations into the history of the cult place Elkab . In: German university publications . tape 822 . Hänsel-Hohenhausen, Mainz 1993, ISBN 3-89349-822-2 .

Web links

Commons : Temple of Amenhotep III. by el-Kab  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Wolfgang Helck (Ed.): Lexicon of Egyptology . tape V . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 1984, ISBN 3-447-02489-5 , pp. 87 ( online [accessed January 10, 2012]).
  2. ↑ a b Thierry Benderitter : The temple of Amenhotep III at el Kab. On: www.osirisnet.net , February 18, 2011, archived from the original on January 9, 2015 ; accessed on January 2, 2012 .
  3. ↑ a b c Richard Lepsius : Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia . Volume 4: Upper Egypt . Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1901, p. 41–45:  Temple of Amenhotep III. ( online [accessed January 2, 2012]).
  4. ^ Friedrich Wilhelm von Bissing : Erasures in the temple of Amenophis III. to El Kab . In: A. Erman, G. Steindorff (Hrsg.): Journal for Egyptian language and antiquity . 41st volume. Hinrichs'sche Buchhandlung, Leipzig 1904, p. 126-130 ( online [accessed January 6, 2012]).
  5. ^ Günther Hölbl : A History of the Ptolemaic Empire . Routledge, New York 2001, ISBN 0-415-20145-4 , Religious culture and divine kingship from Ptolemy VI to Cleopatra VII, p. 267 ( online [accessed on January 6, 2012] Original title: Geschichte des Ptolemäerreiches .).
  6. ↑ El-Kab - Temple of Amenophis III. At: www.planetware.com , archived from the original on November 5, 2011 ; accessed on January 6, 2012 .
  7. ↑ Edith Bernhauer: Hathor pillars and Hathor pillars. Ancient Egyptian architectural elements from the New Kingdom to the Late Period . Harrassowitz, Wiesbaden 2005, ISBN 3-447-05214-7 , 6 temples with Hathor supports, p. 24 ( online [accessed January 6, 2012]).
  8. ↑ a b c d e f Amenhotep III. - Buildings. El-Kab. From: www.nefershapiland.de , February 23, 2010, accessed on January 6, 2012 .
  9. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Ramses II. At: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed on January 8, 2012 .
  10. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Ships. From: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed January 8, 2012 .
  11. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Hathorfries 1. At: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed on January 8, 2012 .
  12. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Hathorfries 2. At: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed on January 8, 2012 .
  13. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Offerings 1. At: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed on January 8, 2012 .
  14. ^ Lexicon of the Egyptian gods and names of gods . In: Christian Leitz (Ed.): Orientalia Lovaniensia Analecta . Register. Peeters, Leuven 2003, ISBN 90-429-1376-2 , pp. 524 ( online [accessed January 10, 2012]).
  15. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Sanctuary. From: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed January 10, 2012 .
  16. ↑ Winfried Ulrich: Offerings 3. At: www.aegyptologie.com , 2007, accessed on January 10, 2012 .

Coordinates: 25 ° 8 ′ 18.9 ″  N , 32 ° 49 ′ 43.2 ″  E