Temple of el-Tod

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South side of the Temple of the Month of el-Tod

The Temple of el-death is a former, the falcon-headed god of war Month sacred ancient Egyptian temple in twenty kilometers southwest of Luxor town of el-death (also el-death Arabic طود, DMG aṭ-Ṭūd ). In pre-Ptolemaic times the city was called Ḏrty (Djerti), which means "city of the falcon", and was located in the 4th  Upper Egyptian Gau . The Greeks called el-Tod Touphion and under the rule of the Roman Empire it was called Tuphium . The temple area of ​​el-Tod is about two kilometers south of the Nile and had a quay that could be used during the annual floods of the river in the past. On the opposite side of the river is the city of Armant (Erment), the Hermonthis of antiquity.

history

Temple history

Temple of El Death (Egypt)
Temple of el-Tod
Temple of el-Tod
Location in Egypt

A first indication of the building activity in el-Tod is a granite pillar with the hieroglyphic cartouche of Userkaf , a king ( pharaoh ) of the 5th dynasty in the Old Kingdom . From the time of the Middle Kingdom , blocks of the kings Mentuhotep II. Neb-hapet-Re and Mentuhotep III. Se-anch-ka-Re from the 11th Dynasty found. The previous buildings were replaced in the 12th dynasty by King Sesostris I. Cheper-ka-Re with a new stone temple. A wall with a dedication inscription by the king and the 19.35 × 26.20 meter area made of foundation plates have survived. Under Sesostris I's successor, Amenemhet II. Nebu-kau-Re , there were only a few additions to the building, but four copper boxes with valuables from the Middle East and the Aegean region that were found in the temple foundation date from his reign .

Thutmose 'III barque station

In the time of the New Kingdom was Thutmose III. To the north of the processional street leading from the temple to the banks of the Nile, build a barge station. She was by his successors Amenhotep II , Sethos I , Amenmesse , Ramses III. and Ramses IV. repaired at irregular intervals. Many of the stone blocks from the structure were later used in the construction of Deir Anba Ibshai Church. Outside the area uncovered today, a larger temple to Thutmose III is being built under a mosque. supposed.

Walls of the sacred lake

At the time of the Ptolemies, the Temple of Month was expanded. Signatures of King Ptolemy IV Philopator were found on the inner base of two miniature pylons on the ramp of the wharf connected to the temple . In the time of Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II, a hypostyle and a pronaos were placed in front of the main temple of Sesostris I, including the old facade wall , and a holy lake was added to the outside area . The temple was decorated with further reliefs by Ptolemy X. Alexander I , Ptolemy XII. Neos Dionysus Auletes and Cleopatra VII. Philopator until Roman times under Emperor Antoninus Pius . In the south of the Ptolemaic temple, near the holy lake, a kiosk-like sanctuary was built under the Romans , of which individual column bases and stone blocks have been preserved.

Research history

At the beginning of the 19th century, Jean-François Champollion was the first European researcher to visit the temple complex at el-Tod. But systematic excavations only began in 1934. Under the patronage of the Institut français d'archéologie orientale (IFAO) and the Louvre , the French Egyptologist Fernand Bisson de la Roque exposed the two Ptolemaic halls, the portico of the pronaos and the crypt .

Stone foundation on the southeast side

On February 8, 1936, the excavators found four copper-coated boxes in the stone foundation of the south-east corner of the temple, under a depot of bronze figures of Osiris from the 26th dynasty . They were provided with the cartouche of King Amenemhet II and contained gold and silver bars, pieces of jewelry, chains, silver vessels and processed and raw lapis lazuli . The objects found were stored separately in the boxes according to the type of material. The more than 150 space-saving folded silver vessels, for which parallels from Egypt are completely lacking, have been assigned to both the Minoan and Mycenaean cultures by various researchers , and an origin from Asia Minor , Cyprus or Syria has also been assumed.

Finds from el-Tod ( Louvre )

The assignment to Amenemhet II by the inscription led to the assumption of a possible connection to a temple foundation, which is mentioned in the Rahina inscription found in Memphis . Among other things, it speaks of a trade expedition that returned from ḫnty-š (Lebanon) with 1675.5  dbn of silver (22.79 kg) , which was donated to various temples in Egypt. The finding from el-Tod fits in well with the historical tradition, even if a direct assignment of the temple find from el-Tod to the expedition to the Levant cannot be proven.

Parallels with regard to the vessel shapes and decorative elements of the silver vessels were drawn to the Cretan old palace period (MM IB and MM II), as well as to the late Middle Helladic or early Mycenaean culture. Scientific research localized the most likely region of origin of the raw material in Asia Minor. A connection between Syrian metalwork and Aegean forms also found its way into the various theses of origin. A cross-regional range of shapes is not unlikely, from which metalworkers from the Aegean via Anatolia to Syria drew. The find was split between the Louvre and the Egyptian Museum in Cairo .

The excavations under Bisson de la Roque lasted with an interruption during the Second World War until 1950. In 1979 the Louvre supported further excavations under the direction of Christiane Desroches Noblecourt . These were continued by Bernadette Letellier and Geneviève Pierrat-Bonnefois until 1991.

description

Components stored in front of the temple

The excavation site of el-Tod is about 225 meters long and 80 meters wide in the southeastern section. In the direction of the former quay in the north-west, the area narrows to around 50 meters in width. The entrance to the excavation site is in the southwest. From there you first reach the back of the temple, the foundation plates of the Middle Kingdom located behind the Ptolemaic building. To the west of this, as well as in the entrance area, components of the former temple that were recovered from the excavations are stored at ground level. They are provided with reliefs and hieroglyphics. A use to restore the temple complex has not yet been considered.

North-eastern column remains in the hypostyle
Ptolemaic temple relief

Of the temple, in which next to the god Month his wife Junit was worshiped, only the Ptolemaic porch remains today. The hypostyle was furnished with four columns, the lower parts of which are still in their original position, and, like the pronaos, is richly decorated. The back wall of the Ptolemaic porch formed the outer wall of the temple of the Middle Kingdom from the 12th Dynasty. It is the only remaining upright part of the building with a historically important inscription Sesostris I. Behind it, the temple, built under Sesostris I 19.35 meters wide and 26.20 meters long after the foundation slabs, was about twice as large as its predecessor from the 11th dynasty.

The temple of Senwosret I. consisted of a T-shaped yard with two pillars, which had a length of five meters axis, it laterally flanking indoors with outer facade doors and the actual temple with a 6.50 x 7.80 meter sanctuary , putative a barque shrine. This was open to the front and back and was surrounded on three sides by three chapels. Since these parts of the building no longer exist and can only be deduced from the foundations, the inscription on the preserved front outer wall is the only reference to the builder of the temple. According to a translation by Wolfgang Helck, the inscription reads :

"………. (25) ... Landing his Majesty in this place, appearing at the Hw.t - nTr, performing cult rituals, burning incense, resting inside, consecrating wDh sacrificial tables made of silver, gold, copper, bronze, quartzite, lapis lazuli, turquoise, (26) from all solid gemstones very perfect, very numerous more than anything that has been in this country since earlier (time) was seen in the form of tributes from the foreigners (and) mineral prospectors who roamed the countries. My Majesty said: “I have come to see this place, this pA-pr, which lies in front of the xm-chapel of God, Lord (27) of the gods, decaying to be high in the water. All his at-chambers are filled with rubble, mounds of earth are in his jmn.t-chamber from the destruction that happened there, his dfy are filthy, his lakes are clogged with his wells, a swamp arises at the entrance of his lake, ( 28) by reaching its hills and its banks. This Hw.t [n – nTr] was overgrown with Sbj.t – plants, the holy st, nobody knew it anymore. What I saw there was incomprehensible. All of their walls were in the flame of fire [...] their wab - priests (29) had forgotten to worship ... ""

Plan of the Temple of the Month of el-Tod

It is about 130 meters from the Ptolemaic temple entrance of the Hypostyle to the former quay. A paved path connected the temple with the bank of the Nile. Under Ptolemy IV. Philopator (I), sphinxes were set up on the side over a length of 30 meters , which are completely missing today. About 25 meters north of the Ptolemaic hypostyle, on the right side of the path to the quay, was the barque station of Thutmose III. from the time of the New Kingdom, the 18th Dynasty. Some of the remains of the walls and pillars have been preserved, which have been restored and put up again. The barge station has a rectangular floor plan with 16 outer pillars. A paved path also leads to the main path.

Former quay

The former quay, also built under Ptolemy IV Philopator (I), can be reached through a slightly offset building in front of it. This only has a maximum of eight stone layers of large stone blocks in height. As an extension of the paved path from the temple building, it has a central passage. Behind it is the actual quay, the side of which facing the temple is flanked on both sides by a small, pylon-shaped border with hieroglyphic inscriptions. A low wall made of two layers of stone adjoins them.

The entire former temple area is on a lower level than the surrounding city area. That is why there is no river water today leading to the quay. On an earth wall behind the former landing stage there is a mud brick wall, which apart from buildings separates most of the temple area from the streets of the city.

literature

  • Fernand Bisson de La Rocque: Tôd (1934 à 1936). In: Fouilles de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire. (FIFAO) No. 17, Cairo 1937, ISSN  0768-4703 .
  • Fernand Bisson de La Rocque: Le lac sacré de Tôd. In: Chronique d'Égypte. No. 24, 1937, pp. 3-14.
  • Jean Vercoutter : Tôd (1946-1949). Rapport succint des fouille. In: Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie Orientale. (BIFAO) Volume 50, 1952, pp. 67-87.
  • P. Barguet: Report of the season février-avril 1950. In: Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie Orientale. (BIFAO) Volume 51, 1952, pp. 80-110.
  • Fernand Bisson de La Rocque, Georges Contenau, Fernand Chapouthier: Le Trésor de Tôd (= Documents de fouilles. Volume 11). Imprimerie de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale, Cairo 1953.
  • Wolfgang Helck : Documents of the 18th Dynasty . Akademie-Verlag, Berlin 1961, p. 12–16 ( archive.org - translation of issues 17–22).
  • Dieter Arnold : Comments on the early temples of El-Tôd. In: Communications from the German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department. (MDAIK) Volume 31, 1975, pp. 175-186.
  • Christiane Desroches-Noblecourt : Considérations sur l'existence des divers temples de Monthou à travers les âges, dans le site de Tôd. In: Bulletin de l'Institut français d'archéologie Orientale. (BIFAO) Vol. 84, 1984, pp. 81-109.
  • DB Redford: The Tôd Inscriptions of Senwosret I. In: Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities. (SSEA) Vol. 17, 1987, pp. 36-55.
  • Christophe Thiers, Jean-Francois Gout: Tôd. Les inscriptions du temple ptolémaïque et romain. Subtitle: III. Relevé photographique. and II. Textes et scènes nos 173–329. In: Fouilles de l'Institut français d'archéologie orientale du Caire. (FIFAO) No. 18 / 2–3, Cairo 2003.
  • Felix Höflmayer: The synchronization of the Minoan old and new palace times with the Egyptian chronology . University of Vienna, Vienna 2010, The Treasure of Death: Minoisizing Metal Vessels ?, p. 111–117 ( othes.univie.ac.at [PDF; 17.6 MB ; accessed on March 7, 2016] dissertation).

Web links

Richard Lepsius: Tôt (Tuphium). In: Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia. Volume IV. Richard Lepsius: Tôt (Tuphium). In: Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia. Volume IV.
Richard Lepsius : Tôt (Tuphium). In: Monuments from Egypt and Ethiopia . Volume IV.
Commons : Temple of el-Tod  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files
Wikivoyage: Temple of the Month  - Travel Guide

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b c Dieter Arnold : Lexicon of Egyptian architecture . Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-96001-0 , p. 264 .
  2. ↑ a b c building policy - Sesostris I - El-Tod / Tuphium. In: nefershapiland.de. Retrieved April 17, 2011 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Tôd - Historique des fouilles. In: ifao.egnet.net. Institut français d'archéologie orientale - Le Caire, accessed on April 16, 2011 (French).
  4. ↑ Elke Noppes: Death - Month Temple. In: mentuhotep.de. September 5, 2008, accessed April 16, 2011 .
  5. ↑ Carina Felske: The Temple of God Month. (No longer available online.) In: selket.de. Archived from the original on July 3, 2011 ; Retrieved April 17, 2011 .
  6. ↑ Kirsten Konrad: Architecture and Theology: Pharaonic temple terminology taking into account aspects of royal ideology . Otto Harrassowitz Verlag, Wiesbaden 2006, ISBN 3-447-05436-0 , p. 127 ( scan in Google book search).
  7. ^ Mark Andrews: The Temple of Montu at Tod in Egypt. In: touregypt.net. Retrieved April 18, 2011 .
  8. ↑ The treasure of el-Tod. In: selket.de. Archived from the original on July 3, 2011 ; Retrieved April 19, 2011 .
  9. ↑ Et-death / Tuphium (temple). In: aegyptologie.com. Retrieved April 19, 2011 .
  10. ↑ a b Felix Höflmayer: The synchronization of the Minoan old and new palace times with the Egyptian chronology . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7001-7065-5 , Archäologische Synchronisierung, p. 82 .
  11. ^ Felix Höflmayer: The synchronization of the Minoan old and new palace times with the Egyptian chronology . Publishing house of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 2012, ISBN 978-3-7001-7065-5 , Archäologische Synchronisierung, p. 89 .
  12. ↑ The Tod Treasure. In: ancient-egypt.co.uk. Retrieved April 19, 2011 .

Coordinates: 25 ° 34 ′ 58.9 ″  N , 32 ° 32 ′ 0.9 ″  E