Mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II.

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Mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II in hieroglyphics
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Ach-sut-neb-hepet-Re
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The places of Neb-hepet-Re are transfigured
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Ach-sut-Amun
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Transfigured are the places of Amun
MentuhotepII Temple.JPG
The mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II in Deir el-Bahari

The mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II is a mortuary temple that Mentuhotep II , the ancient Egyptian king ( pharaoh ) of the 11th dynasty ( Middle Kingdom ), had built. The temple is located on the west bank of Theban in the valley of Deir el-Bahari , very close to the Saff graves of Mentuhotep's ancestors. Historically and structurally, it is an important monument and testament to the transition from the pyramid temples of the Old Kingdom to the millions of years old in the New Kingdom .

The mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II is the only halfway preserved monumental temple building from the Middle Kingdom and was also trend-setting for the approximately 550 years younger mortuary temple of Hatshepsut . Later uses and a landslide covering the ruins in the 20th dynasty led to its poor state of preservation.

exploration

Map of Deir el-Bahari

I) Temple of Mentuhotep II.
1) Bab el-Hosan
2) Lower pillar halls (on both sides of the access ramp)
3) Upper hall
between 3) and 4) Outpatient clinic
4) Core building
between 4) and 5) Central courtyard, in the middle of which the Dromos, who leads to the royal tomb
5) Hypostyle Hall
6) Sanctuary
II) Temple of Thutmose III.
III) Temple of Hatshepsut

Since the temple ruins of the Mentuhotep Temple were completely covered with rubble in the early 19th century, travelers at the time did not register that another temple was buried next to the Hatshepsut Temple. In 1858, while working on the Hatshepsut temple , Auguste Mariette's workers came across the cachette of the Month priests from the 22nd to 26th dynasties, which housed a collection of 72 mummy coffins.

In 1859 Lord Dufferin and his assistants, Dr. Lorange and Cyrill C. Graham with excavations in the Mentuhotep area. They began work on the southwest corner of the hypostyle, which was covered by immense debris, and soon afterwards discovered the almost completely looted tomb of Queen Tem . Gradually they worked their way towards the sanctuary, where a seated image of Amunre and a granite altar of Mentuhotep were found. Further finds followed, such as the grave of Neferu ( TT319 ).

In 1898 Howard Carter discovered the Bab el-Hosan. He cleared the gigantic mock grave and came across the black seated statue of the king, which is important in terms of art and religious history.

Cross-sectional drawing by Édouard Naville
Plan of the temple by Édouard Naville

From 1903 to 1907, Édouard Naville explored the area on behalf of the Egypt Exploration Fund. Even if Lord Dufferin - as can be seen from the plan by CC Graham - was not clear about the scope, character and floor plan, one must, despite the repeated assurances of Édouard Naville that he was the first to discover the temple, the fame of the actual finder approve. Under Naville, the temple was completely uncovered and systematically explored for the first time.

Between 1920 and 1931 Herbert E. Winlock carried out another 5 campaigns for the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the Mentuhotep area, the results of which were only published in summary form in the form of preliminary reports.

Between 1967 and 1971 Dieter Arnold carried out a cleaning and reworking of the facility on behalf of the German Archaeological Institute and published his results in three volumes.

architecture

Entrance and forecourt

Head of a standing figure from the forecourt of the temple (salvaged 1921/22, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art )
Aerial view of the mortuary temple
Remains of two seated statues of Mentuhotep II in the forecourt of the mortuary temple

Like its forerunners, the pyramids of the Old Kingdom, the complex had a valley temple - sunken in fruitland - and a 1.2 kilometer long and 46 meter wide pathway , which, however, was no longer covered. The path led into a wide forecourt, which enclosed the innermost valley basin of Deir el-Bahari and was equipped with a multi-row tree planting and standing figures of the king.

In total, archaeological root pits of at least 57  tamarisks and 6  sycamore figs as well as long rectangular beds of various types of flowers can be identified. The temple garden , which has only been archaeologically documented in a few cases, can be reconstructed from this. Several gardeners had to have maintained such an elaborate system with constant commitment, just to manage the irrigation from the Nile Valley one kilometer away and thus to cultivate a green area in the middle of the desert landscape.

At least 22 seated statues of the king were erected to the left and right of the processional street, probably crowned on the south side with the white crown of Upper Egypt and on the north side with the red crown of Lower Egypt . One such sandstone sculpture was found by Herbert Winlock in 1921/22 and is now on display in the Metropolitan Museum of Fine Arts in New York.

Front part of the temple

To the west of the ascent is the actual sanctuary, which was laid out as a terrace temple and consists of two parts, the front part of which was dedicated to Month-Re, an amalgamation of Month , the Theban god of war, who was particularly venerated during the 11th Dynasty , with the sun god Re .

On the eastern front of the temple there are pillar halls on both sides of the access ramp, each consisting of a double row of rectangular pillars and giving the impression of a Saff grave .

A ramp in the central axis of the temple leads to the upper temple terrace. However, it was laid out in 1905 by Édouard Naville and overlays the remains of the original, which is only visible in two places, which are the lowest two layers of the limestone cladding on the side.

Remnants of the outpatient clinic and a corner of the core building on the temple terrace

On the temple terrace, the upper hall, the ambulatory and the core building rise on a 60 meter wide, 43 meter deep and 5 meter high podium.

The outpatient clinic is basically a three-row column courtyard consisting of octagonal pillars, which is bordered by a 5 ells thick wall and whose courtyard is completely filled by the core structure, "so that - especially today in its ruinous state again - the impression of one around this base guided around emerges ”. In addition to the west side, it is surrounded by a pillar hall, the upper hall, and entered through two entrances, namely through a gate on the east side and one on the west side. Of the original 140 pillars of the outpatient clinic, only the bases and stumps are partially preserved.

The core structure, which was uncovered by Édouard Naville in 1904/05, forms a square mock building with a side length of 22 meters and a height of 11 meters. It is the actual center of the front half of the temple and was perhaps the representation of a primeval hill and possibly resembled the superstructure of the royal tombs in Abydos . Édouard Naville and Herbert E. Winlock reconstructed the core building so that it was crowned by a pyramid. Dieter Arnold, however, rejects this for static reasons.

Back part of the temple

Detail of a painted limestone block from the relief program (Naville excavation from 1907, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art )

The rear part of the temple, which served the cult of the deified king, was partially cut into the rising mountain range, with an open courtyard and a pillar hall with the statue chapel. In the last years of the king's reign, the cult of the Theban Amunre was added with the installation of a sanctuary placed in front of the statue room, thus transforming the complex into a real million year house.

The middle courtyard is west of the outpatient clinic. It is flanked by six columns on the north and south sides, and to the east is a two-row columned hall with eight columns each. In the middle of this courtyard is a dromos that descends deeply and leads to the royal tomb. The finds in the central courtyard include a limestone altar and a granite stele of Sestostris III. and six granite statues of Sesostris III.

To the west of the central courtyard is the hypostyle hall, which contains 8 × 10 columns. It is separated from the central courtyard by a wall and is higher up so that a step led up to it.

The sanctuary adjoins the hypostyle hall in the west and consists of a Speos carved into the mountain and a long room in front of it. All three outer and four inner walls of the sanctuary bore inscriptions and representations in painted high relief. On the inside walls of the chapel there were about twenty individual pictures and on the entrance wall two text fields. On relief fragments the king can be seen in the presence of other gods as a god receiving cult. The king is deified because he is represented on an equal footing with the gods. He is not the one who performs the cult, but the one who receives it.

A larger-than-life statue of Mentuhotep II and a seated image of Amunre were found in the statue chamber, the statue probably also representing Amunre. Here again the equation of the king with a god can be observed.

Foundation pits

HE Winlock discovered undamaged foundation pits under the four corners of the temple terrace in 1921/22, which were hacked into the ground and provided with foundation offerings during the foundation ritual , a ritual for laying the foundation stone of temples and graves. These pits contained u. a. a cattle skull, food additions consisting of jugs and bowls with bread, fruit and barley as well as foundation bricks with the names of Mentuhotep II.

In 1970, under the four corners of the core building, additional sets of accessories were found. a. Food offerings such as bread and beef ribs, bronze figures, faience - scepter and sheets contained as a base of offerings. The sheets were inscribed in ink at the corners - seven with the name Mentuhoteps and three with the name of Antef II.

The royal tomb

From the west courtyard leads on the main axis of the temple through the dromos, the entrance, a 150 meter long corridor obliquely down into a granite chamber, which undoubtedly represents the tomb of the king. In contrast to Bab el-Hosan, the corridor is not winding. It runs straight and ends in a chamber that opens to the south, is completely clad with rose granite and has a tapering roof. In it was an alabaster chapel in the form of an Upper Egyptian per-wer shrine. This chapel was once closed with a double door. It housed a wooden coffin and ointment vessels of the king, which left imprints in the ground. Most of the grave goods are no longer preserved due to the various lootings, but the few remains can be used to deduce the grave program, which included numerous models of ships, granaries, bakery models and other models, as well as sceptres, arrows and other cult objects.

The Bab el-Hosan

Access to Bab el-Hosan as it is today (2010), in the background: Temple of Mentuhotep II and Hatshepsut Temple

The entrance to the Bab el-Hosan ("Gate of the Horse"), which is north of the driveway, was discovered by accident in 1898 by Howard Carter when he collapsed with his horse at this point. The facility was named accordingly after the riding horse Carter.

Black seated statue of Mentuhotep II with the crown of Lower Egypt (from Bab el-Hosan, today Egyptian Museum, Cairo)

The complex is a grave that can be seen as the king's second grave. A dromos, about 40 meters long and sloping down from east to west, leads into the ground. At a depth of 17 meters behind a gate, a corridor runs 150 meters down into the mountain.

In the burial chamber, Carter discovered the famous black seat of the king next to an empty coffin. He also came across another shaft in the chamber that descends 30 meters and ends in a room that contained three wooden boats, ceramics and a vessel.

Dieter Arnold interprets the Bab el-Hosan as the grave of Osiris:

"So it should be considered whether the burial of the statue in Bab el-Hosan would not create an Osiris tomb brought to Thebes, so to speak, which was supposed to magically guarantee the Theban rulers an Osirian resurrection [...]. Such an Osiris tomb would have been a facility related to the fate of the king in the other world, which was locked and forgotten after a single use and which should by no means become the nucleus for a public, Theban Osiris cult. "

The Tomb of Tem

In the south-west corner of the hypostyle is the tomb of the main consort Tem , which, in contrast to the other tombs of the temple complex, was deliberately included in the building program of the temple and runs parallel to the royal tomb. The burial chamber, which is reached through a corridor leading down, is largely filled by a huge alabaster sarcophagus. A fragment of a limestone sacrificial slab of the queen was also found here in 1968 during cleaning work.

Six tombs for queens and princesses

Chapel of the Kemsit, relief fragments drawn by Margaret Naville
Entrance to the Sadhe Chapel based on a reconstruction drawing by Margaret Naville

Six lavishly decorated statue chapels, each with underground shaft graves for five royal wives and a princess, are framed on the western rear wall of the outpatient clinic. These are the co-wives Aaschit, Sadeh, Kawit , Kemsit and Henhenet as well as the Princess Majit. Perhaps they all died at the same time from an epidemic at a young age and at the time of an early construction phase of the temple, as the tombs are almost identical, laid out side by side, the shafts of which were closed early on and then some of the pillars of the ambulatory were built over them.

The associated grave chapels were later integrated into the masonry of the outpatient clinic in a niche-like manner. They were only found in fragments and were decorated on the outside with reliefs that show the ladies together with the king, alone or while drinking milk. The sarcophagi of the Aaschit and Kawit, adorned with wonderful relief scenes , are now in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the simple sarcophagus of Henhenet in the Metropolitan Museum of Arts.

Tombs of the Neferu and the court

The grave of the royal consort Neferu ( TT319 ), which clearly stands out from other royal wives due to its size and furnishings, was laid out on the northern edge of the forecourt and later integrated into the mortuary temple of Hatshepsut.

As in the Old Kingdom, tombs for high dignitaries were built near the royal tombs. In the surrounding rocky slopes and the plain east of the complex, today's Asasif , some large saff graves were created, which are difficult to identify because of their poor state of preservation. An attempt was made to align the facilities to the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep and the Aufweg. The largest investments are those of the vizier Dagi ( TT103 ), the treasurer Cheti ( TT311 ) and the asset manager Henenu ( TT313 ).

Reconstruction of the core building

In contrast to most of the other parts of the temple, the reconstruction of the core structure is quite a problem and is the subject of Egyptological discussion. This is due to the lack of informative architectural fragments, the lack of comparable other buildings and the unclear idea of ​​the function and meaning of the building.

Reconstruction drawing of the temple by Édouard Naville with a pyramid on the core

Édouard Naville and Herbert E. Winlock reconstructed a 7 to 8 meter high core building, which was crowned with a pyramid. This reconstruction as a pyramid speaks that in the Abbott Papyrus , a from the time of Ramses IX. Original papyrus with negotiations about grave robbery, the site of Mentuhotep II is expressly referred to as a pyramid. However, other tombs other than pyramids may be referred to in the Abbott Papyrus that were not. In the Tutu stele from the 12th dynasty, the temple name is determined with the pyramid symbol, in two Thaban graffiti with determiners that are more reminiscent of a terrace with obelisks.

Dieter Arnold rejects the reconstruction as a pyramid, since no traces of stones could be found that would suggest a pyramid, which would be expected given the dimensions of such a building. He also expresses static concerns: "The relatively thin sheathing of the interior of the core building, which consists of loose filler rubble, should not have been sufficient to absorb the thrust of such a mass." In addition, a pyramid would be more in the rear part of the complex, which is intended for the death cult of the king to be expected than in the architecturally separated front half.

Current condition of the temple center

As a reconstruction, Dieter Arnold proposes a stylized conception of the primeval hill, which consists of a massive building with a slightly rectangular floor plan with a flat roof terrace. Another variant of this reconstruction comes from Rainer Stadelmann , who supplements the building with a sand hill planted with trees, which represents the original hill.

The discovery of the grave of Nub-cheper-Re Anjotef by Daniel Polz in 2000 based on information in the Abbott Papyrus rekindled the discussion about a pyramid-like superstructure of the Mentuhotep temple. The grave of Nub-cheper-Re Anjotef was formerly built over with a small pyramid with a base length of 11 meters and a calculated height of about 13 meters. A pyramidion of the grave complex of Sechemre-Wepmaat Anjotef could also be assigned. The name of the pyramid in the Abbott Papyrus must therefore be taken seriously. Despite the lack of archaeological evidence, Gunnar Sperveslage comes to the conclusion that the indirect references and analogies speak in favor of a pyramid as the crowning of the core building: “The architecture of the core building thus combines the local Theban tradition of the rows of pillars in front of the Saff graves and the Memphite tradition of the pyramid building. With the pyramid, Mentuhotep consciously leaned on the tradition of the Old Kingdom and thus underpinned his legitimation as ruler over all of Egypt by adapting the traditional royal tomb shape. "

cult

The extremely complex and multi-layered character of the complex, the poor state of preservation and the lack of sufficient inscribed material make comprehensive attempts at interpretation difficult and only allow partial aspects to be recorded.

In view of the great veneration that Month enjoyed under Mentuhotep II, it is not surprising that a large part of the temple was dedicated to this god, in fact it would be difficult to imagine another deity who was one in the Theban area at that time Sanctuary of importance and dimensions of the Mentuhotep Temple could have been dedicated. The god appears in connection with the god Re with a falcon-head and a sun disk adorned by two snakes as Month-Re.

The cult of Amun-Re was carried out by the priesthood of Karnak and the place of worship of Amun-Re in the temple of Mentuhotep II was only a branch of the larger Amun temple in Karnak .

The goddess Hathor also became particularly important in the 11th dynasty . Accordingly, it is also represented in large numbers in the temple's image program, even if it has not been dedicated to its own cult site in the Mentuhotep Temple, which suggests the existence of another Hathor cult site near the temple, which has not yet been proven. The worship of Hathor in the neighboring mortuary temples of the New Kingdom also suggests that this cult originated in this place.

The temple had its own college of reading and purification priests who were responsible for the cult of the deceased or living king. Osirian aspects played a not insignificant role and emerged particularly strongly in the case of Bab el-Hosan.

Under Mentuhotep II, the implementation of the valley festival is documented for the first time , a necropolis festival in which the statue of Amun-Re in the divine royal barge visits the mortuary temple of the deceased king in a procession from the Karnak temple.

History of the temple

Building development

The temple complex is characterized by various phases in which its conception was changed. Dieter Arnold divides the construction work on the temple into four construction phases. Phase A at the time before the unification of the empire was assigned only to the oldest eastern front courtyard wall, which was presumably overtaken by a new project (phase B) before completion, which included a considerable increase in the terrain and was surrounded by a shield-shaped stone wall that encompassed the entire area Surrounded by the Deir el-Bahari basin. In this phase, the six chapels of queen consorts with their grave shafts were probably already laid out, the access road was filled up and a focus of the work was the construction of the Bab el-Hosan, which was intended as the original royal tomb. Apparently a system in the style of the traditional rock tombs, the so-called Saff tombs of Mentuhotep's ancestors, was planned, but in this phase the system obviously already combines elements of the Upper Egyptian court tomb with those of the "Memphite" royal tomb.

After the first jubilee of the king's reign, a temple complex with a fundamentally different conception was probably built in construction phases C and D: the ambulatory with the core building as well as the central courtyard, west courtyard and the hypostyle with the Speos were built and the Bab el-Hosan was built on Abandoned place of the royal tomb.

Black granite statues of Sesostris III. placed in the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, now in the British Museum
Remains of a statue of Sesostris III, today placed in the lower pillar hall of the Mentuhotep temple

Later use of the temple

After the death of Mentuhotep II, the temple was converted into an Amun-Re shrine in accordance with the new religious tendencies. Even if the cult was demonstrably maintained, could for the following 120 years up to the time of Sesostris' III. no new monuments can be detected. Only Sesostris III. expressed his appreciation for the temple by donating a granite stele and six granite statues to it.

In the Second Intermediate Period , too , the temple received foundations.

When building activity began again under Amenophis I in the New Kingdom, Deir el-Bahari immediately returned to the center of interest. Amenhotep I built a small sanctuary here and had statues set up in the Mentuhotep temple by the ramp to the terrace. Under Queen Hatshepsut , this cult center acquired such religious importance that the Temple of Mentuhotep was pushed to the periphery of the basin and into the shadow of this new structure through the construction of the Temple of Hatshepsut . Hatshepsut's successor Thutmose III also left the small space between the two temples . build a mortuary temple.

Apart from a short break during Akhenaten's reign , the cult was maintained until the 20th Dynasty. Under Ramses IV. Or Ramses VI. The demolition of the Mentuhotep temple began, presumably to reuse the building material for a larger temple at the lower end of the road. From the Thutmose Temple, which was also demolished, huge masses of debris slid off the retaining walls and triggered a landslide. The Mentuhotep Temple sank under a huge mound of rubble.

literature

(sorted chronologically)

overview

  • Dieter Arnold: The Temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el-Bahri (= Publications of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Egyptian Expedition 21, ZDB -ID 275440-x ). From the Notes of Herbert Winlock. von Zabern, Mainz am Rhein 1979.
  • Dieter Arnold : The temples of Egypt. Apartments of gods - architectural monuments - places of worship. Artemis and Winkler, Munich a. a. 1992, ISBN 3-7608-1073-X , pp. 140-41.
  • Rosanna Pirelli: Deir el-Bahri, Mentuhotep II complex. In: Kathryn A. Bard (Ed.): Encyclopedia of the Archeology of Ancient Egypt. Routledge, London 1999, ISBN 0-415-18589-0 , pp. 239-42.
  • Dieter Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-96001-0 , pp. 159-60.
  • Thomas Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. In: Kemet vol. 19, issue 1, 2010, p. 19ff.

Monographs (with review)

  • Édouard Naville : The XIth dynasty temple at Deir El-Bahari (= Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund 28, ISSN  0307-5109 ). Part 1. Egypt Exploration Fund u. a., London 1907.
  • Édouard Naville: The XIth dynasty temple at Deir El-Bahari (= Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund 30). Part 2. Egypt Exploration Fund, London 1910.
  • Dieter Arnold: The temple of King Mentuhotep from Deir el-Bahari. von Zabern, Mainz 1974–1981 (at the same time: Munich, Univ., Habil.-Schr.);
    • Volume 1: Architecture and Interpretation (= Archaeological Publications 8, ZDB -ID 526352-9 ), 1974;
    • Volume 2: The wall reliefs of the sanctuary (= Archaeological Publications 11), 1974;
    • Volume 3: The royal additions (= Archaeological Publications 23), 1981.
  • Ingrid Gamer-Wallert : Review: The Temple of King Mentuhotep by Deir el-Bahari. Volume 1. Architecture and Interpretation = Archaeological Publications 8. German Archaeological Institute, Cairo Department by Dieter Arnold. In: The World of the Orient. Scientific contributions to the knowledge of the Orient. (WdO) 8, 1975/1976, ISSN  0043-2547 , pp. 320-323.
  • Eberhard Graefe: Review: D. Arnold, The Temple of King Mentuhotep by Deir el-Bahari. Vol. 1: Architecture and Interpretation. In: Bibliotheca Orientalis. (BiOr) 38, 1981, ISSN  0006-1913 , pp. 38-43.

Questions of detail

  • Howard Carter : Report on the Tomb of Mentuhotep Ist at Deir el-Bahari, Known as the Bab el-Hocan. In: Annales du service des antiquités de l'Égypte. (ASAE) 2, 1901, ISSN  1687-1510 , pp. 201-205.
  • HE Winlock : Excavations at Deir el-Bahari 1911-1931. Macmillan, New York NY 1942.
  • Gunnar Sperveslage: The pyramid of Mentuhotep. In: Sokar , Vol. 18, 2009, pp. 60-69.

Web links

Commons : Mortuary Temple of Mentuhotep II.  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 2, p. 90.
  2. ^ A b D. Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. S. 159 and D. Arnold: The temples of Egypt. P. 140.
  3. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 70.
  4. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 70f.
  5. ^ D. Arnold: The temple of the king Mentuhotep in Deir el-Bahari. 3 vol.
  6. Winlock quote after Dieter Arnold, The Temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el Bahari 1979 p. 21ff
  7. Robichon-Varille quote after Dieter Arnold, The Temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el Bahari 1979 p. 21st
  8. ^ T. Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. P. 21.
  9. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. P. 11ff.
  10. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 16f.
  11. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 21f.
  12. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 27ff .; Arnold: Lexicon of Architecture. S. 159, and Höveler-Müller: In the beginning there was Egypt. P. 142.
  13. D. Arnold: The temples of Egypt. P. 141.
  14. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 33.
  15. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 34f.
  16. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 3, p. 15.
  17. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 3, p. 16.
  18. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 3, pp. 33f.
  19. ^ D. Arnold: The Temple of Mentuhotep at Deir el-Bahari. P. 49ff. and the founding ritual: Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian Architecture. P. 95f.
  20. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 3, p. 52 ff.
  21. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 44ff. and Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. P. 26.
  22. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 51ff.
  23. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 82.
  24. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 53f.
  25. ^ T. Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. P. 23 f. and Lexicon of Egyptology. Vol. 1, p. 1015.
  26. ^ T. Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. P. 25.
  27. ^ T. Kühn: The royal temple and grave district Mentu-hotep II in Deir el-Bahari. P. 27.
  28. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 28ff.
  29. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 30.
  30. M. Verner: The pyramids. P. 432, see also: Stadelmann: Die Ägyptischen Pyramiden. P. 232.
  31. G. Sperveslage: The pyramid of Mentuhotep. P. 68.
  32. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 72.
  33. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 75.
  34. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 78ff.
  35. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 83f.
  36. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 72ff.
  37. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 80f.
  38. S. Schott: The beautiful festival of the desert valley. P. 94.
  39. ^ A b D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, pp. 62ff. and Thomas Schneider: Lexicon of the Pharaohs. 2002, p. 156.
  40. R. Stadelmann: The Egyptian pyramids. P. 231.
  41. ^ D. Arnold: Mentuhotep. Vol. 1, p. 67ff.

Coordinates: 25 ° 44 ′ 14.5 ″  N , 32 ° 36 ′ 22 ″  E