White chapel

White chapel in the open air museum of Karnak

The White Chapel (also Chapelle blanche ) is the oldest surviving structure from the Karnak temple complex in Egypt . This is a Heb-sed shrine, a station chapel of the Sedfest .

history

Nile flood heights for Elephantine (18), Per Hapi and Tell el-Balamun (19)

The chapel was built by Sesostris I in the 12th dynasty . The original location is believed to be between the 4th and 7th pylon of the Karnak Temple. At the time of the New Kingdom , the chapel was demolished as it was probably in the way of the expansion of the Amun temple .

Amenhotep III used the stones as filler material when building the 3rd pylon of the Amun Re Temple. During the restoration of the third pylon, Henri Chevrier found almost all of the spoils , so that the building could be reconstructed in 1938. It can be viewed today in the so-called open - air museum of the Karnak Temple.

Purpose of the chapel

Sesostris I built the white chapel to celebrate his first SED festival . It is dedicated to the god Amun-Re .

At the Opet festival , a procession went from the Karnak Temple to the Luxor Temple . Here the statue of the god Amun-Re was carried by priests in the divine barge. There was a break at the station chapel, the barque was placed on the plinth under the stone canopy and the associated rituals were performed . The procession also passed here during the valley festival .

construction

Nile flood heights: Elephantine to Per Hapi (20) and Per Hapi to the northern border of Tell el-Balamun (21).

On a 1.18 meter high plinth is a 6.54 × 6.54 meter kiosk , whose god-shadow roof is supported by four by four pillars. Ramps lead up from two opposite sides. On the stone blocks in the middle of the building which was gods bark off.

The hieroglyphic inscriptions on the white limestone blocks deal with the veneration of Amun- Re and provide interesting information for research on the organization of the 42 Egyptian districts (see: Gauliste von Sesostris I. ). In addition, mythological levels of the Nile flood are noted, which represent the lower threshold value of a still tolerable level and therefore deviate from the average level heights actually reached. The mentioned Nile marks come from older sources and were also taken over unchanged in later epochs by other ancient Egyptian kings.

literature

• Dieter Arnold : Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. Albatros, Düsseldorf 2000, ISBN 3-491-96001-0 .
• Dieter Arnold: The temples of Egypt. Apartments for gods, monuments, places of worship. Artemis & Winkler, Zurich 1992, ISBN 3-86047-215-1 .
• Ludwig Borchardt : On the building history of the Temple of Amon from Karnak. Reprographic reprint of the Leipzig 1905 edition. Olms, Hildesheim 1964, ( Studies on the history and antiquity of Egypt 5, 1).
• Stephan Seidlmayer : Historic and modern Nile stands. Investigations into the level readings of the Nile from the early days to the present . Achet, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-9803-7308-8 .
• Dietrich Wildung : Sesostris and Amenemhet, Egypt in the Middle Kingdom. Hirmer, Munich 1984, ISBN 3-77743-720-4 , (also: licensed edition. Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft , Darmstadt 1985).

Individual evidence

1. ^ Dieter Arnold: Lexicon of Egyptian architecture. P. 48. → Chapelle blanche

Coordinates: 25 ° 43 ′ 7 ″  N , 32 ° 39 ′ 31 ″  E

Web links

Commons : White Chapel in Karnak  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

• The Karnak Project - Laurie Rouviere: Chapelle blanche - Senusret I - (KIU 1027) . (French) From: cfeetk.cnrs.fr , last updated: June 14, 2013, accessed on August 21, 2014.