A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)Perrot, Georges
History
A History of Art in Ancient Egypt, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Perrot, Georges
Art -- Egypt -- History; Egypt -- Antiquities
However this may have been, the new type became a success as soon as
it was invented; all the other temples in the district may be more or
less immediately referred to it. The great deities of Egypt, and more
particularly those of Thebes, are never forgotten in them. They
contain numerous representations of the princes in whose honour they
were erected performing acts of worship before Amen-Ra, the Theban god
_par excellence_, who is often accompanied by Mout and Khons, the
other two members of the Theban triad. These temples were therefore
consecrated, like almost all the other sacred buildings of Thebes, to
those local deities which, after the establishment of that city as the
capital of the whole country, became the supreme national gods. Those
gods were as much at home in the temples of which we are speaking as
in their own peculiar sanctuaries on the right bank of the river. In
both places they received the same homage and sacrifices, but in the
funerary temples of the left bank they found themselves associated,
_paredral_ as the Greeks would say, with the princes to whose memory
the temples were raised. These princes were represented with the
attributes of Osiris, both in the statues which were placed against
the piers in the courtyard and in the bas-reliefs upon the long flat
surfaces of the walls. By these attributes they became more closely
allied with the great deity who was the common protector of the dead
and the guarantor of their future resurrection. In this capacity the
deceased prince was worshipped as a god by his own family. Thus, in
the temple of Gournah, we find Rameses I. seated in a _naos_ and
receiving the homage of his grandson, Rameses II.; and, again, the
latter worshipping Amen-Ra, Khons, and Rameses I. at one and the same
time. This presentation of offerings to the deified king, as
represented in the chambers of these temples, recalls the scene which
is carved upon almost all the steles, and with greater variety and
more detail, in the bas-reliefs on the internal walls of the mastabas.
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