History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent DiscoveryKing, L. W. (Leonard William)
History
History of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria in the Light of Recent Discovery
King, L. W. (Leonard William)
Egypt -- History -- To 332 B.C.; History, Ancient
As has already been said, the king Amenhetep I was also buried in the
Dra’ Abu-’l-Negga, but the tomb has not yet been found. Amenhetep I and
his mother, Queen Nefret-ari-Aahmes, who is mentioned in the inscription
translated above, were both venerated as tutelary demons of the Western
Necropolis of Thebes after their deaths, as also was Mentuhetep III. At
Dêr el-Bahari both kings seem to have been worshipped with Hathor, the
Mistress of the Waste. The worship of Amen-Râ in the XVIIIth Dynasty
temple of Dêr el-Bahari was a novelty introduced by the priests of Amen
at that time. But the worship of Hathor went on side by side with that
of Amen in a chapel with a rock-cut shrine at the side of the Great
Temple. Very possibly this was the original cave-shrine of Hathor, long
before Mentuhetep’s time, and was incorporated with the Great Temple and
beautified with the addition of a pillared hall before it, built
over part of the XIth Dynasty north court and wall, by Hatshepsu’s
architects.
The Great Temple, the excavation of which for the Egypt Exploration Fund
was successfully brought to an end by Prof. Naville in 1898, was erected
by Queen Hatshepsu in honour of Amen-Râ, her father Thothmes I, and her
brother-husband Thothmes II, and received a few additions from Thothmes
III, her successor. He, however, did not complete it, and it fell into
disrepair, besides suffering from the iconoclastic zeal of the heretic
Akhunaten, who hammered out some of the beautifully painted scenes upon
its walls. These were badly restored by Ramses II, whose painting is
easily distinguished from the original work by the dulness and badness
of its colour.
The peculiar plan and other remarkable characteristics of this temple
are well known. Its great terraces, with the ramps leading up to them,
flanked by colonnades, which, as we have seen, were imitated from the
design of the old XIth Dynasty temple at its side, are familiar from a
hundred illustrations, and the marvellously preserved colouring of its
delicate reliefs is known to every winter visitor to Egypt, and can be
realized by those who have never been there through the medium of Mr.
Howard Carter’s wonderful coloured reproductions, published in Prof.
Naville’s edition of the temple by the Egypt Exploration Fund. The Great
Temple stands to-day clear of all the débris which used to cover it, a
lasting monument to the work of the greatest of the societies which busy
themselves with the unearthing of the relics of the ancient world.
[Illustration: 334.jpg THE TWO TEMPLES OF DÊR EL-BAHARI.] Excavated by
Prof. Nayille, 1893-8 and 1903-6, for the Egypt Exploration Fund
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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