Relations Between State and Clergy April 20, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Hotels, Memorial, Museum, Travellers Cheque , add a commentWe have been aware that the temples and religious monuments ofancient Egypt were all the exclusive works of the pharaohs. There isa precise reason for this. Actually, there was only one true priest, one depositary of the divine will, one guarantor of the well-being of the god’s land, the nation: this was the pharaoh. Thus it was that all those connected with worship practices were really subalterns. Even the high priest, the only person who could enter the god’s sanctuary, was merely the pharaoh’s substitute. And just as the state functionary class grew up because the king alone found it impossible to govern a nation with such complex administrative structures, so the priesthood developed because the pharaoh could not attend to the ceremonies of all the nation’s temples. (more…)
Later Additions to the Temple of Karnak April 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Beach Resorts, China, Egypt, Library, Lodges, Malaysia, Museum, South Africa, Thailand, The Nile, Travel Clinic , add a commentThis is a singular monument, perhaps unique among all those preserved in Egypt. Its general orientation is not east-west like the Amon sanctuary, but north-south. It is in rectangular form, divided into two parts that go along the entire length of the structure. The western part includes a colonnaded room whose minor axis is aligned with the axis of the sanctuary of Amon ; north of this room there are three chapels. The eastern section is subdivided into three parts: the southern part includes a colonnaded room surrounded by smaller rooms; the central part consists basically of three rooms aligned on their axis but oriented east-west; finally, the northern part includes a series of rooms that culminated to the north in a solar sanctuary (the same kind as we have seen in Hatshepsut’s funerary temple at Deir el-Bahri). (more…)
Egypt Temple of Karnak April 17, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Air Tickets, Cairo, Credit Card, Egypt , 5commentsIn fact, Karnak is not a temple; it is a complex of temples. Today’s visitor arrives there easily from Luxor, only a couple of miles away. We have already referred to Luxor as the modern town that grew up where Thebes was; in reality the true ancient center, the heart of the New Kingdom’s political and religious life, must have been Karnak. The first impression one has when crossing the threshold of the first pylon (there are many pylons at Karnak), and finding himself amid the ruins of what was the greatest ancient Egyptian sanctuary, is that he will not be able to make any sense out of it. Even the Giza pyramids, although mysterious looking, have an internal logic; they are closed up in themselves and one intuitively experiences them, even when we don’t understand them. Karnak does not offer this possibility. Walking along the courtyards, rooms, columns, obelisks, statues, and miles of hieroglyphic inscriptions, the visitor soon loses any capacity to link one element or monument with another. Therefore one must return to Karnak again and again. Even then, as we have warned, he must avoid searching among the monuments with aesthetic or rational criteria — in short, modern, Western standards. And we have also said that the true temple of Amon was always the sanctuary that formed the central nucleus. All the various additions made over the course of centuries have their own value per se; they are separate nuclei whose presence is independently justified by ceremonial needs, by new ideological lines, or by new links between the various divinities. (more…)
The Roots of the Nineteenth Dynasty April 14, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Destination, Egypt, Memorial, Museum, Round The World , add a commentWe must conclude our exploration of the monuments of the first of the New Kingdom’s dynasties, the Eighteenth, as well as our interpretation of how the policies of that dynasty’s rulers are embodied in those monuments. But before we move on to the monuments of the Nineteenth Dynasty, we must review one other phenomenon that will help to explain how the Nineteenth Dynasty evolved from its predecessors. This phenomenon was the presence of commoners who reached the top of the administrative hierarchy, and found themselves at the king’s side as ministers, counselors, or in some such invaluable role. We have discussed Senmut, who held such a position with Queen Hatshepsut, and we related him to his counterpart, Imhotep, King Djoser’s chief assistant back in the Third Dynasty. There were others during the Eighteenth Dynasty, perhaps none more important than the commoner Amenhotep, Son of Hapu, who held the same position in relation to Amenhotep III. (more…)
Other Nineteenth Dynasty Temples April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Egypt, Memorial, The Nile , add a commentIn discussing the great cult and ceremonial temples of the Eighteenth Dynasty, we did not explore the mortuary temples of the kings because they have been so poorly preserved. Their outer stones were taken off to be used for new constructions, and their inner cores became submerged by the flood waters and later covered over by cultivated fields. Their poor condition was probably also due to the fact that the further away, in time from the death of the king to whom these temples were dedicated, the more the cult tended to languish and then completely die. No pharaoh would be particularly interested in restoring the mortuary temple of one of his predecessors, and even less so in using the structures again, so that we have few remains of the Eighteenth Dynasty mortuary temples. However, it is known that the plan of these temples, in general, was not much different from that of Hatshepsut’s temple at Deir el-Bahri ; that is, it had terraces and arcaded courtyards. (more…)
The Significance of Nineteenth Dynasty Temples April 11, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Cairo, Egypt , add a commentWhat can we learn from such a brief examination of the plans of the Nineteenth Dynasty temples? If we focus on the works of Ramesses II at Karnak and Luxor, the two greatest national sanctuaries, we will note one fact above all. Despite the grandiose nature of the constructions, they do not really impinge upon or modify the basic nucleus of the temple. We have already seen how the courtyard and the hypo- style hall constitute the least secret parts of the sanctuary, those open to the public. It is thus clear that the ruler’s interest did not lie in the cult itself, but rather in developing those features that allowed for wider contact with many levels of the population. Obviously, in doing this, the pharaoh had to choose a means of expression that would be much more immediately accessible for the spectators. (more…)
The Royal Archaeologists of Ancient Egypt continue… April 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt, Greece , add a commentAnother rather exceptional piece of pharaonic archaeological documentation is a series of papyrus documents concerning an investigation into the violation of tombs. The investigation was conducted in the Theban zone under Ramesses IX of the Twentieth Dynasty. It seems obvious that the royal tombs could not remain inviolate for long. As far back as the First Intermediate Period, there is a rather pessimistic text that describes the various acts of “wickedness” committed in the temples because of a lack of stable authority, and among the acts listed was the violation of tombs. Tomb robbery probably never completely ceased, but during the late Twentieth Dynasty, when the state was in the midst of a great economic crisis, (more…)
The Royal Archaeologists of Ancient Egypt April 9, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Egypt , add a commentAll we have said so far applies to Egypt as well as to any other culture. We have seen, for instance, how the development of the Karnak complex was due mainly to a series of pharaonic interventions determined by changes in the general course of both religious affairs and the relationship between royalty and clergy. The Middle Kingdom sanctuary declined and finally disappeared altogether, and the chapels of Sesostris I and Amenemes I became the filling for the third pylon.
There is another remarkable and significant case of political “exploitation” of a famous Egyptian monument. Between the front paws of the Great Sphinx of Giza, there is a granite stele that bears a hieroglyphic inscription. In this text, King Tuthmosis IV of the Eighteenth Dynasty relates how, when still a young prince, he went hunting and grew tired, and then slept in the shade of the statue. (more…)
