07/22/2020
Ancient Egyptian temples
The temples are considered to be ancient Egyptian arts in which the ancient Egyptian excelled and was known in the ancient Egyptian language as "until prose" and means the house of God.
The ancient Egyptian was known for his love of God, his condemnation and his devotion to his worshipers
Therefore, he was interested in building temples throughout Egypt, so the main purpose of building temples was to worship and sanctify gods, offer sacrifices, perform rituals, prayers, and religious ceremonies that pertain to these deities.
Temples in ancient Egypt are divided into two divine temples and funerary temples
As for the temples of the gods, they were the temples in which the worshipers are worshiped and offerings to him offerings, rituals, and religious rituals, and he was instructed to build them the king, and ceremonies and some rituals were erected to construct the foundation stone for this temple, and this type is the eastern part of the Nile, such as Luxor and Karnak
As for the funerary temples, they are attached to the king’s grave to offer offerings to him after his death, and he recites prayers and supplications that help him to other life. This type of temples is spread throughout the old and middle states, such as the temple of King Hanouni, Sanfro, Khafre, and others.
This type of funerary temples in the western, such as the Monastery of Deir al-Bahari and Ramses II
Building stages
The temples went through several stages in their construction, so the method of construction differed from one era to another. For example, before the era of the dynasties, the temples were built of wood and then mud bricks, and they had no effect due to the fragility of the building. Then they proceeded to build stone temples, but this type of temples is difficult to describe and check its design due to the passage of time and lack The presence of complete buildings for it with change and modification of the design, and during that period the temples were concentrated in several specific places such as Heliopolis, Memphis, Abydos, and Tiba
As for the old state, not much was discovered from it, but the most famous temples of that period are sun temples or in what is known as the open temple.
Which was built by King "Nee User Ra" of the Fifth Dynasty
The temple was a large open courtyard on the western side of it. A slope-like building with a staircase was taken as a base on which the obelisk was built, a large “symbol of God Ra.” There was a table of offerings in front of the obelisk consisting of five blocks of alabaster and was connected between the obelisk and the entrance to the temple a series of corridors The rooms are all covered, and it is located on the northern side of the obelisk. A place of low height prepared for the slaughter of animals and alerting channels in which the blood of the victims runs. These temples are known as solar temples in the ancient era.
And also the presence of the pyramid temples, which are built on the eastern side of the pyramids for the funerary rituals of the deceased king, including the Temple of the Pyramid of Sanfu in Meidum and the Temple of the Pyramid of Khafre and these temples are attributed to the Fourth Dynasty
In the middle state, too, there was no clear picture of the temples in that period, many of which were destroyed, such as the Temple of Montuhotep the Third in Deir el-Bahari. Mostly, they renewed the old temples and built another, but what distinguishes the temples in that period was that they were characterized by beautiful spaces and beautiful inscriptions
Including the Temple of Senusert in Karnak, honoring the god Amon
As for the modern state
Temples of that period are still present in their entirety, and despite the apparent complexity of the temples in that period, they are almost similar in shape and design.
Temple design
The temple consists of four parts
The first part is known as the Pylon
The second part is the yard or grand columns
The third part is the hall of the small columns or the halls of the fleet
The fourth part is the Holy of Holies
1_ Edifice
Known in the twentieth dynasty as "stewards", the Greeks called it "pilon"
The path that leads to the edifice
Starting from the river, there is a long, wide road on both sides of the sphinxes and rams at a regular distance, and the longest path is the road that connects Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple, which is more than a mile and a quarter miles long. The purpose of this road was to place the statues and guards of the temple and this road was known as the path of God or Rams Road
And he said that it is a monumental building and two great towers with a rectangular base whose walls tilt inward. The thickness decreases as we rise to the top and on the sides of the concourse there are two statues of the king made of granite or limestone.
2_ The courtyard or the hall of the great pillars This place is designated to receive the common people in the religious festivals of the deity deity or the appearance of the king
In the large pillars square there are scenes and texts of the king's military activity and his strength in the battlefield and his military actions and successful plans that helped him achieve victory and in the pillars hall details of their wars are recorded so that the general public can see it and also mundane views of the political propaganda of the king
3_ Foyers of the fleets or small columns
I mean, the hall of shining or appearing and shining here refers to the king or to the deity worshiped and is celebrated by the boat of the Holy God in the event of his departure from the Holy of Holies in order to receive him and after that the general people or in the event of crowning the king and his exit after purification in the Holy of Holies and the people receive him in the hall of appearance and in this part of The temple There were texts serving the ancient Egyptian religion and only senior priests entered it
4_ The Holy of Holies "Set Wright", meaning the Great Throne
It is a rectangular hall at the end of the temple in which the main idol statue or symbol is preserved inside the sarcophagus or inside the model of the boat placed on its base in the middle of this hall and it was not allowed to enter this place other than the king or the high priest who deputizes for daily service from the king and there were rooms that are not allowed On entering and seeing what there is only those who know the religious secrets of the high priests
The ancient Egyptian did not believe that the statues were deities, but I believe that through certain rites, the souls of the gods will be absorbed in the statues.
All the main parts of the temple are located on one axis so that it is divided by a road that starts from the entrance to the temple and reaches the Holy of Holies, which is the official road to the procession
There was a wall surrounding the temple of milk
They represent images of deities on the walls of the temple and various other types of monuments, either in a human or animal form, or a body that combines a human body with the head of an animal or a bird in which they symbolized the deity or deity
In some temples, there were workshops for the craftsmen of various professions to meet the needs of the temple, and there was a role for teaching young people to read and write, and art institutes for drawing, and there were libraries in which the documents of the temple and the collection of different texts such as governance, teachings, literature, arts, beliefs, myths, science, and knowledge were preserved.
The architectural advantage of the temple is that the ceiling rises from the front of the temple and decreases at the rear, and the floor of the temple decreases at the front and rises at the rear until the gradual shadows of the temple occur, where the courtyard is exposed, flooded with light during the day, followed by a dim light in which the naves and darkness are intended in the rooms of the god, which causes awe for his year People and a sense of mystery
It is worth noting that the idea of designing the temple was one of the legendary "Eternal Hill" coffee Ben
And what appears on the idol Ra at the beginning of creation, the ancient Egyptian thought that the world was originally an eternal space in the form of a liquid mass and they called it "Nun" and it appeared in Nun God Atom the sun idol on a pyramid-shaped stone
Therefore, the floor of the Holy of Holies is the highest area in the temple because it represents the symbol of the eternal hill and imagine that the roof of the temple is like the basement of the sky and that the sarcophagus of the Holy of Holies is like the horizon from which the idol rises when it appears and illuminate the sky the temple.
Written by the researcher: Asma Tantawi
Sources
1_ History of architecture in ancient Egypt, Luxor, by Dr. Syed Tawfiq
2_ History of ancient Egyptian art, Dr. Muharram Kamal
3_ Ancient Egypt civilization by Dr. Ramadan Abdo Ali
