DOI Artikel:
Naville, Edouard: Egypt Exploration Fund: excavations at Deir el-Bahari
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.12424#0011
I.-EGYPT EXPLORATION FUND.
A.—EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL-BAHARI.
The excavations of last winter have completed the work at Deir el-Bahari.
The two temples are now entirely cleared, and we can have an approximate
idea of the appearance of the place at the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
The repairs which were made ten years ago to the temple of Hatshepsu,
where the colonnades were raised and covered with roofs in order to
shelter the sculptures, give to the temple an aspect which must he very
like what it was when the architect Seumut had finished his work.
As for the older one, which in some respects was the model used for the
queen's building, it is so much ruined that it is now difficult to imagine
how it looked, especially since its architecture is unique, and we are not
absolutely certain as to the nature of its central part. There is no
question that the temple was devoted to the worship of the King
Mentuhetep II., associated with other gods, and that this worship was
instituted and celebrated during Mentuhetep's own time; but we are still
in doubt as to where the king's real tomb is.
There is every probability that the platform built on the terrace and
surrounded by colonnades supported a pyramid of brick with a white facing,
as we know it from the vignettes of Hathor coming out of the Western
Mountain in the funeral papyri. The evidence of the Abbott Papyrus,
too, shows that there was a pyramid here; but we have no positive proof
of its existence, except some tumbled brickwork which perhaps belonged
to it. Although the presence of a pyramid seems the most plausible
explanation of the existence of the base or platform, it is not absolutely
impossible to assign another purpose to the platform, and to consider- it
as the place where the Hathor cow was supposed to lie down and rest.
In the chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead the vignette shows Osiris
b
A.—EXCAVATIONS AT DEIR EL-BAHARI.
The excavations of last winter have completed the work at Deir el-Bahari.
The two temples are now entirely cleared, and we can have an approximate
idea of the appearance of the place at the time of the XVIIIth Dynasty.
The repairs which were made ten years ago to the temple of Hatshepsu,
where the colonnades were raised and covered with roofs in order to
shelter the sculptures, give to the temple an aspect which must he very
like what it was when the architect Seumut had finished his work.
As for the older one, which in some respects was the model used for the
queen's building, it is so much ruined that it is now difficult to imagine
how it looked, especially since its architecture is unique, and we are not
absolutely certain as to the nature of its central part. There is no
question that the temple was devoted to the worship of the King
Mentuhetep II., associated with other gods, and that this worship was
instituted and celebrated during Mentuhetep's own time; but we are still
in doubt as to where the king's real tomb is.
There is every probability that the platform built on the terrace and
surrounded by colonnades supported a pyramid of brick with a white facing,
as we know it from the vignettes of Hathor coming out of the Western
Mountain in the funeral papyri. The evidence of the Abbott Papyrus,
too, shows that there was a pyramid here; but we have no positive proof
of its existence, except some tumbled brickwork which perhaps belonged
to it. Although the presence of a pyramid seems the most plausible
explanation of the existence of the base or platform, it is not absolutely
impossible to assign another purpose to the platform, and to consider- it
as the place where the Hathor cow was supposed to lie down and rest.
In the chapter 108 of the Book of the Dead the vignette shows Osiris
b