DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4147#0021
14
DEIB EL BAHAltl.
in all the tombs; in richness and abundance they are
worthy of the person for whom they were destined.
If we turn to the north side of this same upper plat-
form, we meet with traces of another worship, not of a
funerary nature. Separated from the central court by a
stone wall is a small court, open to the sky ; there
stands a great altar with a staircase. The inscription
on the cornice says that the queen " raised a great
white stone altar to her father Harmakhis." This
was the god of Heliopolis. We do not clearly see
why this altar was placed here, nor the reason for
the introduction of the Heliopolitan worship in this
place; for in the little chapel which I have called
the chapel of Thothmes I., and which opens on to
the court of the altar, Hatshepsu and her father
offer up worship to Amut, who is decidedly a funerary
divinity.
Curiously enough, this altar has shown us that there
were in the worship offered by Hatshepsu certain
features which Amenophis IV. brought particularly
into prominence in his religious revolution. His
worship of the god Aten much resembles that celebrated
at the queen's altar. In the drawings of Tel el Amarna
Ave see courts open to the sky, with altars identical to
the one disovered at Deir el Bahari. On this altar the
king piled his offerings, and with uplifted arms prayed
to the sun, which at Deir el Bahari must have been the
noonday sun, for the ceiling of the vestibule in front
of the court must have prevented the rising sun from
being seen. So in this respect Amenophis IV. made
no innovation ; the name also of the sanctuary of Deir
el Bahari, [0 $ u] (j ° $ ^ &, "the horizon of
Amon of Ramaka," is not unlike the name which
Amenophis gives to the temple of Tel el Amarna.
The builders of Senmut were working in the middle
part of the temple when the queen died ; the great
colonnade on the north boundary is the proof of this.
It is composed of a single row of proto-Doric columns;
but they have no ornamentation, no painting, no
sculpture, no inscriptions. The chambers opening on
to the colonnade are ready to receive the decoration,
which is nowhere to be seen. It is even doubtful if
the architrave was carried to the end. To build this
colonnade the rock had to be broken down, so as to
make a vertical face against which to set the breast
wall. When this work was started, the vast platform
which forms the first terrace was already levelled, and
the builders were content to pile on it the mass of
fragments accumulated from the digging out of the
chambers and the breaking down of the rock. The
queen dying soon after, no one troubled to take them
away, and they remained there till our times. The
Copts used them to fill up the vestibule of Anubis, and
the colonnade of the birth, on which spot they founded
part of their convent. They used it as a cemetery,
where they laid mummies of men and women. Now
that it is cleared away, leaving the vast platform free
in all its length, so that nothing blocks the view over
the valley of the Nile from the vestibule of Anubis, we
can say that the temple is better cleared than it ever
was. The excavations of the nineteenth century com-
plete the work of the builders of Senmut.
The temple of Deir el Bahari can also give us an
idea of what the art of the XVIIIth Dynasty was. It
is certain that under the reign of the Hyksos Egyptian
art had much declined. These foreign sovereigns do
not seem to have erected great and beautiful buildings;
if they did, they have perhaps been destroyed. The
kings of the XVIIth Dynasty were too occupied with
war, seeking to free their kingdom from the foreign
yoke, and could not think of art. But in the XVIIIth,
when the country was re-conquered, when peace and
some prosperity were restored, allowing the Pharaohs
to make successful incursions into foreign countries,
then we see art again flourishing, and attaining that
degree of perfection which had already been reached
in ancient times, and which was never surpassed. When
considering the figure of Aahmes, the most beautiful
found at Deir el Bahari, we recognize that it belongs
to the best Egyptian art; the lines are bold and sure,
the choice of colours is very pleasing. Nevertheless,
what is called conventionality always exists; and from
this Egyptian art never freed itself. This convention-
ality is even more marked in the statues of this period
than in those of the Old Empire. We see that the
idea of progress, the necessity for abandoning, certain
childish proceedings and getting nearer the truth, were
not understood by Egyptian artists. It is, however,
much to be regretted that the vandalism of the queen's
successors should have so damaged the sculptures of
her temple, which has certainly been one of the most
beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt.
It has been asked if we ought to see in this terraced
building a foreign influence. Was it, as has been
supposed, a sort of reminiscence of the land of Punt,
called in the hieroglyphs " the ladders (or the staircases)
of incense"? The discovery of the temple of Mentu-
hotep has caused this idea to be abandoned. The king
DEIB EL BAHAltl.
in all the tombs; in richness and abundance they are
worthy of the person for whom they were destined.
If we turn to the north side of this same upper plat-
form, we meet with traces of another worship, not of a
funerary nature. Separated from the central court by a
stone wall is a small court, open to the sky ; there
stands a great altar with a staircase. The inscription
on the cornice says that the queen " raised a great
white stone altar to her father Harmakhis." This
was the god of Heliopolis. We do not clearly see
why this altar was placed here, nor the reason for
the introduction of the Heliopolitan worship in this
place; for in the little chapel which I have called
the chapel of Thothmes I., and which opens on to
the court of the altar, Hatshepsu and her father
offer up worship to Amut, who is decidedly a funerary
divinity.
Curiously enough, this altar has shown us that there
were in the worship offered by Hatshepsu certain
features which Amenophis IV. brought particularly
into prominence in his religious revolution. His
worship of the god Aten much resembles that celebrated
at the queen's altar. In the drawings of Tel el Amarna
Ave see courts open to the sky, with altars identical to
the one disovered at Deir el Bahari. On this altar the
king piled his offerings, and with uplifted arms prayed
to the sun, which at Deir el Bahari must have been the
noonday sun, for the ceiling of the vestibule in front
of the court must have prevented the rising sun from
being seen. So in this respect Amenophis IV. made
no innovation ; the name also of the sanctuary of Deir
el Bahari, [0 $ u] (j ° $ ^ &, "the horizon of
Amon of Ramaka," is not unlike the name which
Amenophis gives to the temple of Tel el Amarna.
The builders of Senmut were working in the middle
part of the temple when the queen died ; the great
colonnade on the north boundary is the proof of this.
It is composed of a single row of proto-Doric columns;
but they have no ornamentation, no painting, no
sculpture, no inscriptions. The chambers opening on
to the colonnade are ready to receive the decoration,
which is nowhere to be seen. It is even doubtful if
the architrave was carried to the end. To build this
colonnade the rock had to be broken down, so as to
make a vertical face against which to set the breast
wall. When this work was started, the vast platform
which forms the first terrace was already levelled, and
the builders were content to pile on it the mass of
fragments accumulated from the digging out of the
chambers and the breaking down of the rock. The
queen dying soon after, no one troubled to take them
away, and they remained there till our times. The
Copts used them to fill up the vestibule of Anubis, and
the colonnade of the birth, on which spot they founded
part of their convent. They used it as a cemetery,
where they laid mummies of men and women. Now
that it is cleared away, leaving the vast platform free
in all its length, so that nothing blocks the view over
the valley of the Nile from the vestibule of Anubis, we
can say that the temple is better cleared than it ever
was. The excavations of the nineteenth century com-
plete the work of the builders of Senmut.
The temple of Deir el Bahari can also give us an
idea of what the art of the XVIIIth Dynasty was. It
is certain that under the reign of the Hyksos Egyptian
art had much declined. These foreign sovereigns do
not seem to have erected great and beautiful buildings;
if they did, they have perhaps been destroyed. The
kings of the XVIIth Dynasty were too occupied with
war, seeking to free their kingdom from the foreign
yoke, and could not think of art. But in the XVIIIth,
when the country was re-conquered, when peace and
some prosperity were restored, allowing the Pharaohs
to make successful incursions into foreign countries,
then we see art again flourishing, and attaining that
degree of perfection which had already been reached
in ancient times, and which was never surpassed. When
considering the figure of Aahmes, the most beautiful
found at Deir el Bahari, we recognize that it belongs
to the best Egyptian art; the lines are bold and sure,
the choice of colours is very pleasing. Nevertheless,
what is called conventionality always exists; and from
this Egyptian art never freed itself. This convention-
ality is even more marked in the statues of this period
than in those of the Old Empire. We see that the
idea of progress, the necessity for abandoning, certain
childish proceedings and getting nearer the truth, were
not understood by Egyptian artists. It is, however,
much to be regretted that the vandalism of the queen's
successors should have so damaged the sculptures of
her temple, which has certainly been one of the most
beautiful monuments of ancient Egypt.
It has been asked if we ought to see in this terraced
building a foreign influence. Was it, as has been
supposed, a sort of reminiscence of the land of Punt,
called in the hieroglyphs " the ladders (or the staircases)
of incense"? The discovery of the temple of Mentu-
hotep has caused this idea to be abandoned. The king