Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean (19.2007(2010))

DEIR EL-BAHARI

EGYPT

RESTORATION WORK IN THE SOLAR CULT
COMPLEX OP THE TEMPLE OF HATSHEPSUT
IN DEIR EL-BAHARI

Teresa Kaczor, Mieczyslaw Michiewicz

The present restoration project of the Solar
Cult Complex located in the northern part
of the Temple of Hatshepsut commenced in
2002. The complex, which comprises a
EXISTING
VESTIBULE
The north wall furnished with a niche in situ,
preserved to just above the lintel of the niche,
that is about 3 m high,1 was restored to its full
height of 5.85 m under the previous head of
the mission, Franciszek Pawlicki, in 1994/5
[Fig. 1]. Red brick (with a plaster coating)
was used for the purpose, introducing
sequences of fragmentary stone blocks in their
original position. Architrave sockets were
marked in their theoretical emplacements.
The same procedure was adopted for the
south and east walls which had been
preserved, the south wall (including the
entrance portal leading into the complex) to a
height of 4.20 m and the east wall to about
2.00 m. The reconstruction of these two walls
to 5.75 m was necessitated, according to
extant conservation documen-tation, by

vestibule hall and an open court, was
excavated and documented in the past
(Karkowski 2003: 29-33), and the remains
preserved and restored on a current basis.
STATE (2002)
ongoing work in the Coronation Portico in
1985 (completed by Z. Wysocki’s team,
cf. Wysocki 1991: 7-20). Of the west wall
separating the vestibule from the open court
only one course of stone blocks has survived
(approx. 0.43 m high).
SOLAR COURT
The north wall with the entrance to the
Upper Shrine of Anubis stood to a height of
approx. 2.00 m. Zygmunt Wysockis team
cleaned the back of the wall in the 1988/89
season, then reinforced its structure,
conserving and completing some of the
blocks from the ceiling of the shrine around
the entrance. Wooden roofing was also
introduced over the shrine at the time to
keep out rain. No more than a third of the
shrine is now still inside the shale rock

1 Photo documentation received from the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York does not show the niche preserved to
its full height, which means that it was restored sometime before the Polish team commenced work on the Temple of
Hatshepsut.

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Polish Archaeology in the Mediterranean 19, Reports 2007