Tod Temple: The Preciousness is in the Details

Pharaohs built their falcon-headed god of war multiple homes around the ancient city of Thebes. The god Montu rose to prominence in the Middle Kingdom at a time when the pharaohs made him their patron deity. Many pharaohs of this period were named Montuhotep, meaning "Montu is Satisfied" and he must have been very satisfied with the four temples built in his honour that marked the territory of, and protected, Thebes (modern Luxor). To the North was his house at Medamud. He had another just outside the north wall of Karnak temple. To the South, on the west bank of the Nile, the god lived at Armant; while on the east bank he also had a temple at Tod (pronounced 'toad').

One of the first modern visitors to Tod was Jean-Francois Champollion, who would become the decipherer of hieroglyphs and the Father of Egyptology. During his trip in 1828/29, Champollion investigated a 'crypt' that was engulfed by an Egyptian village. Almost a century later another Frenchman, Fernand Bisson de la Roque, cleared the village and began excavations to reveal two halls of the buried temple. The crypt that Champollion investigated and Bisson de la Roque cleared was beneath this chapel dedicated to the consorts of Montu: Tjenenyet and Ra'ttawy. On the walls, the pharaoh is depicted performing the holy rites for the goddesses.

In fact, the chapel was a mammissi, or birth house. At other sites, Dendara in particular, the mammissi was a separate building within the sacred precinct, but they were also built as chapels within a temple. Mammissi commemorated either the birth of the diety or the divine birth of the pharaoh, thus proving his divine right to rule. This special building or chapel appeared in the Ptolemaic period when the pharaohs, of Greek origin, had to prove their birthright. At Tod, the hippopotamus goddess Taweret waddles across the ways. She presided over fertility and childbirth. In her hands she holds what is thought to be a roll of cloth that is tied near one end. This is the hieroglyph sa that symbolized protection. Taweret protected mothers in childbirth and the household in general.

Although the temple is beautiful in its own right, perhaps the most fascinating aspect of a visit today is wandering through the storage area of decorated fragments that have not yet been restored to their proper place in the temple. French archaeologists are still working at the site and have arranged the blocks in groups of like pieces. They have before them a massive jigsaw puzzle and, in this case, each fragment is extraordinary in its own right.

It is in the blockyard that one can see evidence from what may have been the earliest temple at Tod. A slab of pink Aswan granite bears the cartouche of Userkaf, the first pharaoh of Egypt's fifth dynasty. Userkaf ascended the throne in c. 2494 B.C. and ruled for only seven years. Yet within that short space of time he constructed his pyramid at Sakara, a solar temple at Abusir and, perhaps, the temple of Montu at Tod.

The massive granite block was excavated at the site but archaeologists have not found any other evidence for an Userkaf temple. The first temple structure that they have direct evidence for was built by Mentuhotep II in 2050 B.C., some four centuries after Userkaf. It is possible that the block may have been moved from another site and reused at Tod. Unfortunately, no mention of Tod (ancient Djerty) or the god Montu has been preserved on the fragment. Such mention would have been proof positive that Userkaf built a temple here. So the question of the existence of an Userkaf temple remains for open for discussion.

Egyptian temples can be overwhelming when visitors try to comprehend the multitude of figures that are carved on any one wall. Viewing a fragment allows the beholder to appreciate the exquisiteness of the carving. For example, looking at the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet in her original position as a very small part of a complete temple wall, the viewer might easily overlook her regal whiskers, the tautness of her cheek, and the details of her crown. As a goddess of war and protector of pharaohs, she is a feminine compatriot of Montu. She and Montu also originated as solar deities, hence the sun disk crowning her head.

One corner of the blockyard is dedicated to carved architectural fragments from two churches built at the site. One dates to the 5th century A.D. The other was dedicated to Anba Ibshay, a local saint, and was destroyed in late medieval times.

In this section of the blockyard lies a beautiful lintel carved with the Coptic Cross. The cross is derived from the pharaonic ankh, symbol of life. Since the ankh is composed of a T cross with a circle on top, it was an easy step for early Christians to associate it with the eternal life promised by Christ. On the lintel block, the cross is placed inside a building which probably refers to the very church that the stone decorated.

Beneath a church and the Ptolemaic temple's flooring, in the foundation of the Middle Kingdom temple, French Egyptologist Fernand Bisson de la Roque discovered the Tod Treasure. Although the treasure contained silver, lapis lazuli and some gold bullion, the stone fragments that are lined up around the temple seem just as precious.

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The temple itself does not look as impressive from the satellite as it does with feet firmly placed on the earth. The small building in the upper left of the satellite image is Montu's barque shrine, originally built by Tuthmosis III but also bearing decoration from succeeding pharaohs. The square space to the right of the temple are the Roman period walls of the temple's sacred lake.

GETTING THERE	USEFUL INFO SOURCES
Be sure to purchase an entry ticket at Luxor Temple before setting out for Tod. Tickets are not sold at the temple. Ticket price for a foreign adult is 25LE. Head South for 5.6 km beyond the Luxor Bridge. There is a checkpoint at the turn for Tod village. Turn left (East) at the checkpoint and follow the road through the village and past the monastery. At the Y-intersection with a yellow mosque building in the center, turn right (West) and drive for another .3 km to the temple's entrance.	Egyptian Monuments blog by Su Bayfield, Tod
	Tour Egypt website, The Temple of Montu at Tod in Egypt by Mark Andrews
	Louvre Museum Collection 11th Dynasty Relief from the Temple of Monthu at Tod
	Louvre Museum Collection The Tod Treasure

Secrets Unveiled at Dendara

 In wanton imitation of Dr. Hawass, who has achieved literary fame with an untold number of 'secret' articles and at least five 'secret' books (Secrets from the Sand, Secrets of the Pharaohs, Secrets of the Sphinx, Zahi Hawass's Secret Egypt: A Travel Guide, and the ultimate, limited edition A Secret Voyage: Love, Magic and Mysteries in the Realm of the Pharaohs selling for a princely $4,400), I bring to my dear readers the secrets of Dendara as unveiled to me on a recent Travel Tuesday.

Although I had visited Hathor's temple at least twice before, this visit proved that repeat visits can be as exciting as the first. Setting out early from Luxor, I had no idea what wonderful surprises were in store.

The first surprise was immediate upon our arrival. A new visitors centre has been built offering a very comfortable, air-conditioned theatre in which to watch an interesting introduction to the temple and its rites. It also offers the more mundane, but necessary, toilets -- for the price of a 1LE tip to the attendant. For all his (well-known) faults, Dr. Hawass must be credited for the creation of this and other visitor centres and small site museums across the country. They enrich the experience of visiting Egypt's extraordinary monuments.

The second and more astonishing surprise also credits Dr. Hawass' leadership of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (now Ministry of Antiquities). Upon entering Hathor's temple, brightness and colour radiate all around its hypostyle hall, as does the din of the work of a large team of Egyptian conservators who are cleaning the ceiling, walls and columns. Dendara temple has long been famous for its "profuse and mysterious" decorations and Amelia Edwards, travelling A Thousand Miles Up the Nile in 1873-74, was "bewildered" by what she saw. She wrote,

. . . dimly visible on every wall, pillar, and doorway, a multitude of fantastic forms -- hawk-headed, ibis-headed, cow-headed, mitred, plumed, holding aloft strange emblems, seated on thrones, performing mysterious rites -- seem to emerge from their places, like things of life. Looking up to the ceiling, now smoke-blackened and defaced, we discover elaborate painting of scarabaei, winged globes, and zodical emblems divided by border of intricate Greek patterns, the prevailing colours of which are verditer and chocolate. (page 124)

I can only imagine Amelia's awe should she have the opportunity to look heavenwards now. The sooty veil that once concealed Hathor's loveliness has been lifted. As a result of the SCA's work, the monument is breathtaking. The hypostyle hall was built in 36 AD, during the reign of Emperor Tiberius. The walls show Tiberius, and his successors Nero and Claudius, presenting offerings to the goddess.

The goddess Nut (pronounced 'Newt') stretches across breadth of the hall's ceiling. She arches her body over the earth and her fingers and toes touch the four cardinal points. She is the embodiment of the dome of the night sky and across her body the stars float on their boats. She swallows the winged sun disc every night . . .

. . .  in order to give birth to it every dawn. From floor level, more than 25 m below, the detail of Nut's beaded gown is clearly visible.

The ceiling is supported by 24 Hathor-headed sistrum-capitals. The sistrum was a sacred musical instrument, similar to a rattle or tambourine, that made noise when it was shaken during religious ceremonies. It became the sacred image of the goddess herself. With purposeful determination, the features of all four faces of the column were brutally hacked away by early Christian fanatics who feared the power of the goddess -- she who personified the principles of love, beauty, music, motherhood, and joy. By literally defacing her, they stripped her of her magical energy.

After the surprise from above, there was a surprise from below. Temple priests stored Hathor's treasures in a crypt at the rear of the temple. An open invitation to descend was a new opportunity for me. Visiting the crypt requires an intake of breath as one crawls through a narrow opening at the base of a wooden ladder, but once inside the narrow underground passage is high enough to stand in. The beautiful carvings make the effort to beat back feelings of claustrophobia well worthwhile.

The depiction of the goddess' sacred menat necklace details the heavy semi-circular pectoral that hung from four sistra pendants. Chains attached to these pendants linked the necklace with its counterweight that hung down the back of the wearer. The necklace on the wall probably reproduces the actual necklace worn during the temple's holy rites and one of the most important objects stored underground.

The other sacred object stored in the crypt was a statue of Hathor's ba (or soul, for lack of a better translation). Every year, the priest carried the statue up to the temple roof to celebrate the New Year's festival. At sunrise, the goddess was raised aloft in symbolic union with the solar disc Atum. Even after several visits to the temple, climbing those same steps alongside the priests is a pretty awesome experience. Time contracts as the priests and the visitor ascend the dark staircase together into the dazzling sunlight. 

Dendara has always been one of the most important temples on the Egyptian tour itinerary because it is one of the best preserved. The ongoing work of Egypt's Supreme Council of Antiquities ensures that with each visit further secrets will be revealed.

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The satellite image clearly shows the temple surrounded by its massive mud-brick enclosure walls that delineated the sacred precinct. Also visible, in the left-hand corner are the palm trees that now grow in what was the temple's sacred lake.

GETTING THERE	USEFUL INFO SOURCES
We drove to Dendara along the western desert 'highway'. As I mentioned to my parents, do not expect this to be HWY 401. I'm afraid I did not keep track of the mileage and the various turns, but Dendara is a well known site and is located directly across the Nile from the city of Qena so all taxi drivers will know how to get there.	Egyptian Monuments blog: Dendera
	Tour Egypt article: Dendera and the Temple of Hathor by Mark Andrews
	Living in Luxor article: Trips to Dendera and Abydos

Creation and Elimination at Esna

Divine forces create humans while human forces eliminate them -- so might be the lesson enshrined in the Temple of Khnum at Esna, 55 km South of Luxor. Carved into the temple's sandstone walls is the ancient Egyptian belief that ram-headed Khnum created the world and crafted humans out of Nile mud on his potters' wheel. He shaped the individual features and languages of Egyptians and foreigners.

Carvings tell that Khnum plants the seed of life in every mother's womb, depicted as a zigzagged oval perhaps to illustrate its life force. Simultaneously, Khnum also forms the 'ka', or spirit, of the child. Nine months later, he and Heket, the goddess of childbirth, help the mother at the child's birth as she sits on the birthing chair. The Great Hymn to Khnum (M. Lichtheim, Ancient Egyptian Literature, Vol. 3, p. 112) praises his effect:

He makes women give birth when the womb is ready,
So as to open --- as he wishes;
He soothes suffering by his will,
Relieves throats, lets everyone breathe,
To give life to the young in the womb.

The temple at Esna is dedicated to Khnum, his consort Menheyet, and his son Heka ('Magic'). The goddess Neith is also honoured here because she is the feminine force of creation and works in partnership with Khnum's maleness. While Khnum created the world and separated heaven and earth, Neith uttered seven sentences to give form to and organize creation.

As Khnum's temple at Esna celebrates the creation of life its walls also bear witness to the snuffing out of human life at the hands of less than godly men.

The Roman emperor Septimius Severus ruled the Roman empire from 193 to 211 A.D. He appears on Esna's walls with his sons Caracalla and Geta, who ruled jointly with him in the final years of his reign, 209-211. One might surmise that the reliefs were carved during this time.

Soon after the death of their father, Caracalla murdered Geta. Across the empire, from Rome to Esna and beyond, the murderer ordered that all mention of his brother to be erased from monuments in an act of damnatio memoriae. Thus, late in 211 or early 212, carvers returned to Esna to chip away the existence of Geta. Yet his shadow and the shadow of his name in hieroglyphs remains evident on the wall and so he is not forgotten.

Building temples could take centuries to complete as successive pharaohs renovated and enlarged important holy sites. When the Romans took control of Egypt, the emperors continued the tradition of the pharaohs and similarly made their alms to the Egyptian gods with temple building and decoration. Much of what can be seen today at Esna is the work of Roman emperors from Claudius (41-54 AD) to Decius (249-251 AD). One of the unique images decorating the temple is that of the Roman emperor Trajan, as pharaoh, dancing before the enthroned goddess. The lion-headed goddess looks a lot like Sekmet but she is Menheyet, Khnum's consort.

An image not found in any pharaonic period temple is that of the emperor presenting a victory wreath to the god. The Roman emperor would have considered this the highest tribute he could offer.

The temple is famous for its astronomical ceiling. The constellations, as the Egyptians knew them, sail across the sky in boats just as boats were the main form of transportation for earthly beings.

The ceiling is intact, supported by 24 columns. Each column capital is unique and colourful. The carving is intricate and awesome to behold. Every inch of the column shafts are also carved with hieroglyphic texts that provide the program of religious festivals conducted in the temple -- perhaps so that the festivals continue in perpetuity through the magic of the sacred texts.

This column represents a date tree. The base of the capital recreates the palm's knobby trunk. Sprouting upwards from the column/trunk is the broad capital carved with palm fronds and heavy fruit clusters. As if to emphasize the fecundity of creation, grape vines also prosper amidst the fronds.

Even the standard images that one expects to see on an Egyptian temple have a slightly different character at Esna. The scene of the pharaoh smiting Egypt's enemies is seen over and over again on temple walls as each king showed off to his people that he was an effective defender of the realm. The common motif depicts the pharaoh holding in one hand the chiefs of enemy states by their hair, while raising his club high above his head in the other hand. Esna's depiction of Ptolemy III Euergetes is unique with the presence of a pet lion that appears to eat the hands of the captured.

Less than one-third of the temple is visible today. In the mid 19th century the French Egyptologist, Auguste Mariette, removed buildings and excavated a 9-metre deep pit to reveal the temple's hypostyle hall. Egypt's Ministry of Antiquities hopes to conduct excavations to clear the debris and reveal the interior rooms of the god's house. No doubt, their excavations will produce exciting finds and understanding of the earlier pharaonic worship of the god of creation.

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The shadows give an impression of the 9m (30')-deep pit in which the temple currently resides. There is a plan to extend the pit all the way to the Nile river to reveal the ancient causeway and provide access to the temple for tourists arriving on the cruise boats. An historically significant mosque, however, is situated along the proposed route so this plan requires some serious thought.

GETTING THERE	USEFUL INFO SOURCES
Esna is an easy half-day trip from Luxor. We drove South on the west side of the Nile and returned to Luxor on the eastern highway. The western road is slower due to a number of villages, but it is an interesting route for that very reason. The temple is located less than kilometer south of the Esna barrage. It cannot be seen from the Corniche. Look for the small wooden kiosk that sells entry tickets on the east side of the road. Park the car nearby and walk a short distance through the souk to the temple.	Egyptian Monuments blog: Esna Temple
	Tour Egypt article: The Temple of Khnum at Esna by Mark Andrews
	The Great Hymn to Khnum: Ancient Egyptian Literature translated by Miriam Lichtheim
	Ancient Egypt Online article: Esna Temple

Medamud: Past-Present Continuum Revealed

A procession of corpulent male deities and busty female deities parade before me. Each one comes to the god’s house bearing gifts from their region. Some bring grain; others cattle, precious metal dishes, libations or incense.

 Glancing over the head of a goddess that herds goats before the god, I spy their modern descendants jumping over the ruins of the god’s house. Past and present become contemporaneous.


It is a quiet morning at the house of Montu, god of war. The only visitors are me, the goats, and a few antiquities guards, called gawfeers in Arabic. Montu has had a temple at Medamud, located about 8km North of Luxor, since the Middle Kingdom. Four millennia have passed and relatively little of the temple remains visible. Correlating the guidebook's plan with bits of walls on the ground poses a challenge. Medamud is in ruin. Perhaps this is why the site is not open for visitation except by request. But step forward. Narrow the eyes’ focus to the preserved details. Exquisite splendor is revealed. It is well worth asking the Karnak inspectorate chief for permission to visit.

Egyptian temples represent a microcosm of the universe. The carving that covers every inch of its surface conveys the sensitivity of the artists to their universe. Ducks flutter above an offering tray. New shoots bend in the breeze. A dado of papyrus buds and blossoms around the temple's inner walls recreates the mound of creation from which all life was born.

And in this universe, men play the harp and women dance with castanets. The countless hieroglyphs record a hymn: “The priest honours You with his basket, And the drummers take their tambourines. Ladies rejoice in Your honor with garlands, And girls do the same with wreaths.”

I conclude my visit with a walk along the Avenue of Sphinxes to the quay. From here Montu, carried by priests, boarded his sacred barque and traveled along the canal to his residence at Karnak. Here, too, worshippers disembarked bearing alms for their falcon-headed lord. I looked down and found graffiti footprints of some nameless ancient. Carved as an act of personal piety to express eternal devotion, the prints match my own. Once again, past and present converge at Medamud.

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GETTING THERE	USEFUL INFO SOURCES
Driving out of Luxor on Airport Road, turn North towards Qena. After 5.5 km along the Qena Road, turn West on a small road that crosses the canal and the narrow gauge railway for sugarcane harvest. The village of Nag al-Medamud is just ahead. At the first T-intersection, turn left. At the next T-intersection, turn right. Drive past the goats in the village square and you see the temple of Montu in front of you. Drive along the temple's north side where you will see the gawfeer's hut.	Egyptian Monuments blog: Medamud
	Tour Egypt article: The Temple of Montu, Rattawy and Harpocrates at Medamud
	Archaeology of Ancient Egypt: Medamud
	Musee des Beaux Arts, Lyon: Kiosk Gate from a Temple at Medamud
	Luxor News blog: Medamud temple, north of Luxor
	Neferuhethert: Hymn from Ptolemaic Temple at Medamud