Queen Hatshepsut Temple West Bank
Queen Hatshepsut Temple West Bank
One of the most memorable panoramas in Thebes is the
approach to the memorial temple of Queen Hatshepsut.
Turning west beside a small mosque, a paved road leads in a
straight line to a dramatic expanse of rugged limestone cliffs
that rises over three hundred meters (nearly one thousand feet)
above the desert plain. Water-worn for millions of years and
buffeted for millennia by hot winds, the cliffs have eroded into
an intricate in deep shade, the bedrock pattern of cracks and
crevices and deep vertical fissures. The fractures are blinding in
the intense sunlight. They create a façade that captures the eye
and holds it. Only slowly does oe realize that at the base of the
cliff stands a low, wide monument of even more breathtaking
beauty.
This broad, perfectly proportioned building rises in loW terraces
to geometric formality, a meet the jagged cliffs. Rhythmic
patterns of light and shade give its façade military rigor and
stark contrast to the rugged mountain behind. But together, the
mountain and the temple form a perfect marriage: each
enhances the other. True, the modern paved road is ugly,
certainly less attractive than the original stone causeway along
which priests carried statues of gods and kings. One would also
wish away the huge asphalt parking lot filled with tour buses
and gaudy kiosks thoughtlessly built before it. Nevertheless,
even these cannot diminish the overwhelming beauty of this
masterpiece. Traffic and curio sellers notwithstanding, one sees
this temple and stands in awe. European visitors fir saw Queen
Hatshepsut's memorial temple in a very ruined state at the end
of the eighteenth century Originally buried beneath tons of
debris, it has undergone almost continuous excavation and
restoration since the end of the nineteenth century. But it was
not until the 1920s that enough clearing had temple's beauty.
When been done that visitors could appreciate the Howard
Carter (who later went on to discover the tomb of
Tutankhamen) published the first paintings of its decoration at
the end of the nineteenth temple had rated only a lew century,
Europeans were stunned. Before then, the lines in most
guidebooks: since then, it has become one of the most-visited
and most-admired monuments in Egypt.
The design of the temple may seem dramatically different from
other New Kingdom temples. However, it was meant to function
as a memorial temple and therefore shares all such temples
components and plan: its gates, pillars, columns, Osirid statues,
sphinxes, gardens, rising ecentral axis, and tripartite plan are
standard features. What makes Hatshepsut's temple unique is
the way these features fit together to take advantage of their
natural setting. The temple's design was obviously influenced by
the Dynasty 11 temple of Nebhepetra-Mentuhetep a few
meters to the south. It too used ramps, colonnades, and
terraces. But Hatshepsut's temple was not a copy of her
predecessor's structure, in spite of comments to that effect by
detractors. To the contrary, one Egyptologist referred to the
earlier temple as a "lost opportunity" and described
Hatshepsut's as "the only possible solution to the problem
presented by a most attractive, but also most difficult, site."
Hatshepsut's architect, Senenmut, may have found inspiration
in the earlier Mentuhetep monument- the idea of using a series
of terraces is an obvious borrowing-but he went far beyond it,
creating a work of art by "divining that only long horizontal lines
could live in the presence of the overwhelming vertical lines of
the background." The building site was certainly chosen in part
because of the formidable cliffs behind it. But there were other
reasons, too. The god Amen was given special prominence in
the temple and that is why it was built almost exactly in the
same axial line as the Temple of Amen at Karnak.
Indeed, if you extend the principal axis of Hatshepsut's temple
five kilometers (three miles) cast to Karnak, it runs within one
hundred meters (three hundred feet) of the axis of the Temple
of Amen-Ra. There had been a shrine to Hathor at Dayr alBahari for centuries before Hatshepsut ordered that her own
temple be built there.
A shrine to Hathor stood in the Nebhepetra-Mentuhetep
Temple immediately south, and Hatshepsut built her own
Hathor shrine as close to as possible. Amenhetep I erected a
substantial temple with a shrine to Hathor on what later
became the Hatshepsut Temple's middle terrace. Indeed, so
important was this area to the cult of Hathor and its associated
Beautiful Festival of the Valley-an annual festival formerly of
minor importance but given great emphasis by Hatshepsut that Hatshepsut deliberately sited her temple here so that it
would become the principal West Bank destination of the
festival's processions. It is also no coincidence that KV 20, the
Hatshepsut, was dug in the tomb attributed to Valley of the
Kings behind the temple. If her tomb had been dug along a
straight axis, as some believe was the original idea, its burial
chamber could have lain directly beneath the temple. But poor
quality bedrock forced workmen to follow a corkscrew-like
course in a vain search for better stone. and the burial chamber
was finally located deeper and to the southwest.
The ancient Egyptians called the temple Djeser- djeseru, "Most
Holy of Holies." Originally, a causeway connected it to a canal
dug along the edge of the cultivation. The valley temple there
was never completed, but the causeway leading from it was,
and it measured 13 meters (40 feet) wide, 400 meters (1,200
feet) long. was lined with statues and sphinxes that probably
stood as close together as those leading to Luxor Temple. They
were not inconsequential sculptures: the red granite sphinxes
were over 3 meters (nearly 10 feet) long and each weighed
seven and a half tons. Indeed, Hatshepsut's program of statuary
set a record for quantity and size not equaled until the reign of
Amenhetep III. Statues of Hatshepsut in the pose of Osiris, for
example, were erected at either end of the upper and lower
terraces, before each twenty-four pillars, in each of the upper
terrace's of ten niches in the upper Phoibamon, was built in
temple's upper terrace and hall, and in the four corners of the
upper sanctuary. A Coptic monastery, Dayr Apa Phoibamon,
was built in the northwest part of the flourished in the seventh
and eighth centuries AD.
It was one of the largest monasteries in Upper Egypt and
survived remarkably well for over a millennium until it was
monastery is the reason dismantled by Egyptologists early in
the twentieth century. The that Djeser-djerseru came to be
called Dayr al-Bahari, meaning "The Northern Monastery" in
Arabic. Its construction did substantial damage to the upper
terrace, and archaeologists have worked for over a century to
restore it, a task that is still not completed. Once you have run
the gauntlet of curio sellers and taxi drivers and passed through
the security gate, walk slowly and take time to savor the
splendor of the Dayr al- Bahari cirque and the temple's place
within it. Way stations used in the many processions that came
here every year stood along the avenue. North and south of the
axis lay gardens, orchards, and ponds. Small planting holes can
still be seen in parts of the temple compound and the original
ancient tree roots are still visible. Near the bottom of the first
ramp, two small T-shaped ponds surrounded by such holes
have been outlined by their excavators. They once contained
tamarisk, sycomore fig, and persea trees, as well as rare species
brought back from the African land of Punt.
Before ascending the first ramp to the middle terrace, spend
some time in the two colonnades on either side. That on the left
especially has some interesting and important reliefs. But be
forewarned: recently the Supreme Council of Antiquities
installed iron rails the front of each colonnade to keep tourists
several meters from the walls. It is now extremely difficult to see
the decoration. Patience, imagination, and a keen eye are
needed. The temple is best viewed early in the morning when
the sun is low in the sky. Later in the day, the reliefs are all but
invisible. Another reason to avoid an afternoon visit is that Dayr
al-Bahari holds the record as one of the hottest places on our
planet (a temperature of 55 degrees Celsius was recorded
recently).
LOWER COLONNADE SOUTH: TRANSPORTING OBELISKS
These fascinating reliefs (to the
left of the ramp), unfortunately
in poor condition, tell how
Hatshepsut's architects and
engineers brought two huge
obelisks from quarries in Aswan
to Thebes. The cutting,
transport, and installation of
these huge monoliths were
major projects: each weighed
186 tons.
The obelisks are shown the left (south) end of the wall, drawn as
if they were placed end-to-end on a huge ship. However, marine
historians believe that they actually were placed side-by-side
and consider the drawing an artistic device to emphasize the
vast size of the load. If correct, then the ship carrying them
would have been 95 meters (309 feet) long with a beam of 32
meters (104 feet), a draft of 3 meters, and a deck that stood 9.5
meters (31 feet) above the water line.
The wood impervious to water boat was built of wood from
sycomore fig trees, a but difficult to work, hard to find in large
pieces, and very heavy. Naval historians calculate that the 7300
tons. This huge vessel ship weighed 2500 tons and had a
displacement of was towed downstream from Aswan to Thebes
by thirty smaller ships, each manned by thirty-two oarsmen,
Aswan quarries, drag them What a job! To cut these gigantic
granite blocks out of the bedrock of Aswan quarries, drag them
across a rugged landscape of boulders to a canal extending
eastward to the Nile, and then maneuver them onto a huge ship
required not only brute strength but also meticulous planning.
One slip and the stones would have cracked and years of work
ruined. Just ensuring that the load was properly balanced, not
listing even slightly to port or starboard, must have been a
nightmarish undertaking. Scheduling was critical. too. Loading
had to take place in winter when the Nile was at its lowest. Then
one had to wait for the summer flood to free the boat from the
shore. After sailing 220 kilometers (132 miles) downstream, the
ship would moor in a canal near Karnak at high Nile and then
wait months for another low Nile before unloading. Once
ashore, the obelisks were dragged across the floodplain into the
Temple of Amen. A gigantic ramp was built, the monoliths
dragged up it and carefully lowered into a sand-filled hole at the
top. The sand was slowly removed until the obelisks gently
settled onto stone pedestals. This was done with such precision
that the obelisks were almost precisely vertical, within one or
two millimeters parallel to the sides of the base. Infantry,
archers, and priests are shown lining the shore as the obelisks
sailed past. At Karnak Temple, dancers and musicians. playing
horns and drums heralded the obelisks' arrival.
This was indeed a project worth boasting about, and Hatshepsut
and her olficials were obviously proud of the accomplishment. The
accompanying text describes many of the obstacles her engineers
overcame and tells us that it was only Hatshepsut's great love of
her divine father, the god Amen, that made this effort possible.
(See also the description of the obelisks in the Temple of Amen at
Karnak.).
LOWER COLONNADE NORTH
This wall is badly damaged but there is such wonderful scene of
bird netting at the right (north) end that a brief visit should be
made. A mythological scene shows gods in the Nile Delta pulling
a net of birds. filled with score Ducks are shown in great
number, but there are other species as well. Note particularly
the superbly drawn grey heron (Ardea cinera) with a fish in its
beak standing at the right. It is arguably one of the most realistic
ornithological drawings in Egyptian art. There is also a wellpreserved representation of Hatshepsut as a sphinx trampling
the enemies of Egypt. The ramp leading to the middle terrace
has balustrades ending at the bottom with lion-heads. These
are symbols of the horizon and are meant to protect the higher
levels of the temple from this world's chaos and confusion.
Although they are clearly leonine, their human face resembles
the face one sees in the statuary of Queen Hatshepsut.
MIDDLE COLONNADE - NORTH: THE QUEEN'S BIRTH
Behind two rows of eleven pillars, scenes show the divine birth of
Queen Hatshepsut. The reliefs are difficult to see, for they were
deliberately defaced after Hatshepsut's death. Moreover, the
original relief carving was shallow and the absence of strong
raking light in the colonnade renders them nearly invisible;
recently installed barriers prevent close examination. But they
are of great importance, for they were meant to offer theological
proof that Hatshepsut was entitled to ascend the throne as king.
They proclaim that Amen- Ra was her divine father and Thuimes I
her secular one. Such scenes were later elaborated upon in
reliefs carved for Amenhetep III in the southern chambers of
Luxor Temple, but the ones here are the first. known examples.
Hatshepsut's mother, Queen Ahmes, appears in two scenes. In
one she sits on a couch and is offered an ankh sign, the
hieroglyph for "life," by Amen-Ra. This is a tactful way of saying
that she was being impregnated by the god. The accompanying
text poetically describes what happened: "Then came the
glorious god Amen himself, lord of the thrones of both lands,
When he had taken the form of her husband, They found her
resting in the beauty of the palace.
She awoke at the perfume of the god and laughed in the face of
his majesty. Enflamed with love, he hastened toward her, He had
lost his heart to her. She could behold him in the shape of a god,
When he had come near to her, she exulted at the sight of his
beauty. His love entered all her limbs, the palace was filled with
the sweet perfumes of the god, all of them from the land of
incense, Punt. The majesty of this god did to her all that he
wished. She gladdened him with herself and kissed him." In
another scene, Ahmes appears before the frog-headed goddess
Heket and the ram-headed god Khnum, both associated with
childbirth. She is clearly pregnant and they lead.
her to the birthing chamber where, in the presence ol many
divine witnesses, she gives birth to Hatshepsut. Amen-Ra stands
nearby and affirms that he is Hatshepsut's father. In a
stunningly immodest text, Hatshepsut's personality and
youthful growth are described: "Her majesty became more
important than anything else. What was within her was godlike;
her manner was godlike; godlike was everything she did; her
spirit was godlike. Her majesty became a beautiful maiden...She
is a woman of distinguished appearance." The queen's
coronation is shown at the top of the wall, where she stands in
The presence of her father Thutmes I and the gods Amen and
Ra-Harakhty in ceremonies of purification.
MIDDLE COLONNADE - NORTH: THE ANUBIS SHRINE
A small vestibule to the right (north) of the birth scenes contains
some of the best-preserved painted reliefs to be found at
Thebes. Figures of Hatshepsut have been defaced, but figures
of Thutmes III, the god Anubis, and especially the piles of food
offerings before him are as bright and fresh as the day they
were first painted. On the left (south) wall of the vestibule,
Queen Hatshepsut appears in a small recess with deities: To the
left, the queen is with Anubis, to the right, with Nekhbet and RaHarakhty. The names of the queen are written between them.
Above the doorway, the queen offers water to Osiris, On the
right (north) wall there is another recess with Thutmes II offering
wine to Sokar above it, and on the right, the queen and Anubis
beforea dogs head that represents the god of the dead. Behind
the vestibule, three small chambers, currently closed to the
public, contain well-preserved scenes of the queen and various
deities, especially Anubis. The right (north) wall of the middle
colonnade, lined with fifteen sixteen-sided columns, was
originally intended to have four statue niches dedicated to
various deities, but work on this part of the temple was never
completed and the undecorated niches were covered over in
modern times.
MIDDLE COLONNADE- SOUTH: THE PUNT RELIEFS
The Egyptians are rightly admired for producing some of the
ancient world's most accurate and sensitive drawings of plants
and animals, From the Old Kingdom onward, scenes of papyrus
thickets, animal husbandry, bird netting, fishing, and huntingvirtually every aspect of the natural world-captured details that
only long and careful observation could have made possible.
Egyptians were endlessly fascinated by nature, and Egyptian
artisans were intent on depicting it accurately. In the New
Kingdom, two walls show this particularly well and, curiously,
both depict scenes of foreign lands. The more recent is the
"Botanical Garden" of Thutines II, in the Akh-Menou, the king's
festival hall in the Temple of Amen at Karnak. The carlier, by
about twenty-five years, is Queen Hatshepsuts maritime
expedition to the land of Punt, depicted here.
The great American Egyptologist James Henry Breasted called
the Punt reliefs "undoubtedly the most interesting series of
reliefs in Egypt." That is hardly an exaggeration. The scenes form
an ancient ethnographic, hiological, and geographical record
showing how the Egyptians tried to make sense of this strange
country and fit it into their view of the world. They depicted
what in Punt struck them as odd, humorous, or especially
characteristic. Egyptian art frequently included representations
of foreign people or foreign animals, but nowhere else do whole
scenes give such attention to foreign architecture, foreign
activities, and foreign landscapes. The Punt reliefs do that,
precisely and uniquely. Apparently, the Egyptians were so
impressed by the unusual plants and animals they found that
they made detailed records on the spot and used their notes
when they undertook the temple decoration This may reflect a
realization that their world had grown, and that Egypt gods had
extended their authority and become gods whose powers
extended lar beyond the Nile Valley Hatshepsut's expedition to
Punt set out in the eighth year of her reign. Hers was not the
first reference to Punt-one mention may date as early as
Dynasty 4- nor was it the last, But Hatshepsut's is the most
complete, and certainly one of the most charming. Egyptologists
think that Punt was located in the Horn of Africa, in modern
Somalia or Eritrea.
This is based on three observations Punt was accessible to
overland expeditions from Egypt, because earlier Egyptian texts
make reference to such journeys it was also accessible by sea.
as the Punt reliefs attest, and its flora, fauna, and architecture,
as shown in the Punt reliefs, are consistent with what one would
find on the Red Sea coast of Africa, not in the Mediterranean,
Western Asia, Arahia, or Europe.
For example, the aquatic scene across the bottom of the wall
indicates that Punt must be in East Alrica. There are turtles,
parrot- fish, scorpion-fish, soldier- fish, trigger-fish, wrasse,
squid, and spiny lobster among the saltwater species, and
tilapia, catfish, and turtles among the freshwater specics. All the
saltwater species are common to the Red Sea and the Indian
Ocean, while the freshwater species are known in East Africa
but not in the Arabian Peninsula. (A recent suggestion that Punt
lay east of the Gulf of Aqaba is not widely accepted.) The Punt
reliefs can be divided into several sections, each illustrating a
different stage of the expedition. The lower registers on the left
(south) end wall show the landscape of Punt and the reception
of the Egyptians. by local officials. The houses of Punt are
beehive-shaped grass huts, mounted on stilts to protect them
from daging floods. wild animals or insects, or perhaps to keep
them cool in summer.
A ladder gives access to the living nearby. Birds flutter in the
platform. Several such houses are scattered throughout a grove
of dom- and date-palms. Long- and short-horned cattle graze
trees; a dog sits before its master's hut. More exotic animals
can also be seen: a giraffe, a panther, primates, and what may
be a rhinoceros. The Egyptian army has pitched tents "in the
myrrh-terraces of Punt on the side of the sea," and the kings
messenger is presenting jewelry, beads, daggers, and metal
axes in exchange for the raw materials of Punt that they will
load onto their ships. Egyptian traders had visited Punt before.
We know this from several different sources. Yet the Puntite
officials express surprise at seeing them. Above the scene they
ask, "Why have you come here into this land, which the people
lof Egypt| know not? Did you come down upon the ways of
heaven, or did you sail upon the waters, upon the sea of God'sLand?" No answer is recorded.
Among the Puntite oficials their chief, Perehu, stands with his
morbidly obese wife, Ity known to Egyptologists as the Queen of
Punt. Originally, they were also accompanied by two sons and a
daughter as obese as her mother, but these figures have been
destroyed. Singled out for special mention, and perhaps
intended as a wry comment on the size of queen, is "the donkey
which carried his wife." A plaster cast has replaced the original
carving of the Queen of Punt, which is now on display in the
Egyptian Museum, Cairo. Medical historians have written
numerous articles about the cause of the queen's obesity but
none of the diagnoses they have proposed (most commonly
elephantiasis or steatopygy) is widely accepted In contrast to
the women. Puntite men seem almost Egyptian in their
physique. Lacial features, and costume. Even their skin is the
red color of Egyptian males, not the black of Nubians.
In the upper registers, Egyptian sailors load their ships with
incense and other raw materials. The cargo includes "all goodly
fragrant woods of God's- Land, heaps of myrrh resin, with fresh
myrrh trees, with ebony and pure ivory..with cinnamon wood,
khesyt-wood, with ihmut-incensc, sonter- incense, eye cosmetic,
with apes, monkeys, dogs, and with skins of the uthern panther,
with natives and their children. Never was brought the like of
this for any king since the beginning." The men strain as they lift
the heavy bundles into the holds.
Men carry carefully bundled myrrh trees and one of them cries,
"Watch your feet! Behold! The load is very heavy!" A couple of
men remark that the trees are to be planted at Dayr al-Bahari,
and their mates seem excited at the prospect ol bringing such
delights back to the Theban court. Around the corner, at the left
(south) end of the rear (west) wall, the Egyptian fleet is shown in
the lower registers arriving in Punt and, at right, returning to
Egypt. Once the ships have returned to Thebes their cargo is
weighed and SI measured by Hlorus and Nubian god, Dedun.
"Thoth records them in writing, Sefkhet counts the numbers.
Her majesty herself is acting with her two hands, the best of
myrrh is upon all her limbs, her fragrance is divine dew, her
odor is mingled with Punt, her skin is gilded with electrum,
shining as to the stars in the midst of the festival hall, before the
whole land." Further right, Hatshepsut announces the success
the voyage and offers its cargo to Amen. The incense-trees are
shown already thriving in the gardens of Amen's temple at
Karnak.
There were five ships in Hatshepsut's fleet (five are shown
arriving. five departing). The drawings of the ships are detailed
and have been carefully studied by marine historians, who
consider them among the best nautical representations from
the New Kingdom. They calculate that the boats were about 25
meters (81 feet) long and narrow, perhaps with only a 7-meter
(23-foot) beam and a 2-meter (6-loot) draft, designed to cut
quickly through the dangerous waters of the Red Sea. Prevailing
winds on the Red Sea generally blow from north to south from
June through September and from south to north from
November through March. The rest of the year, they are
unpredictable. The sailors would have had to row into the wind
for a fair part of the journey. The alternative, tacking. could have
added another 800 kilometers (480 miles) to the already 1500
kilometer (900 mile) long journey. Assuming that the boats
sailed eight or nine hours a day, stopping in inlets and coves
along the way and assuming that they could sail or be rowed at
about 5 kilometers miles) an hour, the one-way trip would have
taken between forty and fifty days, Perhaps they spent three or
four months in Punt negotiating, assembling, and loading their
cargo. There may also have been marching time ashore, for we
know from other documents that it rained in Punt, and that
suggests that the country may have lay in the interior. Unless
the Puntites had prepared in advance for the Egyptians' arrival
and assembled their goods at one seaside location, the
Egyptians may have had to hike into the highlands to collect the
raw materials they wanted.
How long, then, did the trip take? Consider this: the boats were
probably constructed at Coptos (modern Qift) at the mouth of
the Wadi Hammamat 50 kilometers (30miles) north of Thebes.
They were taken apart and they and their cargo carried
overland in donkey caravans 200 kilometers (120 miles) through
the Eastern Desert and the Red Sea hills to the port of Qusayr.
There they were reassembled. That arduous, hot and dusty
journey through rugged desert terrain probably took two
months. Sailing south to Punt took another six to eight weeks.
Allow at least three months in Punt, then three months to sail
back to Qusayr. From there, the crew traveled overland to the
Nile, then on to Thebes. This would have taken another two
months. The total elapsed time would have been nearly a year.
The logistics of such an expedition were complex.
Each of the five ships had places for thirty oarsmen and there
would have been a back-up crew plus laborers, officials, scribes,
and translatorssay 250-300 men in all. They would have had to
leave Qusayr with enough provisions and fresh water for the
journey. On the return, they would have to carry an equal
supply of food and water plus the cargo from Punt, Little
wonder that Hatshepsut devoted an entire wall of her temple to
its story.
MIDDLE TERRACE SOUTH: THE HATHOR SHRINE
To the left (south) of the Punt colonnade stands a shrine
dedicated to Hathor, perhaps the most important goddess
worshipped in the Dayr al-Bahari area. Her pride of place among
goddesses at Thebes was underscored by the fact her shrine
could be accessed by means ol its Own ramp from the lower
terrace. The shrine has two halls, now badly destroyed, the first
with eight pillars and eight sixteen-sided columns, the second
with sixteen sixteen-sided columns. capital showing the goddess
Each has a Hathor-headed with a human head and bovine cars
and a sistrum on her head. Two engaging reliefs on the rear
(west) wall show figures of Hathor as a cow licking the royal
hand. The text reads: "To kiss the hand, to lick the divine flesh; to
endow the king with life and purity." Adjacent to this, another
figure of Hatshepsut holds an oar and a carpenter's square,
Hatshepsut kneels and drinks from the udder of a Hathor-cow,
as the goddess boasts, "I have suckled your Majesty with my
breasts.
I have filled you with my intelligence, with my water of life and
happiness. I am your mother, who formed your limbs and
created your beauties." On the right (north) wall there is a
particularly well carved and painted figure of Hathor as cow with
horns and a sun disk on her head, and a major naval procession
and military parade. Beyond the pillared halls, three-room
chapel was cut into the mountainside. It is currently closed to
the public. But peer through the doorway to see the brightly painted and well- preserved scenes of Hatshepsut and Thutmes
before various deities. Not visible, unfortunately, is a small
figure of the queen's architect Senenmut, who some believe
was her lover, carved behind the door.
UPPER TERRACE
After a quarter-century of restoration work by a joint Polish Egyptian mission, the upper terrace has recently been reopened to the public, Architecturally, it is the most spectacular
part of Queen Hatshepsur's temple;
its smooth and well-carved columns and walls stand in sharp
contrast the rugged cliffs that loom so dramatically behind it.
Twenty-four colossal Osirid statues front the pillars on either
side of a huge granite doorway at the top of the ramp. The
statues were originally painted and would have and blue
eycbrows. The been visible from a distance. Their long beards
would have been blue. their throats and faces red, with black
and white eyes various items that they wore or held were red,
blue, and yellow. Behind. on the right wall, are scenes of the
queens coronation in which she escorted by the gods, the
crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt placed on her head. The
central door, with huge and elaborate door boltholes and hinge
sockets, leads into a great columned hall. Two rows (three in the
front) of seventy-two thirteen-sided columns surround it.
Kneeling statues of Hatshepsut once lined the axis of the
courtyard. Its walls are decorated with festival scenes. On the
north side of the front (east) wall and the entire right (north)
wall, the scenes are of the Beautiful Feast of the Valley.
Hatshepsut, Thutmes II, and Thutmes III are shown in a great
procession from Karnak across the Nile into this very sanctuary.
The Opet Festival is shown in the other half of the court and
again, the procession of boats on the Nile is elaborate and
impressive. On the right (north) side of the court a series ol
rooms (now closed) are devoted to the solar cult of Ra-Harakhty
and to: Anubis. On the left (south) side a complex of rooms (also
closed) was used for the royal cult of Hatshepsut and Thutmes
In the rear (west) wall of the court a series of niches, eight large
ones, ten small, once held statues of the queen in the pose of
Osiris and statues of Thutmes III. In the northwest corner is a
small hall of Amen and in the southwest, a chamber decorated
with scenes of Amen-Ra and the queen.
There is considerable evidence of archaizing in many of the
reliefs in the side chambers of the upper terrace and many
iconographic details are copies of Old Kingdom originals. Such
archaizing helped to reinforce their potency during religious
ceremonies that the text claims originated in the time of the
gods. There are: also cryptographic inscriptions here, religious
texts considered so sacred that they had to be encoded to
protect their power from prying eyes, Such texts can be seen,
for example, in the shrine of Ra-Harakhty. In the center of the
rear wall, a great granite doorway leads into three chambers
(now closed) decorated with scenes showing the queen and
Amen laying out the boundaries of her temple. In the Ptolemaic
period, this shrine was converted to a sanatorium dedicated to
the deified Amenhetep son of Hapu, the Dynasty 18 architect
responsible for works of Amenhetep III. As god, he was
considered a healer, and pilgrims came to this spot to pray their
ailments would be cured. Priests apparently hid inside the
shrine, speaking as the voice of the god to the afflicted, offering
solace and advice. Several graffiti in the shrine indicate that
there were many satisfied visitors, although one or two
considered their visit a waste of time, calling the priests'
comments hoax.
