Some indirect evidence for the presence of an earlier building behind the Seti temple is sometimes considered to exist in Professor Petrie’s theory as to the original plan of Seti’s temple. According to this view the plan of the temple as we know it is a secondary distortion of that which was originally made, and the rooms that now form the southern wing of the temple were meant to follow in the main axis behind what is now its most westerly room. This change of plan would have been caused by the fact that Seti’s builders found an older building in the place of the Cenotaph when they started to lay the foundations for the back of the temple. The “original plan” which this hypothesis would accept is little in keeping with that found in other temples in Egypt (4). We never find an important group of rooms, such as the “Slaughtering Hall” and the “Hall of the Barques,” interposed between the chapel and the back wall of the temple; if there are any rooms at all they are few and secondary, such as magazines for cult objects. That the rooms which actually form the western section of the temple were meant to occupy that innermost position from the beginning is, moreover, probable from the fact that they seem of a particularly sacred character, some of the Osiris mysteries being displayed in their reliefs. It seems hardly likely that a “processional way” led through them, as is assumed in Professor Petrie’s reconstruction of the plan on one main axis. Obviously our objections to that reconstruction are based upon analogies which are not entirely safe, because the Abydos temple is in any case abnormal in that it possesses seven chapels in a row. This very arrangement, however, may explain why it was necessary to build the southern wing, because the rooms which are situated in that wing find elsewhere - in Seti’s own temple in Gurnah, for instance - a place on either side of chapel. In any case, whatever views one many hold of the original plan of the temple, the matter is too uncertain to justify us in invoking as its explanation the existence of an earlier building on the site of the Cenotaph, for there is not a single fragment found on the site, nor a feature in the building, to support that claim. We shall see that the very character of the edifice makes such an assumption highly improbable. Its purpose was of a purely personal nature: to provide an Osirian burial-place for its builder. This excludes rather than implies the existence of a predecessor, just as it excludes any further development once the building was closed after its owner’s death. Finally, there is important evidence given by an ostracon (Pl. XC and Chapter X) found in the entrance passage. From the epithet given after the king’s name it seems to have been written while Seti I was still alive. This ostracon gives also the name of the building: “Seti is serviceable to Osiris,” a name most appropriate to a structure which, as we shall now proceed to show, contained a peculiar burial-place for Seti as identified with Osiris.
1) Klio, XII (1912), 390
2) Junker’s discussion of the Art of the Old Kingdom (zeitschrift fuer Aegyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 63) has made it quite clear that the severe style of Khafra’s building is typical for the Fourth Dynasty only, being a wilful break with the tradition of the Third Dynasty, to which the Fifth, in its turn, goes back. Thus one would have to claim not merely an Old Kingdom, but definitely a Fourth Dynasty prototype for our building. Similarity between the Cenotaph and the Temple of the Sphinx, and consequently an early date for the first, is claimed by Naville, Journal of Eggyptian Archeology, I, 166; Jéquier, Manuel d’Archéologie Egyptienne, I, 153; Kees, Totenglauben und Jenseisvorstellungen; Kristensen, Het Leven uit de Dood, 89; Wreszinski, Bericht ueber die Photographische Expedition, 1927, 47 sq.; Steindorff, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 1926, Sp. 1898; corrected in Die Kunst der Aegypter, 32; Pieper, Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, 1928, Sp. 188. The last-named author could alredy have taken cognisance of our Preliminary Report.
3) Peet, The Cementeries of Abydos, III (35th Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), 1 sqq.
Finally, there is important evidence given by an ostracon (Pl. XC and Chapter X) found in the entrance passage. From the epithet given after the king’s name it seems to have been written while Seti I was still alive. This ostracon gives also the name of the building: “Seti is serviceable to Osiris,” a name most appropriate to a structure which, as we shall now proceed to show, contained a peculiar burial-place for Seti as identified with Osiris.
1) Klio, XII (1912), 390
2) Junker’s discussion of the Art of the Old Kingdom (zeitschrift fuer Aegyptische Sprache und Altertumskunde, 63) has made it quite clear that the severe style of Khafra’s building is typical for the Fourth Dynasty only, being a wilful break with the tradition of the Third Dynasty, to which the Fifth, in its turn, goes back. Thus one would have to claim not merely an Old Kingdom, but definitely a Fourth Dynasty prototype for our building. Similarity between the Cenotaph and the Temple of the Sphinx, and consequently an early date for the first, is claimed by Naville, Journal of Eggyptian Archeology, I, 166; Jéquier, Manuel d’Archéologie Egyptienne, I, 153; Kees, Totenglauben und Jenseisvorstellungen; Kristensen, Het Leven uit de Dood, 89; Wreszinski, Bericht ueber die Photographische Expedition, 1927, 47 sq.; Steindorff, Deutsche Literaturzeitung, 1926, Sp. 1898; corrected in Die Kunst der Aegypter, 32; Pieper, Orientalistische Litteraturzeitung, 1928, Sp. 188. The last-named author could alredy have taken cognisance of our Preliminary Report.
3) Peet, The Cementeries of Abydos, III (35th Memoir of the Egypt Exploration Fund), 1 sqq.
4) Caulfeild, Temple of the Kings, 2 and 14
Reply
Leave a comment