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Temple of Montuhotep II
at Deir el-Bahari |
The temple of Montuhotep II, Neb-Hepet-Re, was the first one built in Deir el-Bahari. It was called ""Akh-set(w)-Nebhepetre": "Splendid (or useful) are the points of Nebhepetre"". Because of its ruinous state, with very few relievers, it is seldom photographed. This temple is a modulation between the
Old Kingdom temple of the pyramid, and the
New Kingdom. For the first time, the tomb of the king is linked with its mortuary temple. The New Kingdom will later break the tomb (in the
Valley of the Kings) from the House of Millions of Years. It was the (very lucky) Howard Carter who named the burial shaft by prospect, when his horse stumbled into its rubble-filled charm in 1900. The temple was named in the 1860s and was hollowed by Edouard Naville between 1903 and 1907, and then by Herbert Winlock between 1921 and 1930.
The multileveled building and the plan were whole new, with no tied dating from the Old Kingdom. The complex had a valley temple and a 1,2 km causeway taking to the temple itself. At the shorter level there was a columned lower hall with 2 rows of octogonal, raised, colums.
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Edouard Naville- Temple of
Montuhotep II at Deir el-Bahari |
The upper level had a reported central core sacred to Montu-Re. Montu is a advance god of Thebes, revered by the the warrior kings of the
XIth Dynasty that had reunified Egypt after the anarchy of the
First Intermediate Period. The roof may have been flat, or led by an earth mound. The whole terrace was perchance conceived as a reproduction of the primeval mound. The envelopment contained chapels and chicane tombs for the king's wives and family. Some this core was an upper hall with 3 rows of colums. The rear part was devoted to the craze of the deified king, who had a statue in a fair chapel. Later this was exchanged in an
Amun sanctuary.
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