Egyptian temple
The earliest shrines appeared in prehistoric Egypt during the late fourth millennium BC at sites such as Saïs and Buto in Lower Egypt. These early structures were made of perishable materials like wood, reed matting, and mudbrick. Despite their impermanence, later Egyptian art continually reused elements from them to suggest the eternal nature of the gods. In the Early Dynastic Period around 3100 BC, the first pharaohs built funerary complexes in Abydos following a single general pattern with rectangular mudbrick enclosures. The Old Kingdom that followed saw royal funerary monuments expand greatly while most divine temples remained comparatively small. This suggests official religion emphasized the cult of the king more than direct worship of deities. Deities closely connected with the king received more royal contributions than other gods. Ra's temple at Heliopolis was a major religious center where several Old Kingdom pharaohs built large sun temples near their pyramids. Meanwhile small provincial temples retained local styles unaffected by royal cult sites. The expansion of funerary monuments began in the reign of Djoser who built his complex entirely of stone. He placed a step pyramid under which he was buried within the enclosure. For the rest of the Old Kingdom tomb and temple were joined in elaborate stone pyramid complexes. Near each pyramid complex was a town that supplied its needs. Other changes came in the reign of Sneferu who began with his first pyramid at Meidum. He built pyramid complexes symmetrically along an east, west axis with a valley temple on the banks of the Nile linked to a pyramid temple at the foot of the pyramid. Sneferu's immediate successors followed this pattern but beginning in the late Old Kingdom pyramid complexes combined different elements from the axial plan and from the rectangular plan of Djoser. To supply the pyramid complexes kings founded new towns and farming estates on undeveloped lands across Egypt. The flow of goods from these lands to the central government helped unify the kingdom. The rulers of the Middle Kingdom around 2055 BC continued building pyramids and their associated complexes. Rare remains from Middle Kingdom temples like the one at Medinet Madi show that temple plans grew more symmetrical during that period. Divine temples made increasing use of stone. The pattern of a sanctuary lying behind a pillared hall frequently appears in Middle Kingdom temples. Sometimes these two elements are fronted by open courts foreshadowing the standard temple layout used in later times.
Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for the gods to reside on earth. The term Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building was hwt-ntr which means mansion or enclosure of a god. A divine presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and allowed humans to interact with the god through ritual. These rituals sustained the god and allowed it to continue playing its proper role in nature. They were therefore a key part of the maintenance of maat the ideal order of nature and of human society in Egyptian belief. Maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion and it was the purpose of a temple as well. Because he was credited with divine power himself the pharaoh as a sacred king was regarded as Egypt's representative to the gods. Thus it was theoretically his duty to perform the temple rites. While it is uncertain how often he participated in ceremonies the existence of temples across Egypt made it impossible for him to do so in all cases. Most of the time these duties were delegated to priests. The pharaoh was nevertheless obligated to maintain provide for and expand the temples throughout his realm. Although the pharaoh delegated his authority the performance of temple rituals was still an official duty restricted to high-ranking priests. The participation of the general populace in most ceremonies was prohibited. Much of the lay religious activity in Egypt instead took place in private and community shrines separate from official temples. As the primary link between the human and divine realms temples attracted considerable veneration from ordinary Egyptians. Each temple had a principal deity and most were dedicated to other gods as well. Not all deities had temples dedicated to them. Many demons and household gods were involved primarily in magical or private religious practice with little or no presence in temple ceremonies. There were also other gods who had significant roles in the cosmos but for unclear reasons were not honored with temples of their own. Of those gods who did have temples of their own many were venerated mainly in certain areas of Egypt though many gods with a strong local tie were also important across the nation.
The largest required prodigious resources and employed tens of thousands of priests craftsmen and laborers. The temple's economic workings were analogous to those of a large Egyptian household with servants dedicated to serving the temple god as they might serve the master of an estate. This similarity is reflected in the Egyptian term for temple lands and their administration pr meaning house or estate. Some of the temple's supplies came from direct donations by the king. In the New Kingdom when Egypt was an imperial power these donations often came out of the spoils of the king's military campaigns or the tribute given by his client states. The king might also levy various taxes that went directly to support a temple. Other revenue came from private individuals who offered land slaves or goods to temples in exchange for a supply of offerings and priestly services to sustain their spirits in the afterlife. Much of a temple's economic support came from its own resources. These included large tracts of land beyond the temple enclosure sometimes in a completely different region than the temple itself. The most important type of property was farmland producing grain fruit or wine or supporting herds of livestock. The temple either managed these lands directly rented them out to farmers for a share of the produce or managed them jointly with the royal administration. Temples also launched expeditions into the desert to collect resources such as salt honey or wild game or to mine precious minerals. Some owned fleets of ships with which to conduct their own trade across the country or even beyond Egypt's borders. As Richard H. Wilkinson says the temple estate often represented no less than a slice of Egypt itself. As a major economic center and the employer of a large part of the local population the temple enclosure was a key part of the town in which it stood. Conversely when a temple was founded on empty land a new town was built to support it. All this economic power was ultimately under the pharaoh's control and temple products and property were often taxed. Their employees even the priests were subject to the state corvée system which conscripted labor for royal projects. They could also be ordered to provide supplies for some specific purposes. A trading expedition led by Harkhuf in the Sixth Dynasty around 2246 BC was allowed to procure supplies from any temple it wished. The mortuary temples of the Theban Necropolis in the New Kingdom oversaw the provision of the royally employed tomb workers at Deir el-Medina. Kings could also exempt temples or classes of personnel from taxation and conscription. The royal administration could also order one temple to divert its resources to another temple whose influence it wished to expand. Thus a king might increase the income of the temples of a god he favored and mortuary temples of recent rulers tended to siphon off resources from temples to pharaohs long dead.
The Great Temple of Abu Simbel is aligned so that twice a year the rising sun illuminates the statues of the gods in its innermost room. Most temples were aligned toward the Nile with an axis running roughly east, west. An elaborate series of foundation rituals preceded construction. A further set of rituals followed the temple's completion dedicating it to its patron god. These rites were conducted at least in theory by the king as part of his religious duties. In reality it was the work of hundreds of his subjects conscripted in the corvée system. The use of stone in Egyptian temples emphasized their purpose as eternal houses for the gods and set them apart from buildings for the use of mortals which were built of mudbrick. Early temples were built of brick and other perishable materials and most of the outlying buildings in temple enclosures remained brick-built throughout Egyptian history. The main stones used in temple construction were limestone and sandstone which are common in Egypt. Stones that are harder and more difficult to carve such as granite were used in smaller amounts for individual elements like obelisks. The stone might be quarried nearby or shipped on the Nile from quarries elsewhere. Temple structures were built on foundations of stone slabs set into sand-filled trenches. In most periods walls and other structures were built with large blocks of varying shape. The blocks were laid in courses usually without mortar. Each stone was dressed to fit with its neighbors producing cuboid blocks whose uneven shapes interlocked. The interiors of walls were often built with less care using rougher poorer-quality stones. To build structures above ground level the workers used construction ramps built of varying materials such as mud brick or rough stone. When cutting chambers in living rock workers excavated from the top down carving a crawlspace near the ceiling and cutting down to the floor. Once the temple structure was complete the rough faces of the stones were dressed to create a smooth surface. In decorating these surfaces reliefs were carved into the stone or if the stone was of too poor quality to carve a layer of plaster covered the stone surface. Reliefs were then decorated with gilding inlay or paint. The paints were usually mixtures of mineral pigments with some kind of adhesive possibly natural gum.
Although they were excluded from the formal rituals of the temple laymen still sought to interact with the gods. There is little evidence of the religious practices of individual people from early Egyptian history so Egyptologists' understanding of the subject derives mostly from the New Kingdom or later periods. The evidence from those times indicates that while ordinary Egyptians used many venues to interact with the divine such as household shrines or community chapels the official temples with their sequestered gods were a major focus for popular veneration. Unable to address the cult image directly laymen still attempted to convey their prayers to it. At times they related messages to priests to deliver to the temple deity at other times they expressed their piety in the parts of the temple that they could access. Courts doorways and hypostyle halls might have spaces designated for public prayer. Sometimes people directed their appeals to the royal colossi which were believed to act as divine intermediaries. More private areas for devotion were located at the building's outer wall where large niches served as chapels of the hearing ear for individuals to speak to the god. The Egyptians also interacted with deities through the donation of offerings ranging from simple bits of jewelry to large and finely carved statues and stelae. Among their contributions were statues that sat in temple courts serving as memorials to the donors after their deaths and receiving portions of the temple offerings to sustain the donors' spirits. Other statues served as gifts to the temple god and inscribed stelae conveyed to the resident deity the donors' prayers and messages of thanks. Over the centuries so many of these statues accumulated within a temple building that priests sometimes moved them out of the way by burying them in caches beneath the floor. Commoners offered simple wooden or clay models as votives. The form of these models may indicate the reason for their donation. Figurines of women are among the most common types of votive figures and some are inscribed with a prayer for a woman to bear a child.
After Rome conquered the Ptolemaic kingdom in 30 BC Roman emperors took on the role of ruler and temple patron. Many temples in Roman Egypt continued to be built in Egyptian style. Others including some that were dedicated to Egyptian gods such as the temple to Isis at Ras el-Soda were built in a style derived from Roman architecture. Temple-building continued into the third century AD. As the empire weakened in the crisis of the third century imperial donations to the temple cults dried up and almost all construction and decoration ceased. Cult activities at some sites continued relying increasingly on financial support and volunteer labor from surrounding communities. In the following centuries Christian emperors issued decrees that were increasingly hostile to pagan cults and temples. Some Christians attacked and destroyed temples as in the plundering of the Serapeum and other temples in Alexandria in AD 391 or 392. Through some combination of Christian coercion and loss of funds temples ceased to function at various times. The last temple cults died out in the fourth through sixth centuries AD although locals may have venerated some sites long after the regular ceremonies there had ceased. At the start of the nineteenth century a wave of interest in ancient Egypt swept Europe giving rise to the discipline of Egyptology and drawing increasing numbers of visitors to the civilization's remains. Dozens of temples survive and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy. Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones for information about ancient Egyptian society.
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Common questions
When did the earliest shrines appear in prehistoric Egypt?
The earliest shrines appeared in prehistoric Egypt during the late fourth millennium BC at sites such as Saïs and Buto in Lower Egypt. These early structures were made of perishable materials like wood, reed matting, and mudbrick.
What was the primary purpose of an Egyptian temple according to religious belief?
Maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion and it was the purpose of a temple as well. The term Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building was hwt-ntr which means mansion or enclosure of a god.
How were temples funded and managed economically in ancient Egypt?
Much of a temple's economic support came from its own resources including large tracts of land producing grain fruit or wine or supporting herds of livestock. Some of the temple's supplies came from direct donations by the king while other revenue came from private individuals who offered land slaves or goods to temples.
Who performed rituals inside Egyptian temples and what were their duties?
Priests performed the temple's essential ritual functions but in Egyptian religious ideology they were far less important than the king. All ceremonies were in theory acts by the king and priests merely stood in his place.
When did Roman emperors take over the role of ruler and temple patron in Egypt?
After Rome conquered the Ptolemaic kingdom in 30 BC Roman emperors took on the role of ruler and temple patron. Temple-building continued into the third century AD before imperial donations dried up during the crisis of the third century.