Page 31

A Tour of the Temple of Hathor

A few minutes later

“There it is,” Diana said, her gaze directed at the flat roofline of a structure that was slowly coming into view from behind a massive mud brick wall.

Framed with the angled pylons common to other Egyptian temples, the Temple of Hathor featured a figure-carved fascia atop six columns. Six stone panels, also carved, ran across the front of the columns, although several were mostly hidden by a sand dune. Two rectangular pillars framed the opening.

To the north, a gateway made up of two sandstone pillars topped with a broken lintel jutted from the sand, its surface etched with hieroglyphics.

“The capitals look odd,” Tom remarked, referring to the tops of the columns on the front of the temple. “Rather an unusual shape.”

“Those are supposed to be Hathor, but her face has been etched away,” Diana explained. “The protrusions on either side of her face and in the front of her headdress are the cow ears,” she added. To the untrained eye, the conical features might have been mistaken for an unusual hairstyle.

“By whom?” Randy asked.

“Christians. They attempted to erase any images of what they believed to be pagan gods,” she explained. “And then they adopted the temple for their use.”

“It obviously benefited from being buried in the sand,” Randy commented as their driver directed the horse to pull their hantour into a line next to the one holding their aunt and uncle.

David had already stepped down from the driver’s bench, hurrying to stand atop a slight sand dune. The hill obscured the lower portion of the right side of the front facade and appeared to block the entrance to the temple.

“The doorway is accessible,” he called out. Given the height of the temple, he appeared rather small where he stood on a mound of sand.

Randy stepped down from the hantour, hoisting Diana’s satchel over one shoulder before assisting her to the ground. He knew better than to offer his arm, for she was already practically running toward the temple, her hurried steps encumbered by the sand.

When Tom took off in pursuit, Randy chuckled and followed in their footsteps. “They seem to forget that I am the one carrying the bag with the torches,” he said when he joined their guide.

“They will not need light for the front part of the temple,” Mahmood remarked.

He pointed at the facade. Hieroglyphic carvings were evident on the three left side panels that fronted the columns, their height not quite half the height of the entire temple.

The columns continued up to support the front of the roof.

“Ah, I did not know if we would be able to go inside the temple,” Mahmood replied. “When I was last here, the sand blocked most of the opening. Someone has been here and cleared it.” His last words were quieter, as if he was talking to himself.

“Do you think someone else is in there now?” Randy asked, alarm sounding in his voice at the thought that Diana and David had already gone beyond the columns. Even as he asked the question, Tom had disappeared from view.

Mahmood shook his head. “If anyone else is here, they have been here for some time.” He waved to the area around them, where the sand remained undisturbed and no other means of transport was visible. He turned and waited until a driver hurried up carrying several torches.

Randy’s eyes widened at seeing the ragged-wrapped rush stalks. From the scent, he realized they had been soaked in some sort of animal fat. “But you knew there was a possibility we might encounter someone.”

Mahmood shrugged. “I am not without a weapon, and I always pack a few rushlights in the box behind the driver,” he replied, grinning.

Although it appeared dark beyond the rectangular entrance, light spilled in from around the richly decorated columns.

The voices of the others sounded hollow in the cavernous structure, the sandy stone floor amplifying their footsteps.

“We won’t need the torches right away,” Mahmood said. “The hypostyle is well-lit, but it is darker toward the back and in the crypts below.”

“Crypts?” Randy repeated, removing his eye-glasses. He tucked them into a waistcoat pocket.

Mahmood nodded. “There are many. The passageways are very small, though. They are long and thin. Difficult for a man to explore.”

Randy displayed a look of relief. Diana would insist on going down there to explore, though. “How does one go below?” he asked.

“There are stairs from trapdoors in the main temple floor. Near the walls,” the guide replied. “There are stairs up to the roof, too.” He indicated the torches. “We will light these when it becomes necessary.” He waved for everyone to follow, and he entered the temple.

A round of ‘ooh’s and ‘ah’s sounded from their party as they surveyed the rows of round pillars filling the hypostyle. Their capitals were like those on the front of the temple, the heads of Hathor but with her features removed.

“Diana?” Randy called out.

“Here,” she replied from somewhere to his right.

He quickly joined her, understanding immediately what had her attention.

The front wall as well as the two side walls were covered in carvings, some of the original paint still intact.

She was slowly gazing at the front wall from left to right, as if memorizing it.

“The Romans were definitely here,” she murmured.

“Oh?”

She pointed up to an area near the opening.

“Latin,” she said, pointing to a man’s name etched in between the hieroglyphics.

She dropped her finger down to where ‘Leonardo 1820” was clearly carved into the limestone, and not far from it, in a flat area devoid of Egyptian carving, was a phrase in Greek. “It’s a poem.”

“That basically says ‘I was here and saw all,’” Randy murmured.

His gaze swept up the wall to his left and then to the ceiling, which appeared black. He was about to mention it when Mahmood cleared his throat.

“We are in the hypostyle of the Temple of Hathor,” he announced.

“Built to honor and worship the goddess.” He waved a hand to one of the pillars, a series of colorful carvings surrounding it all the way to the top.

Most of the columns—twenty-four in total—were similarly carved and painted, the colors still vibrant, but a few appeared unfinished.

Nearly all the capitals had been vandalized to remove Hathor’s facial features.

“You will not see as many carvings, reliefs or paintings in any of the other temples on your travels as you will see here in this one.”

“Why would that be?” Will asked, his attention on one of the walls.

Mahmood lifted a shoulder. “It’s as if the priests demanded everything of our history be recorded for posterity. Perhaps because they feared our history would be lost due to foreign rule.”

“Foreign rule?” Harry repeated, turning from where he was studying one of the pillars.

“The later pharaohs were not Egyptian,” the guide replied.

“The Ptolemaic dynasty,” Diana murmured. “Which would explain why this temple is in such good condition.”

“What’s that, my sweet?” Randy asked.

“It’s possible this temple was built only a couple of thousand years ago,” she replied, her voice louder.

Barbara sounded a scoff. “Only?”

“Considering the pyramids we saw were four -thousand years old, then yes,” Randy remarked.

“Oh, I see your point,” his aunt replied thoughtfully.

“Let us go further into the temple,” Mahmood suggested. “And to the snail—the staircase of light that leads to the roof.”

Murmurs of curiosity followed his announcement, and everyone lined up behind the guide as he headed into the inner hypostyle, pausing between two columns.

They weren’t in very good condition. “This was probably the front of the temple in an earlier version,” he announced, pointing to the columns on either side of him.

From the worn appearance, it was evident the columns had been exposed to wind.

“This temple may have been rebuilt or simply enlarged by later pharaohs.” He turned and continued between two rows of three Hathor-topped columns.

Instead of heading into the offering hall, he turned right and then stepped through an opening in the wall on the left.

He took a sharp right on the other side of the wall, where light appeared at the end of a corridor.

The walls on either side were decorated in bas reliefs and looked as if they were covered in soot.

Ahead, a series of shallow stairs led up toward the source of light—a small window in the temple wall. The surface of the stairs looked as if something thick had been poured onto it and allowed to drip down.

“We know not why these stairs are this way,” Mahmood remarked as he ascended the first section before turning to the left and disappearing up the next set of stairs.

“But they are here for ceremonial purposes,” he added, continuing his ascent.

“This set for going up to the roof and there is another for going down.”

“There’s another set of stairs?” Harry asked, urging Stella to go in front of him. She did so, followed by Helen and Tom.

He had hovered near his daughter ever since their arrival at the temple, as if he feared she might require assistance after her ordeal with the snake.

“A long, straight set of stairs is on the other side of the temple,” Mahmood replied.

“The stairs we are on were used for religious ceremonies, especially during the festival to welcome the new year,” he continued as he turned yet again to the left to climb another set of shallow stairs.

“The reliefs you see on the walls depict the pharaohs making their offerings to the gods.”

“These are astronomical symbols,” Diana remarked, pausing to study a series of hieroglyphs.

“Indeed. This temple was probably used for astronomical observations,” Mahmood agreed. “The roof provides an excellent location from which to see the entire sky at night.”