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| Temple of Esna |
1-The City of Esna:
2- Historical Background of the temple
3-Description of the temple
1-The City of Esna:
western bank, about 50 km to the south of Luxor.
snyt or t3-snyt .
In Greek as Latopolis after the fish Latos Niloticus.
the capital of the third nome of Upper Egypt.
2-Historical Background of the Temple:
only the first hall or the pronaos still exists.
dedicated to the ram-headed god Khnum,
Other deities: Neith represented as a lady, Tefnut and Menhit as lioness goddesses.
dates back at least to the 18th Dyn.
The pronaos is dated to the Ptolemaic period and its decoration to the Roman.
The oldest Ptolemy's name is that of Ptolemy VI, on the rear wall.
Other Ptolemies: Ptolemy VIII (Eurgetes II) and his wife Cleopatra.
Scenes & names of Roman emperors: Claudius, Vespasian, Domitian, Trajan, Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Marcus Urelius, Commodus, Serverus and Caracalla.
The axis is hardly east-west.
It stands on a lower level than the surrounding ground (about 9 m below ground level).
The pronaos contains 24 columns in 6 rows with decorated capitals.
The façade is decorated with 6 of these columns connected with screen walls bearing religious scenes.
Important Scenes:
(1). It shows the emperor Commodus in the company of Khnum drawing net full of different sorts of birds and fishes in the eyewitness of other deities.
On the rear wall representations of Ptolemy VI and Ptolemy VIII: (right) (2) offerings to Khnum,
(3) (left) Khnum as a creator god creating a human being on his potter's wheel.
Ceiling:
decorated with astronomical scenes, arranged in seven registers
the central is flanked by 3 registers on each side.
Each is divided into 2 rows (northern and southern) showing decans, night hours, moon phases, mythological figures, constellations, planets and the zodiacal signs.
Temple (B) of Esna
center of the rear wall is a doorway in form of a pylon.
the right (north) and left (south) exterior walls are reliefs that represent the pharaoh smiting enemies before the temple's deities.
Below are lists of the names of the conquered areas.
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