We were delighted to host Professor Penny Wilson for this lecture – her second visit to the Hapy Society.
Setting the scene, she explained how the temple was the home of the god, a pure place where the king, or his designated deputies, the priests, could interact with the gods and ensure that Maat (truth, order, balance) was maintained throughout the land of Egypt.
Her focus was on the temples of Luxor and Edfu, but other examples provided good breadth and background, and lovely photos! These temples were exclusive places, the inner “naos” or sanctuary, being accessible only to the high priest and the king. Walking from the outside to the naos one found the floor rising and the ceiling dropping so that the darkened naos was an intimate, almost domestic space where the god’s needs were attended to – feeding, dressing, washing, oiling. Whilst the upper echelons of society might have been allowed into the outer courts the general population would have been excluded, and the temple would have been, for them, a place of power, secrecy and mystery.
Penny’s talk was detailed and wide ranging and gave reasons to revisit and look at the monuments with newly opened eyes. For example, I was surprised to hear that the temples were arranged with one side of the temple representing Lower Egypt and one side for Upper Egypt (in theory) with the red crown often on one side and the white crown on the other. I had also not realised that the images of the king always face the naos whereas the gods’ images always face out to the front of the temple.
This was a detailed and authoritative lecture, with much detail given about the layout of images and the way in which there is a formulaic arrangement of scenes: about the foundation of the temple, the ancestry, the temple gods, the preservation of the cosmos and finally royal protection. I’m hoping that this will come flooding back when I am next standing in the chambers of an ancient Egyptian temple.
Our thanks to Penny for giving us such an interesting and informative afternoon.
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