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Deir el Shelwit Isis Temple Thebe’s, Luxor April 28th 2008.
Waiting for Mahmoud our driver can be either a godsend when were running late ourselves or a exhaustive exercise, however today was one of those days when we wished he was running late, but alas he was on time, and in the rush that ensued I forgot the basic paper work for the trip. So on arriving at Deir el Shelwit I was confronted with the prospect of first drawing out the site firstly before I could begin with the survey of the structure itself. By the way, there are many spellings out there for the site itself, Deir el Shelwit, Deir el Chellouit (French spelling), for example. I will stick with the phonetic spelling at this time. Now, for anyone who has been out there, they will be more than aware that over the past few years the local’s have been fly tipping their collected rubbish onto the outskirts of Amenhotep III’s lake. The amount of rubbish out there now has more than doubled in the past 2 years, but what is making it even worse now, is the fact that the desert land to the West of the road has now been turned over to agriculture in some places, now I am more than aware of the argument for more agricultural land, but the rising water tables in the area are a danger for the temples and especially the mud brick structures that lie beneath the ground in that vicinity. Now it does not take a mathematician to work out how much water actually drains away and how over a period of years how this will affect the locality and of course the mud brick structures themselves which are deteriorating at an incredible rate. The palace of Amenhotep III has been exposed to the elements now for a best part of a century and the part of the palace which is supposed to have the painted murals, well, enough said I think. I’m sure you get the picture. So back to the drive out to Shelwit, after driving past all the rubbish and the newly turned agricultural fields, dead donkeys etc. Mahmoud’s patience had disappeared as he had never been out there and was starting to think I was taking him on one of John’s wild adventures. So it was a sigh of relief all round when we could see the temple in the distance. It is quite interesting, sorry to side track yet again, but it does amaze me how many of the Egyptian friends I speak too know so little and how little few of them have actually visited the sites that they have lived among for so long. I suppose it does reflect on the way in which we (westerners) are brought up and educated to respect the past and have an awareness of the environment in which we live. Sorry for that, back on track again. So, we finally reached the temple, the approach of the main track winds its way to the south western corner of the temple itself with the track lying at its corner literally. Mahmoud dropped us of and left us there to carry out our research and studies, waiting for the phone call to return us home later. The temple is located at the south western corner of the lake of Amenhotep III and has been restored and researched by the French mission over the past few years. Unfortunately not much has been done though to preserve the site from the ever increasing urbanisation that is taking place along the edge of the Western desert. This site in particular has a road that completely cuts the southern section of the site off, a house has been built on this area now and the perimeter mud brick wall has disappeared from that location. The track that intersects through the mud brick wall as previously stated passes the very Southern corner of the temple structure itself. The mud brick wall now has all but disappeared at this point (see photos). The grounds of the site are periodically cleaned of long grasses, but unfortunately this has not been the case for a while now and the long dry grass has now grown in and around the main gated entrance, which is now being used by locals as a toilet. The gate itself has succumbed to children’s graffiti, thankfully with white chalk which can be removed quite easily but all the same it is a shame that it has been left so. The remainder of the site is mostly made up of mud brick foundational walls which run the perimeter of the site and within this perimeter are signs of small rooms possibly chapels that accompanied the temple itself. At one point a hose pipe has been buried, cutting through the structure itself. The sacred well which is beautifully mud brick lined has too been left to over grown with bull rushes, this will inevitably have a negative effect on the mud brick and this too will be lost in time. There is a small Kom of pottery sherds and loose material to the north of the site just beyond the mud brick wall. There are various other mud brick structures that can be seen lying just beneath the surface of the site and on the outside of the perimeter wall but these have not been excavated at this time, although saying this, one has, but this too has been left exposed to the elements and is now in state of decay and filling up with local rubbish and grass. The mud brick perimeter wall would have been a formidable sight on approaching the temple from any given direction, having said this; we do not believe that it was built at the same time as that of the stone temple itself, possibly afterwards. The Western face of the perimeter wall runs directly on the back facade of the temple itself and would of made the construction the temple virtually impossible had it been in situ at the time of construction and given the unfinished nature of the temple it seems absurd to build the wall so close to the temple itself at this point in its construction. This raises a question which falls into one of our theories regarding temple construction of this type. The stone used to construct this temple has been quarried and delivered to the site, there are also various reclaimed dressed stone fragments within the structure itself suggesting either there was a temple on this site previous to this one being built and had fallen into ruin and therefore a new temple was commissioned or the reclaimed stone had been brought in from another site close by, possibly Amenhotep III palace or Medinat Habu, both of which would of been the closest. But not all the stone blocks have not received dressing, it appears that in sections, the process of dressing has begun but not been finished, there are no reliefs at all on the exterior of the temple itself (except for the main door frame) only on the interior surfaces plus the given height of the interior floor of the temple is that much higher of that of the exterior ground level, there is a huge anominally in these two measurements. It is as if the floor level on the exterior of the temple has been either taken away or was never there, which would imply that a false floor was to be built in the area within the perimeter walls. This may have something however to do with the Nile inundation, did in fact the Nile flood waters flow this far out and was the temple deliberately built this high to raise it above the flood waters as they encircled the temple, hence the reason possibly for such a thick mud brick wall to its perimeter. There is another structure to the North of the temple which is built from mud brick also. This structure has an square central structure with two ramps leading off from its north and south faces, however its orientation does not have any relationship to that of the temple itself and its appearance is that of a later period possibly Roman. There were evidence of pottery sherds dating from various periods within its structure but this does not give us an exact date to the building of this structure nor does it tell us its relationship with that of the temple. So, back to the temple, it apparent unfinished state therefore does pose some questions as to the verification of its date of construction. We do not believe that it is indeed the sole work of the Romans but possibly dates back to that of the Ptolemaic period if not to that of 30th dynasty with Nectanebo I/II. The Romans merely took advantage of its unfinished nature and begun their own relief work on the undressed stone surfaces. Now we do have evidence to support this theory on other sites in and around Egypt, but we will wait to publish these facts at a later date. If one takes a look at the Google image of the site and the locality with respect to the northern mud brick structure one can see there is no relationship between the two or their location close to one another. But there are anomalies beneath the surface of the ground that may well shed light on their different locations. Given the terrain out there and make up of the ground surface, it is hard to see what was the reason for these two structures as the ground levels are completely littered with stones fragments and sediment intermixed, there are no apparent level cleaned pathways or roads that lead to either site that would suggest their involvement in any daily ceremony or rituals that could of taken place on a daily basis. This also raises the questions as to the authenticity of the construction dates of the temple and the associated mud brick structures. For if it was indeed the Romans who instigated this temple and its associated structures, why then has this not then continued until now. My reason for stating this is that after the decline of the roman empire and its hold over Thebes for that instance , the Copts/Gnostics took over what was left and the pagans were forced to take shelter in other areas outside of Thebes, there is a great deal of evidence to support the existence of a Coptic community with the confines of Medinat Habu for instance and given Deir el Shelwit close proximity to this and its obvious size and nature of its structure it would be sensible to assume that this was too taken by the Coptic’s as a place of refuge if not settlement. In fact it would have been a sensible location for yet another conversion of a pagan temple into a Kaneesa (church). But this was not the case with this particular temple. Nor was it destroyed by the Coptic’s for building material, however saying that it may be possible to surmise that the outer mud brick walls were indeed used for further building material. Or agriculture for that matter. But with so many examples of the Coptic’s taking refuge within temples and utilising them for their own communities I would have thought that this would have been the same for this temple compound. The location on the fringe of the western desert may provide us with a clue as to why this did not happen, the trade routes through the Theban hills could possibly help us understand this problematic situation. Was the temple still being used by the indigenous inhabitants as a shrine of worship either in a pagan or Christian style of worship given its association off course with Isis? It was Isis that was eventually converted or should we say assimilated into the worshipping of Mary, mother of Jesus and that this may well be the apparent reason for it’s saving. Pilgrims, merchants, nomadic tribespeople etc, all would and could worship either deity without encroaching or upsetting the other. This shrine then would have been kept as a symbol of trade between the various villages and towns that the merchants would travel to and receive safe passage from. The interior has suffered considerably from incense burning and it is evident by the sooting upon the interior walls that there was a great deal of ceremonial worship taking place inside the temple itself or the soot could be the result of habitation within the temple, without proper analysis this cannot be argued at this point. The temple itself has been well documented as to its relief scenes within the interior of the temple itself, the Emperors Hadrian and Antonius Pius have both added to these reliefs where on the exterior there are no relief as already mentioned previously, however the gate bears the deeply cut reliefs of Emperors Galba, Otho and Vespasian with the remains of the inner gateway which by the way is hardly recognisable now once bore the cartouche of Caesar. All these Emperors have at one time added their mark of respect to this little temple but again, I state there is no evident pathway, causeway or canal for that matter that provide a processional entrance to this temple, so therefore what was its function, why has it evaded the usual butchery that has taken place with so many other small shrines, temples, stations. One has this one escaped the destruction that we have witnessed and seen all over Egypt, my only conclusion is the Isis theory and that this was its saving grace. Before closing I would like to take a look at the actual configuration of the temple itself. The temple has as previously discussed been built on a socle, within the walls lie 6 chambers the Sothern chambers both lead off from the mysterious corridor while only one chamber leads of the mysterious corridor on the northern side with a doorway leading to the north western chamber in the far corner. The other two chambers are accessed by the pronaos to the front while the naos in the centre of the structure sits in a symmetrical orientation to the chambers. Was the mysterious corridor then in fact a whispering corridor similar to that of the oracle temple in Siwa, where the presiding priest would utter the words softly of the residing god and the pilgrim would then believe he/she was receiving the words of wisdom directly from the god in this case during the roman period, as we only have Roman relief to suggest there being the prescience of a god within the temple itself. The layout does resemble that of the usual Ptolemaic design and this may be a pointer to its original builders. I have posted various photographs to accompany this missive and would like to hear from anyone who has any further information on this site. I will be returning to Deir el Shelwit to measure the perimeter walls and also examine the mud brick more closely to find any similarities with other mud brick structures in the locality. There is one last observation I would like to point out before I finish, and that is the Google image of Amenhotep III’s lake perimeter to the west. I have posted the Google image for you to make your own judgement on. But it does have similar characteristics to that of the embankment I referred to as a canal at Gebelein last week, and the direction and its small curve at its southern end does then fall in line with that of the other mud brick structure, could thereof been a canal running from north to south in this locality and is this the reason for the height of the temple itself but when the lake had dried and completely lost its function so did in fact the ramped mud brick structure too. But the temple then took on a new function and was renewed by the Romans, hence its decoration etc. Just a theory at this point, more investigation is required to substantiate this. Until next time. Dr John Ward GM.KT. & Ph.MA.Maria Nilsson GM.K.T. Trustees, Historical Preservation Society, DEUS LE VOLT
Posts: 13 | From: Egypt | Registered: Apr 2008
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