Silver gelatin on
glass 23.5 x 29.5 cm Epigraphic Survey, Oriental Institute,
University of Chicago |
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The
Temple of Horus at Edfu. This view shows the outer hypostyle hall
of the temple of Horus at Edfu. The hall was called in Egyptian the "hall
in front of the sanctuary," the equivalent of the Greek pronaos. Massive
columns, their capitals decorated in florid composite styles that
represent the lush growth of the swamps, hold up the colossal roof slabs.
On one side of this hall is a small room, a symbolic representation of the
purgatorium, where the king was ritually purified before entering the
temple proper. On the opposite side of the hall, pendant to the
purgatorium, there is a small room representing the temple library.
Visible on the column in the right foreground is a figure of the king with
his arms raised in the tw3-p.t pose, in which he is depicted reenacting
the instant of creation when the god Shu lifted the heavens up from the
earth, bringing into being the ordered world and thrusting aside unformed
chaos.
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