The XIth dynasty temple at Deir el-Bahari .. - NYU | Digital Library ...

28 THE XIth dynasty TE^rPLE AT DEIR EL-BAHART.
immediately uurtli of the gnuiite threshold con-
tained each three columns only : beyond
them
was a wall of heavy nodules of flint Avhich seemed
to bar further progress. This might have been
taken for a mere later excrescence but for the
fact that it was seen that its face was aligned
with the eastern side of the ^^l^tform, and,
almost immediately afterwards, that it turned
at right angles north, with its north face aligned
with the north side of the platform : the corner
also was seen to be symmetrically placed Avith
regard to the north-east corner of the platform.
That is to say, this wall was evidently part of
the original design of the temple, an integral
portion of the Xlth Dynasty building. That
being so, it seemed possible that this rectangular
mass of stones might well be the pyramid of
the king who built the temple, Neb-hepet-Rjl
Mentuhetep, which, we knew, from the mention
of it in the Abbott Papyrus, was situated at Deir
el-Bahari. Work having come to an end two
days after this discovery, the corner discovered
was photographed {Archaeological Report,
11)04-5, PI. iii., fig. 2) and covered up for the
summer.
The first three days' work on the platform
next winter resulted in the exposure of the
whole eastern face, 60 ft. long, of this central
building. The final clearance of the whole
of it was effected in January, 1905, when it
Avas entirely freed from the rubbish which
surrounded and covered it.
It proved to be a mass of rubble, GO ft.
square, with an outer revetment of heavy Hint
boulders from the mountain-wadis near by.
This was originally faced with fine limestone
blocks. In only one place, the north-western
corner, has any of this outer facing been pre-
served, show ing that the building was originally
about 70 ft. square. The mass is not more than
10 ft. high in any place, the top having dis-
appeared in ancient times. In it were stuck,
three trunks of aonl trees, for what purpose is
not clear.
Two were together at the S.E. corner,
the other at tlie N.E. corner. The facing does
not slope like that of a regular pyramid, though
it has a slight batter. At eacli corner had been
the usual torus or angle-bead, painted yellow
with black bands, of which fragments have been
found. Many of the blocks of a heavy cavetto
cornice, which may have existed round the top,
liave also been found. It was, then, not a
pyramid itself, but a base or pedestal, on which
was raised a further construction of some kind.
This cannot have been an altar or a sanctuary,
as in that case we should have found the remains
of a step-way giving access to the top. Nor can
it have been an obelisk like that of the Vth
Dynasty sanctuary of Ra at Abu Gurab near
Abiisir, excavated by the Germans.^ But on this
base may have stood a small pyramid which gave
to the building the appearance of a funerary
monument of a type which we often see depicted
in the papyri of the Hook of
th.e Deail.^ The
pyramid may very well have been built of bricks :
in excavating the ramp a mass of brickwork
was found which may not impossibly have
come from the central building, a few yards otf,
' BoECHARDT,
Das Re'-HciUgtum des Konigs Ne-ivoser-
Bc'. Though the Sun-Temple of Ne-user-Ea has a
funerary character, and some comparison between its
obelisk-pedestal and the central erection of Mentuhetep's
temple may be made, yet the resemblance between them
is merely fortuitous, and implies no real similarity. That
the Deir el-Bahari erection was the pedestal of an obelisk
like that at Abuslr would be entirely improbable, apart
from the fact that we know that there was a pyramid
here (see above). Ea was not specially venerated at
Thebes (except, later, in combination with Amen), or by
this dynasty.
- These pyramids on a base seem to have been charac-
teristic of the Theban necropolis. Of. those figured in
PEKHOT-CHiriEZ, Hist, dc I'Art, i. (Egypte), figs. 187-190.
Pig. 188 especially, with its detached door in front, shows
what the central erection may have looked like. The Deir
el-Bahari pyramid, however, had no door in its side. A
pyramid with colonnades round it (with lotus-bud pillars,
however), from a painting or relief, is figured in Eosel-
LiNi, Mon. Civ., pi. cxxxii. 1. That this is not a repre-
sentation of our temple is shown by the shape of the
pillars. It is apparently an elaborate private tomb of the
XVIIIth Dynasty.