Through the Eras

Architecture and Design— Burial chamberHypostyle hallCentral edifice,22.2 22.2 mBab el-HosanNAmbulatoryTree pitsForecourtFieldstone wallCauseway00100 m300 ftAmbulatoryCentral edificePassage to burial chamber(foreshortened), I. 150 mRock-cut nichewith statue of kingRampBurialchamberMentuhotep’s tomb complex. CREATED BY GGS INFORMATION SERVICES. GALE.Nebhepetre Mentuhotep as an ancestor because they believedit helped them establish their own legitimacy torule Egypt.MENTUHOTEP’S FUNERARY TEMPLE AND TOMB.The funerary temple for Mentuhotep was unlike thosebuilt by his predecessors in ruling Egypt, the kings ofthe Old Kingdom who built pyramid complexes. InsteadNebhepetre Mentuhotep built a temple and tomb basedon local traditions in Thebes, the area where he was born.For reasons unknown, only Hatshepsut, the queen whoruled approximately 500 years after him, imitated histemple. The major architecture during his reign was histomb and temple built in Deir el Bahri on the west bankof the Nile opposite modern Luxor. This region is alsoknown as Thebes. Deir el Bahri is surrounded by cliffsthat mark the beginning of the Sahara. The tomb itselfwas carved out of the mountain. Directly at the base ofthe mountain, Mentuhotep’s builders constructed a T-shaped platform with the longer part of the “T” extendingfrom the mountain and the wider part of the“T” stretching north and south. Priests could access theplatform by a long causeway that formed the entranceto the building. Approaching from the causeway, thepriest would reach an area called the central edifice, 22.2meters (72.8 feet) square. A columned ambulatory (asheltered walkway) surrounded a central core that hasbeen reconstructed in three different ways. The originalexcavator, Swiss archaeologist Edouard Naville, reconstructedthe now destroyed central core as a pyramid.He knew that the Abbott Papyrus, written hundreds ofyears after this temple’s construction, described thisbuilding as a mer, the ancient Egyptian word for pyramid.The German archaeologist Dieter Arnold, however,restudied the blocks from the temple in the 1970s anddemonstrated that the walls of the central edifice werenot strong enough to support a pyramid as a central core.Arnold argued that the word mer during the time of thewriting of the Abbott Papyrus meant only “tomb,” andno longer meant “pyramid” exclusively, and reconstructeda cube on the central edifice. The German archaeologistRainer Stadelmann subsequently suggestedthat a mound was built on the central edifice. Thismound would be a reference to the sand mounds foundin the most ancient Egyptian funerary structures at Abydos.This reconstruction, though, is purely hypothetical.Behind the ambulatory is a hypostyle hall, literally aroom filled with columns. This room contained eightyoctagonal columns leading to a rock-cut niche containinga statue of the king. The king appears to stride directlyout of the mountain. A tunnel cut in the bedrockleads to the burial chamber.OTHER ARCHITECTURAL ELEMENTS. The royaltomb itself is cut into the mountain. A tunnel 44.9 meters(147 feet) under the mountain and 150 meters (492feet) long leads to a granite-lined vault. An alabastershrine, surrounded by basalt, filled the burial chamber,38 Arts and Humanities Through the Eras: Ancient Egypt (2675 B.C.E.–332 B.C.E.)