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All varieties of the constructed temple are found in the rock-cut temple, though more or less modified by local conditions. The Speos Artemidos is approached by a pillared portico, but contains only a square chamber with a niche at the end for the statue of the goddess Pakhet. From this gallery, the sanctuary chamber opens at right angles.
Cats were embalmed, and innumerable cat mummies have been discovered in wooden coffins at Bubastis, Speos, Artemidos and Thebes. When a cat died the Egyptians shaved their eyebrows, not only to show grief at the loss of their loved one, but to avert subsequent misfortune.
With the aid of Sprenger's 'Alte Geographie Arabiens, the best guide-book the traveller can take into this country, there is no difficulty in identifying this ancient capital of the frankincense country as the Manteion Artemidos of Claudius Ptolemy.
The other lioness goddesses are probably likewise destructive or hunting deities. The lesser felidae also appear; the cheetah and serval are sacred to Hathor in Sinai; the small cats are sacred to Bast, especially at Speos Artemidos and Bubastis. The bull was sacred in many places, and his worship underlay that of the human gods, who were said to be incarnated in him.
Several exhausted or abandoned quarries have been transformed into votive chapels; as, for instance, the Speos Artemidos, which was consecrated by Hatshepsut, Thothmes III. and Seti I. to the local goddess Pakhet. The most important limestone quarries are at Tûrah and Massarah, nearly opposite Memphis.
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