Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 24, 2025
The priests separated and went to the votaries. Pentaur once more mounted the steps, and sat down in the narrow confessional which was closed by a curtain; on its wall the picture of Hatasu was to be seen, drawing the milk of eternal life from the udders of the cow Hathor. He had hardly taken his place when a temple-servant announced the arrival of a veiled lady.
On their inner walls elegant pictures and inscriptions in the finest sculptured work recorded, for the benefit of posterity, the great things that Hatasu had done with the help of the Gods of Thebes. There were the ships which she had to send to Punt The latest of the lists published by Mariette, of the southern nations conquered by Thotmes III., mentions it.
The widow and the steward of the wealthy Superior of the temple of Hatasu, and with them a priest of high rank, were in eager discussion with the officials of the embalming-House, and were selecting the most costly of the patterns of mummy-cases which were offered to their inspection, the finest linen, and amulets of malachite, and lapis-lazuli, of blood-stone, carnelian and green felspar, as well as the most elegant alabaster canopi for the deceased; his body was to be enclosed first in a sort of case of papier-mache, and then in a wooden and a stone coffin.
Farther to the south it reached the temple of Thotmes the Great, then, turning round, it clung to the eastern face of the Libyan hills pierced with tombs and catacombs; it mounted the terraces of the temple of Hatasu, and paused by the tombs of the oldest kings which are in the immediate neighborhood; thus by sunset it had reached the scene of the festival itself, at the entrance of the valley in which the tomb of Setitt had been made, and in whose westernmost recesses were some of the graves of the Pharaohs of the deposed race.
The sanctuary of which he was the superior, had been dedicated to her own memory, and to the goddess Hathor, by Hatasu, a great queen of the dethroned dynasty. The priests who served it were endowed with peculiar chartered privileges, which hitherto had been strictly respected.
Below him lay a bird's eye view of the terrace-building of Hatasu, and before him, still slumbering in cool dawn, was the Necropolis with its houses and temples and colossal statues, the broad Nile glistening with white sails under the morning mist; and, in the distant east, rosy with the coming sun, stood Thebes and her gigantic temples.
The strong old body in the middle of the table was the corpse of the Superior of the temple of Hatasu, and beyond, close by each other, were laid a stone-mason of the Necropolis, and a poor girl from the strangers' quarter, who had died of consumption two miserable wasted figures.
The stairs were immense, without railing, but furnished with two rows of sphinxes; the entrance to each stairway was guarded by two sitting statues. At the temple of Hatasu began the gloomy ravine which led from the tombs of high dignitaries to those of the pharaohs.
On the third and fourth terraces were the small adjoining rooms of Hatasu and her brothers Thotmes II. and III., which were built against the rock, and entered by granite doorways. In them purifications were accomplished, the images of the Goddess worshipped, and the more distinguished worshippers admitted to confess. The sacred cows of the Goddess were kept in a side-building.
Antoun Effendi praised it as one of the most interesting places near the Nile, because with the exception of Queen Hatasu and Rameses the Great, Amen-hetep IV was the most human personality in Egyptian history. But only Monny, who was making a hero of Aknator, really wished to delay at the Disc Worshipper's Utopia.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking