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100-781: The island has been studied through excavation sites. Aramaic papyri and ostraca have been collected to study what life was like on Elephantine during the time of ancient Egypt . There have been studies about the Elephantine Triad and the Jewish presence that formulated on the island. The standard reference collection of the Aramaic documents of the Elephantine Papyri and Ostraca is the Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt . Elephantine, or what ancient Egyptians called Yebu or Abu

200-407: A mummified ram of Khnum. A sizable population of Nubians live in three villages in the island's middle section. A large luxury hotel is at the island's northern end. The Aswan Botanical Garden is adjacent to the west on el Nabatat Island . Papyrus Papyrus ( / p ə ˈ p aɪ r ə s / pə- PY -rəs ) is a material similar to thick paper that was used in ancient times as

300-557: A step pyramid under which he was buried: the Pyramid of Djoser . For the rest of the Old Kingdom, tomb and temple were joined in elaborate stone pyramid complexes. Near each pyramid complex was a town that supplied its needs, as towns would support temples throughout Egyptian history. Other changes came in the reign of Sneferu who, beginning with his first pyramid at Meidum , built pyramid complexes symmetrically along an east–west axis, with

400-529: A war goddess and protector of this strategic region of Egypt. When seen as a fertility goddess , she personified the bountiful annual flooding of the Nile. The cult of Satis originated in Aswan. Later, when the triad was formed, Khnum became identified as her consort and, thereby, was thought of as the father of Anuket. His role in myths later changed; another deity was ascribed duties with the river. At that time, his role as

500-504: A writing surface . It was made from the pith of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus , a wetland sedge . Papyrus (plural: papyri or papyruses ) can also refer to a document written on sheets of such material, joined side by side and rolled up into a scroll , an early form of a book. Papyrus was first known to have been used in Egypt (at least as far back as the First Dynasty ), as

600-409: A hard surface with their edges slightly overlapping, and then another layer of strips is laid on top at right angles. The strips may have been soaked in water long enough for decomposition to begin, perhaps increasing adhesion, but this is not certain. The two layers possibly were glued together. While still moist, the two layers were hammered together, mashing the layers into a single sheet. The sheet

700-466: A key part of the maintenance of maat , the ideal order of nature and of human society in Egyptian belief. Maintaining maat was the entire purpose of Egyptian religion , and it was the purpose of a temple as well. Because he was credited with divine power himself, the pharaoh , as a sacred king , was regarded as Egypt's representative to the gods and its most important upholder of maat . Thus, it

800-668: A large portion of Egypt's wealth. Anthony Spalinger suggests that, as the influence of temples expanded, religious celebrations that had once been fully public were absorbed into the temples' increasingly important festival rituals. The most important god of the time was Amun , whose main cult center, the Precinct of Amun-Re at Karnak in Thebes , eventually became the largest of all temples, and whose high priests may have wielded considerable political influence. Many temples were now built entirely of stone, and their general plan became fixed, with

900-618: A loanword of unknown (perhaps Pre-Greek ) origin. Greek has a second word for it, βύβλος ( byblos ), said to derive from the name of the Phoenician city of Byblos . The Greek writer Theophrastus , who flourished during the 4th century BCE, uses papyros when referring to the plant used as a foodstuff and byblos for the same plant when used for nonfood products, such as cordage, basketry, or writing surfaces. The more specific term βίβλος biblos , which finds its way into English in such words as 'bibliography', 'bibliophile', and 'bible', refers to

1000-449: A long roll, or scroll, was required to create large-volume texts. Papyrus had the advantage of being relatively cheap and easy to produce, but it was fragile and susceptible to both moisture and excessive dryness. Unless the papyrus was of perfect quality, the writing surface was irregular, and the range of media that could be used was also limited. Papyrus was gradually overtaken in Europe by

1100-707: A long tradition of sophisticated Nubian temple building. Amid this turmoil, the fortunes of various temples and clergies shifted and the independence of Amun's priesthood was broken, but the power of the priesthood in general remained. Despite the political upheaval, the Egyptian temple style continued to evolve without absorbing much foreign influence. Whereas earlier temple building mostly focused on male gods, goddesses and child deities grew increasingly prominent. Temples focused more on popular religious activities such as oracles, animal cults , and prayer. New architectural forms continued to develop, such as covered kiosks in front of gateways, more elaborate column styles, and

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1200-663: A matter of decades; a 200-year-old papyrus was considered extraordinary. Imported papyrus once commonplace in Greece and Italy has since deteriorated beyond repair, but papyri are still being found in Egypt; extraordinary examples include the Elephantine papyri and the famous finds at Oxyrhynchus and Nag Hammadi . The Villa of the Papyri at Herculaneum , containing the library of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus , Julius Caesar 's father-in-law,

1300-564: A pillared hall frequently appears in Middle Kingdom temples, and sometimes these two elements are fronted by open courts, foreshadowing the standard temple layout used in later times. With greater power and wealth during the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), Egypt devoted still more resources to its temples, which grew larger and more elaborate. Higher-ranking priestly roles became permanent rather than rotating positions, and they controlled

1400-538: A potter enabled him to be assigned a duty to create human bodies. Anuket was the goddess of the first cataract, and it is called the personification of the Nile. A cult was formed on the island for Anuket. The Elephantine papyri and ostraca are caches of legal documents and letters written in Imperial Aramaic dating to sometime in the 5th century BC. These papyri document the presence of a community of Judean mercenaries and their families on Elephantine, starting in

1500-526: A principal deity, and most were dedicated to other gods as well. Not all deities had temples dedicated to them. Many demons and household gods were involved primarily in magical or private religious practice, with little or no presence in temple ceremonies. There were also other gods who had significant roles in the cosmos but, for unclear reasons, were not honored with temples of their own. Of those gods who did have temples of their own, many were venerated mainly in certain areas of Egypt, though many gods with

1600-415: A reform on land possession and taxation. The Egyptian temples, as important landowners, were made to either pay rent to the government for the land they owned or surrender that land to the state in exchange for a government stipend. However, the temples and priests continued to enjoy privileges under Roman rule, e.g., exemption from taxes and compulsory services. On the official level, the leading officials of

1700-436: A rival writing surface that rose in prominence known as parchment , which was made from animal skins . By the beginning of the fourth century A.D., the most important books began to be manufactured in parchment, and works worth preserving were transferred from papyrus to parchment. Parchment had significant advantages over papyrus, including higher durability in moist climates and being more conducive to writing on both sides of

1800-415: A strong local tie were also important across the nation. Even deities whose worship spanned the country were strongly associated with the cities where their chief temples were located. In Egyptian creation myths , the first temple originated as a shelter for a god—which god it was varied according to the city—that stood on the mound of land where the process of creation began. Each temple in Egypt, therefore,

1900-544: A temple's most sacred areas. Nevertheless, a temple was an important religious site for all classes of Egyptians, who went there to pray , give offerings, and seek oracular guidance from the god dwelling within. The most important part of the temple was the sanctuary , which typically contained a cult image , a statue of its god. The rooms outside the sanctuary grew larger and more elaborate over time, so that temples evolved from small shrines in late Prehistoric Egypt (late fourth millennium BC) to large stone edifices in

2000-463: A temple, but in some cases, as with mortuary temples or the temples in Nubia, the temple was a new foundation on previously empty land. The exact site of a temple was often chosen for religious reasons; it might, for example, be the mythical birthplace or burial place of a god. The temple axis might also be designed to align with locations of religious significance, such as the site of a neighboring temple or

2100-442: A temple. Other revenue came from private individuals, who offered land, slaves , or goods to temples in exchange for a supply of offerings and priestly services to sustain their spirits in the afterlife. Much of a temple's economic support came from its own resources. These included large tracts of land beyond the temple enclosure, sometimes in a completely different region than the temple itself. The most important type of property

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2200-494: A valley temple on the banks of the Nile linked to a pyramid temple at the foot of the pyramid. Sneferu's immediate successors followed this pattern, but beginning in the late Old Kingdom, pyramid complexes combined different elements from the axial plan and from the rectangular plan of Djoser. To supply the pyramid complexes, kings founded new towns and farming estates on undeveloped lands across Egypt. The flow of goods from these lands to

2300-523: A vast number of discoveries of papyri and ostraca. The documents have led to discoveries about Jewish presence and significance in Elephantine. French teams also set out to Elephantine where they discovered several hundred ostraca, but very few have been published thus far. The major findings from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century are found in these museums: Berlin, Brooklyn, Cairo, London, Munich, and Paris. Ongoing excavations by

2400-460: Is located at the uppermost part of the Nile river that is a part of Aswan . Elephantine had the first nome of the northern part of Egypt. Elephantine is 1,600 metres from north to south and 450 metres across at its widest point. The layout of this and other nearby islands in Aswan can be seen from west bank hillsides along the Nile. The island is located just downstream of the First Cataract , at

2500-480: Is no clear division between the two. The Egyptians did not refer to mortuary temples by any distinct name. Nor were rituals for the dead and rituals for the gods mutually exclusive; the symbolism surrounding death was present in all Egyptian temples. The worship of gods was present to some degree in mortuary temples, and the Egyptologist Stephen Quirke has said that "at all periods royal cult involves

2600-485: Is not clear when or why the Jewish community settled in Elephantine. The temple may have been built in reaction to Manasseh 's reinstitution of pagan worship or simply to serve the needs of the Jewish community. There is bias that surrounds the Jewish and Egyptian interactions that occurred on Elephantine, but the findings show that there was often culture interchange. Conflict began after an Egyptian precious stone turned up in

2700-442: Is of highly rot-resistant cellulose , but storage in humid conditions can result in molds attacking and destroying the material. Library papyrus rolls were stored in wooden boxes and chests made in the form of statues. Papyrus scrolls were organized according to subject or author and identified with clay labels that specified their contents without having to unroll the scroll. In European conditions, papyrus seems to have lasted only

2800-488: Is reflected in the Egyptian term for temple lands and their administration, pr , meaning "house" or "estate". Some of the temple's supplies came from direct donations by the king. In the New Kingdom , when Egypt was an imperial power , these donations often came out of the spoils of the king's military campaigns or the tribute given by his client states. The king might also levy various taxes that went directly to support

2900-426: Is suitable for the purpose, while the well at Aswan is apparently lost. The Elephantine triad is between Khnum, Satis, and Anuket ; it is debated whether Anuket is the daughter of the two or the sister of Satis. Elephantine was the dwelling place of Khnum, the ram-headed god of the cataracts, who guarded and controlled the waters of the Nile from caves beneath the island. Satis was worshipped from very early times as

3000-480: Is used to manufacture items that are sold or used locally. Examples include baskets, hats, fish traps, trays or winnowing mats, and floor mats. Papyrus is also used to make roofs, ceilings, rope, and fences. Although alternatives, such as eucalyptus , are increasingly available, papyrus is still used as fuel. Egyptian temple B C D F G H I K M N P Q R S T U W Egyptian temples were built for

3100-710: The mammisi , a building celebrating the mythical birth of a god. Though the characteristics of the late temple style had developed by the last period of native rule, most of the examples date from the era of the Ptolemies , Greek kings who ruled as pharaohs for nearly 300 years. After Rome conquered the Ptolemaic kingdom in 30 BC, Roman emperors took on the role of ruler and temple patron. Many temples in Roman Egypt continued to be built in Egyptian style. Others, including some that were dedicated to Egyptian gods—such as

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3200-650: The Cambridge Antiquarian Society , one of the Papyri Graecae Magicae V, translated into English with commentary in 1853. Papyrus was made in several qualities and prices. Pliny the Elder and Isidore of Seville described six variations of papyrus that were sold in the Roman market of the day. These were graded by quality based on how fine, firm, white, and smooth the writing surface was. Grades ranged from

3300-669: The German Archaeological Institute at the town have uncovered many findings on display in the Aswan Museum located on the island, including a mummified ram of Khnum . Artifacts dating back to prehistoric Egypt have been found on Elephantine. A rare calendar , known as the Elephantine Calendar of Things , which dates to the reign of Thutmose III during the Eighteenth Dynasty , was found in fragments on

3400-569: The Islamic world , which originally learned of it from the Chinese. By the 12th century, parchment and paper were in use in the Byzantine Empire , but papyrus was still an option. Until the middle of the 19th century, only some isolated documents written on papyrus were known, and museums simply showed them as curiosities. They did not contain literary works. The first modern discovery of papyri rolls

3500-538: The Merovingian chancery was with a document from 692 A.D., though it was known in Gaul until the middle of the following century. The latest certain dates for the use of papyrus in Europe are 1057 for a papal decree (typically conservative, all papal bulls were on papyrus until 1022), under Pope Victor II , and 1087 for an Arabic document. Its use in Egypt continued until it was replaced by less expensive paper introduced by

3600-577: The Middle Kingdom of Egypt mention the mother of Amenemhat I , founder of the Twelfth Dynasty , being from the Elephantine Egyptian nome Ta-Seti. Many scholars have argued that Amenemhat I's mother was of Nubian origin. Between 1893 and 1910, Aramaic papyri, consisting of Jewish achievements, were found and collected on Elephantine. There has been a large presence of German excavations, with

3700-408: The New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC) and later. These edifices are among the largest and most enduring examples of ancient Egyptian architecture , with their elements arranged and decorated according to complex patterns of religious symbolism . Their typical layout consisted of a series of enclosed halls, open courts, and entrance pylons aligned along the path used for festival processions. Beyond

3800-569: The Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC) that followed the Early Dynastic Period, royal funerary monuments greatly expanded, while most divine temples remained comparatively small, suggesting that official religion in this period emphasized the cult of the king more than the direct worship of deities. Deities closely connected with the king, such as the sun god Ra , received more royal contributions than other deities. Ra's temple at Heliopolis

3900-487: The de facto ruler of Upper Egypt , beginning the political fragmentation of the Third Intermediate Period (c. 1070–664 BC). As the New Kingdom crumbled, the building of mortuary temples ceased and was never revived. Some rulers of the Third Intermediate Period , such as those at Tanis , were buried within the enclosures of divine temples, thus continuing the close link between temple and tomb. In

4000-482: The gods to reside on earth. Indeed, the term the Egyptians most commonly used to describe the temple building, ḥwt-nṯr , means "mansion (or enclosure) of a god". A divine presence in the temple linked the human and divine realms and allowed humans to interact with the god through ritual . These rituals, it was believed, sustained the god and allowed it to continue to play its proper role in nature. They were therefore

4100-560: The 18th century, a library of ancient papyri was found in Herculaneum , ripples of expectation spread among the learned men of the time. However, since these papyri were badly charred, their unscrolling and deciphering are still going on today. Papyrus was made from the stem of the papyrus plant, Cyperus papyrus . The outer rind was first removed, and the sticky fibrous inner pith is cut lengthwise into thin strips about 40 cm (16 in) long. The strips were then placed side by side on

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4200-573: The 19th century AD. Ninety steps that lead down to the river are marked with Arabic , Roman , and hieroglyphic numerals. At the water's edge are inscriptions carved deeply into the rock during the Seventeenth Dynasty . The other nilometer is a rectangular basin located at the island's southern tip, near the temple of Khnum and opposite the Old Cataract Hotel. It is probably the older of the two. The Greek historian Strabo mentions one of

4300-463: The 7th century BCE. The mercenaries guarded the frontier between Egypt and Nubia. Following the 587 BCE destruction of Jerusalem , some Judean refugees traveled south and, in what may be called an “ exodus in reverse,” settled on Elephantine. They maintained their own temple (the House of Yahweh ) in which sacrifices were offered , evincing polytheistic beliefs , which functioned alongside that of Khnum. It

4400-526: The Nile from quarries elsewhere. Temple structures were built on foundations of stone slabs set into sand-filled trenches. In most periods, walls and other structures were built with large blocks of varying shape. The blocks were laid in courses , usually without mortar . Each stone was dressed to fit with its neighbors, producing cuboid blocks whose uneven shapes interlocked. The interiors of walls were often built with less care, using rougher, poorer-quality stones. To build structures above ground level,

4500-598: The Third Intermediate Period and the following Late Period (664–323 BC), the weakened Egyptian state fell to a series of outside powers, experiencing only occasional periods of independence. Many of these foreign rulers funded and expanded temples to strengthen their claim to the kingship of Egypt. One such group, the Kushite pharaohs of the eighth and seventh centuries BC, adopted Egyptian-style temple architecture for use in their native land of Nubia , beginning

4600-420: The central government and its temples helped unify the kingdom. The rulers of the Middle Kingdom (c. 2055–1650 BC) continued building pyramids and their associated complexes. The rare remains from Middle Kingdom temples, like the one at Medinet Madi , show that temple plans grew more symmetrical during that period, and divine temples made increasing use of stone. The pattern of a sanctuary lying behind

4700-425: The close intertwining of divinity and kingship in Egyptian belief. Temples were key centers of economic activity. The largest required prodigious resources and employed tens of thousands of priests, craftsmen, and laborers. The temple's economic workings were analogous to those of a large Egyptian household, with servants dedicated to serving the temple god as they might serve the master of an estate. This similarity

4800-426: The country or even beyond Egypt's borders. Thus, as Richard H. Wilkinson says, the temple estate "often represented no less than a slice of Egypt itself". As a major economic center and the employer of a large part of the local population, the temple enclosure was a key part of the town in which it stood. Conversely, when a temple was founded on empty land, a new town was built to support it. All this economic power

4900-426: The course of these additions, they frequently dismantled old temple buildings to use as fill for the interiors of new structures. On rare occasions, this may have been because the old structures or their builders had become anathema , as with Akhenaten's temples, but in most cases, the reason seems to have been convenience. Such expansion and dismantling could considerably distort the original temple plan, as happened at

5000-470: The discipline of Egyptology and drawing increasing numbers of visitors to the civilization's remains. Dozens of temples survive today, and some have become world-famous tourist attractions that contribute significantly to the modern Egyptian economy . Egyptologists continue to study the surviving temples and the remains of destroyed ones as invaluable sources of information about ancient Egyptian society. Ancient Egyptian temples were meant as places for

5100-553: The following centuries, Christian emperors issued decrees that were increasingly hostile to pagan cults and temples. Some Christians attacked and destroyed temples, as in the plundering of the Serapeum and other temples in Alexandria in AD 391 or 392. Through some combination of Christian coercion and loss of funds, temples ceased to function at various times. The last temple cults died out in

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5200-457: The forces of chaos. These rituals were seen as necessary for the gods to continue to uphold maat , the divine order of the universe. Housing and caring for the gods were the obligations of pharaohs, who therefore dedicated prodigious resources to temple construction and maintenance. Pharaohs delegated most of their ritual duties to a host of priests, but most of the populace was excluded from direct participation in ceremonies and forbidden to enter

5300-453: The form of codices akin to the modern book. This may have been mimicking the book-form of codices created with parchment . Early Christian writers soon adopted the codex form, and in the Greco-Roman world, it became common to cut sheets from papyrus rolls to form codices. Codices were an improvement on the papyrus scroll, as the papyrus was not pliable enough to fold without cracking, and

5400-598: The fourth through sixth centuries AD, although locals may have venerated some sites long after the regular ceremonies there had ceased. Temples were built throughout Upper and Lower Egypt , as well as at Egyptian-controlled oases in the Libyan Desert as far west as Siwa , and at outposts in the Sinai Peninsula such as Timna . In periods when Egypt dominated Nubia, Egyptian rulers also built temples there, as far south as Jebel Barkal . Most Egyptian towns had

5500-403: The god Aten over all others and eventually abolished the official worship of most other gods. Traditional temples were neglected while new Aten temples, differing sharply in design and construction, were erected. But Akhenaten's revolution was reversed soon after his death, with the traditional cults reinstated and the new temples dismantled. Subsequent pharaohs dedicated still more resources to

5600-566: The gods and set them apart from buildings for the use of mortals, which were built of mudbrick. Early temples were built of brick and other perishable materials, and most of the outlying buildings in temple enclosures remained brick-built throughout Egyptian history. The main stones used in temple construction were limestone and sandstone , which are common in Egypt; stones that are harder and more difficult to carve, such as granite , were used in smaller amounts for individual elements like obelisks . The stone might be quarried nearby or shipped on

5700-429: The gods, but equally... all cult of the gods involves the king". Even so, certain temples were clearly used to commemorate deceased kings and to give offerings to their spirits. Their purpose is not fully understood; they may have been meant to unite the king with the gods, elevating him to a divine status greater than that of ordinary kingship. In any case, the difficulty of separating divine and mortuary temples reflects

5800-621: The hands of the Jews. The earliest recount of the Jewish temple is from 525 BC. In 410 BC, the Jewish temple, the House of Yahweh, was burned down by a Persian military commander after he was bribed by Khnum priests. While no explicit reasoning has been given for this lash out, it has been suspected that the priests did this because of the Jewish rituals of sacrificing of sheep, especially during Passover . Papyri records that have been collected from this time show Jewish letters asking Bagoas for help rebuilding

5900-493: The impermanence of these early buildings, later Egyptian art continually reused and adapted elements from them, evoking the ancient shrines to suggest the eternal nature of the gods and their dwelling places. In the Early Dynastic Period (c. 3100–2686 BC), the first pharaohs built funerary complexes in the religious center of Abydos following a single general pattern, with a rectangular mudbrick enclosure. In

6000-479: The inner bark of the papyrus plant. Papyrus is also the etymon of 'paper', a similar substance. In the Egyptian language , papyrus was called wadj ( w3ḏ ), tjufy ( ṯwfy ) , or djet ( ḏt ). The word for the material papyrus is also used to designate documents written on sheets of it, often rolled up into scrolls. The plural for such documents is papyri. Historical papyri are given identifying names – generally

6100-714: The island as early as the Third Dynasty . This temple was completely rebuilt in the Late Period, during the Thirtieth Dynasty of Egypt , just before the foreign rule that followed in the Graeco-Roman Period. The Greeks formed the Ptolemaic dynasty during their 300-year rule over Egypt (305–30 BC) and maintained the ancient religious customs and traditions while often associating the Egyptian deities with their own. Most of

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6200-570: The island of Elephantine stood at the border between Egypt and Nubia . Trade routes would stop on Elephantine to deliver ivory, a precious good in ancient Egypt. It was an excellent defensive site for a fort, making it a natural cargo transfer point for river trade. During the Second Intermediate Period (1650–1550 BC), the fort marked the southern border of Egypt. The island was also a vital stone quarry , providing granite for monuments and buildings all over Egypt. Historical texts from

6300-457: The island. Before 1822, there were temples to Thutmose III and Amenhotep III on the island. In 1822, they were destroyed during the campaign of Muhammad Ali , who had taken power in Egypt, to conquer Sudan . The main two temples of the island were for Satet and Khnum. The first temple was the temple of Satet , founded around 3000 BC and enlarged and renovated over the next 3,000 years. There are records of an Egyptian temple to Khnum on

6400-416: The king as part of his religious duties; indeed, in Egyptian belief, all temple construction was symbolically his work. In reality, it was the work of hundreds of his subjects, conscripted in the corvée system. The construction process for a new temple, or a major addition to an existing one, could last years or decades. The use of stone in Egyptian temples emphasized their purpose as eternal houses for

6500-400: The king managed the nation's resources and its people. As the direct overseers of their own economic sphere, the administrations of large temples wielded considerable influence and may have posed a challenge to the authority of a weak pharaoh, although it is unclear how independent they were. Once Egypt became a Roman province , one of the first measures of the Roman rulers was to implement

6600-440: The long strip scrolls required, several such sheets were united and placed so all the horizontal fibres parallel with the roll's length were on one side and all the vertical fibres on the other. Normally, texts were first written on the recto , the lines following the fibres, parallel to the long edges of the scroll. Secondarily, papyrus was often reused, writing across the fibres on the verso . One source used for determining

6700-416: The method by which papyrus was created in antiquity is through the examination of tombs in the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes , which housed a necropolis containing many murals displaying the process of papyrus-making. The Roman commander Pliny the Elder also describes the methods of preparing papyrus in his Naturalis Historia . In a dry climate , like that of Egypt, papyrus is stable, formed as it

6800-471: The mortuary temples of the Theban Necropolis in the New Kingdom oversaw the provision of the royally employed tomb workers at Deir el-Medina . Kings could also exempt temples or classes of personnel from taxation and conscription. The royal administration could also order one temple to divert its resources to another temple whose influence it wished to expand. Thus, a king might increase the income of

6900-851: The name of the discoverer, first owner, or institution where they are kept – and numbered, such as " Papyrus Harris I ". Often an abbreviated form is used, such as "pHarris I". These documents provide important information on ancient writings; they give us the only extant copy of Menander , the Egyptian Book of the Dead , Egyptian treatises on medicine (the Ebers Papyrus ) and on surgery (the Edwin Smith papyrus ), Egyptian mathematical treatises (the Rhind papyrus ), and Egyptian folk tales (the Westcar Papyrus ). When, in

7000-501: The nation's decline and ultimate loss of independence to the Roman Empire in 30 BC. With the coming of Christianity , traditional Egyptian religion faced increasing persecution, and temple cults died out during the fourth through sixth centuries AD. The buildings they left behind suffered centuries of destruction and neglect. At the start of the nineteenth century, a wave of interest in ancient Egypt swept Europe, giving rise to

7100-501: The nilometers, though it is not certain which. Many sources claim that the fabled "Well of Eratosthenes", famous in connection with Eratosthenes ' presumed calculation of the Earth's circumference , was located on the island. Strabo mentions a well used to observe that Aswan lies on the Tropic of Cancer , but the reference is to a well at Aswan, not at Elephantine. Neither nilometer at Elephantine

7200-426: The official worship of the gods and in commemoration of the pharaohs in ancient Egypt and regions under Egyptian control. Temples were seen as houses for the gods or kings to whom they were dedicated. Within them, the Egyptians performed a variety of rituals , the central functions of Egyptian religion : giving offerings to the gods, reenacting their mythological interactions through festivals, and warding off

7300-529: The papyrus plant was once abundant across the Nile Delta . It was also used throughout the Mediterranean region. Apart from writing material, ancient Egyptians employed papyrus in the construction of other artifacts , such as reed boats , mats , rope , sandals , and baskets . Papyrus was first manufactured in Egypt as far back as the third millennium BCE. The earliest archaeological evidence of papyrus

7400-448: The performance of temple rituals was still an official duty, restricted to high-ranking priests. The participation of the general populace in most ceremonies was prohibited. Much of the lay religious activity in Egypt instead took place in private and community shrines , separate from official temples. As the primary link between the human and divine realms, temples attracted considerable veneration from ordinary Egyptians. Each temple had

7500-471: The present-day southern tip of the island is taken up by the ruins of the temple of Khnum. These, the oldest ruins still standing on the island, are composed of a granite step pyramid from the Third Dynasty and a small temple built for the local Sixth Dynasty nomarch , Heqaib . In the Middle Kingdom, many officials, such as the local governors Sarenput I or Heqaib III , dedicated statues and shrines to

7600-496: The rising place of the sun or particular stars. The Great Temple of Abu Simbel , for instance, is aligned so that twice a year the rising sun illuminates the statues of the gods in its innermost room. Most temples were aligned toward the Nile with an axis running roughly east–west. An elaborate series of foundation rituals preceded construction. A further set of rituals followed the temple's completion, dedicating it to its patron god. These rites were conducted, at least in theory, by

7700-416: The sanctuary, halls, courtyards, and pylon gateways oriented along the path used for festival processions. New Kingdom pharaohs ceased using pyramids as funerary monuments and placed their tombs a great distance from their mortuary temples. Without pyramids to build around, mortuary temples began using the same plan as those dedicated to the gods. In the middle of the New Kingdom, Pharaoh Akhenaten promoted

7800-510: The southern border of Upper Egypt with Lower Nubia . This region above is called Upper Egypt because it is further up the Nile. The island may have received its name after its shape, which in aerial views is similar to that of an elephant tusk , or from the rounded rocks along the banks resembling elephants. Known to the ancient Egyptians as ꜣbw "Elephant" ( Middle Egyptian : /ˈʀuːbaw/ → Medio-Late Egyptian: /ˈjuːbəʔ/ → Coptic: (Ⲉ)ⲓⲏⲃ /ˈjeβ/ , preserved in its Hebrew name, יֵב Yēḇ ),

7900-460: The stone or, if the stone was of too poor quality to carve, a layer of plaster that covered the stone surface. Reliefs were then decorated with gilding , inlay , or paint. The paints were usually mixtures of mineral pigments with some kind of adhesive, possibly natural gum . Temple construction did not end once the original plan was complete; pharaohs often rebuilt or replaced decayed temple structures or made additions to those still standing. In

8000-408: The superfine Augustan, which was produced in sheets of 13 digits (10 inches) wide, to the least expensive and most coarse, measuring six digits (four inches) wide. Materials deemed unusable for writing or less than six digits were considered commercial quality and were pasted edge to edge to be used only for wrapping. The English word "papyrus" derives, via Latin , from Greek πάπυρος ( papyros ),

8100-488: The surface. The main advantage of papyrus had been its cheaper raw material — the papyrus plant is easy to cultivate in a suitable climate and produces more writing material than animal hides (the most expensive books, made from foetal vellum would take up to dozens of bovine fetuses to produce). However, as trade networks declined, the availability of papyrus outside the range of the papyrus plant became limited and it thus lost its cost advantage. Papyrus' last appearance in

8200-501: The temple proper was an outer wall enclosing a wide variety of secondary buildings. A large temple also owned sizable tracts of land and employed thousands of laymen to supply its needs. Temples were therefore key economic as well as religious centers. The priests who managed these powerful institutions wielded considerable influence, and despite their ostensible subordination to the king, they may have posed significant challenges to his authority. Temple-building in Egypt continued despite

8300-455: The temple to Isis at Ras el-Soda were built in a style derived from Roman architecture . Temple-building continued into the third century AD. As the empire weakened in the crisis of the third century , imperial donations to the temple cults dried up, and almost all construction and decoration ceased. Cult activities at some sites continued, relying increasingly on financial support and volunteer labor from surrounding communities. In

8400-503: The temple. A nilometer was a structure for measuring the Nile River's clarity and the water level during the annual flood season. Elephantine has two nilometers. The more famous is a corridor nilometer associated with the temple of Satis, with a stone staircase that descends the corridor. It is one of the oldest nilometers in Egypt, last reconstructed in Roman times and still in use as late as

8500-459: The temple. The standard reference collection of the Aramaic documents of the Elephantine papyri and ostraca is the Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt . The Aswan Museum is located at the southern end of the island. Ongoing excavations by the German Archaeological Institute at the island's ancient town site have uncovered many findings that are now on display in the museum, including

8600-561: The temples became part of the Roman ruling apparatus by, for example, collecting taxes and examining charges against priests for violating sacral law. The earliest known shrines appeared in prehistoric Egypt in the late fourth millennium BC, at sites such as Saïs and Buto in Lower Egypt and Nekhen and Coptos in Upper Egypt . Most of these shrines were made of perishable materials such as wood, reed matting, and mudbrick . Despite

8700-442: The temples of a god he favored, and mortuary temples of recent rulers tended to siphon off resources from temples to pharaohs long dead. The most drastic means of controlling the temple estates was to completely revise the distribution of their property nationwide, which might extend to closing down certain temples. Such changes could significantly alter Egypt's economic landscape. The temples were thus important instruments with which

8800-405: The temples, particularly Ramesses II , the most prolific monument-builder in Egyptian history. As the wealth of the priesthoods continued to grow, so did their religious influence: temple oracles, controlled by the priests, were an increasingly popular method of making decisions. Pharaonic power waned, and in the eleventh century BC a military leader Herihor made himself High Priest of Amun and

8900-496: The tourist trade was developed in 1962 by the Egyptian engineer Hassan Ragab using plants that had been reintroduced into Egypt in 1872 from France. Both Sicily and Egypt have centres of limited papyrus production. Papyrus is still used by communities living in the vicinity of swamps, to the extent that rural householders derive up to 75% of their income from swamp goods. Particularly in East and Central Africa, people harvest papyrus, which

9000-564: The wild. During the 1920s, when Egyptologist Battiscombe Gunn lived in Maadi , outside Cairo, he experimented with the manufacture of papyrus, growing the plant in his garden. He beat the sliced papyrus stalks between two layers of linen and produced successful examples of papyrus, one of which was exhibited in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. The modern technique of papyrus production used in Egypt for

9100-414: The workers used construction ramps built of varying materials such as mud, brick, or rough stone. When cutting chambers in living rock , workers excavated from the top down, carving a crawlspace near the ceiling and cutting down to the floor. Once the temple structure was complete, the rough faces of the stones were dressed to create a smooth surface. In decorating these surfaces, reliefs were carved into

9200-449: Was farmland , producing grain, fruit, or wine, or supporting herds of livestock. The temple either managed these lands directly, rented them out to farmers for a share of the produce, or managed them jointly with the royal administration. Temples also launched expeditions into the desert to collect resources such as salt, honey, or wild game, or to mine precious minerals. Some owned fleets of ships with which to conduct their own trade across

9300-399: Was a major religious center, and several Old Kingdom pharaohs built large sun temples in his honor near their pyramids . Meanwhile, the small provincial temples retained a variety of local styles from Predynastic times, unaffected by the royal cult sites. The expansion of funerary monuments began in the reign of Djoser , who built his complex entirely of stone and placed in the enclosure

9400-608: Was equated with this original temple and with the site of creation itself. As the primordial home of the god and the mythological location of the city's founding, the temple was seen as the hub of the region, from which the city's patron god ruled over it. Pharaohs also built temples where offerings were made to sustain their spirits in the afterlife , often linked with or located near their tombs. These temples are traditionally called " mortuary temples " and regarded as essentially different from divine temples. In recent years some Egyptologists, such as Gerhard Haeny, have argued that there

9500-634: Was excavated in 2012 and 2013 at Wadi al-Jarf , an ancient Egyptian harbor located on the Red Sea coast. These documents, the Diary of Merer , date from c.  2560 –2550 BCE (end of the reign of Khufu ). The papyrus rolls describe the last years of building the Great Pyramid of Giza . For multiple millennia, papyrus was commonly rolled into scrolls as a form of storage. However, at some point late in its history, papyrus began being collected together in

9600-557: Was made at Herculaneum in 1752. Until then, the only papyri known had been a few surviving from medieval times. Scholarly investigations began with the Dutch historian Caspar Jacob Christiaan Reuvens (1793–1835). He wrote about the content of the Leyden papyrus , published in 1830. The first publication has been credited to the British scholar Charles Wycliffe Goodwin (1817–1878), who published for

9700-472: Was preserved by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius but has only been partially excavated. Sporadic attempts to revive the manufacture of papyrus have been made since the mid-18th century. Scottish explorer James Bruce experimented in the late 18th century with papyrus plants from Sudan , for papyrus had become extinct in Egypt. Also in the 18th century, Sicilian Saverio Landolina manufactured papyrus at Syracuse , where papyrus plants had continued to grow in

9800-467: Was then dried under pressure. After drying, the sheet was polished with a rounded object, possibly a stone, seashell , or round hardwood. Sheets, or Mollema, could be cut to fit the obligatory size or glued together to create a longer roll. The point where the Mollema are joined with glue is called the kollesis. A wooden stick would be attached to the last sheet in a roll, making it easier to handle. To form

9900-426: Was theoretically his duty to perform the temple rites. While it is uncertain how often he participated in ceremonies, the existence of temples across Egypt made it impossible for him to do so in all cases, and most of the time these duties were delegated to priests. The pharaoh was nevertheless obligated to maintain, provide for, and expand the temples throughout his realm. Although the pharaoh delegated his authority,

10000-502: Was ultimately under the pharaoh's control, and temple products and property were often taxed. Their employees, even the priests, were subject to the state corvée system, which conscripted labor for royal projects. They could also be ordered to provide supplies for some specific purposes. A trading expedition led by Harkhuf in the Sixth Dynasty ( c.  2255 –2246 BC) was allowed to procure supplies from any temple it wished, and

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