The Shrine of Taharqa is an Egyptian shrine commissioned by the pharaoh Taharqa in the early part of the 7th century BC. It was located in Kawa, which falls within the borders of present day Sudan, but since 1936 has been kept in the Ashmolean museum in Oxford, England. [1] [2]
The shrine was originally built within a large temple dedicated to Amun-Re. [3] It appears to have been constructed at the same time as the rest of the temple. [4]
The shrine has four outer walls engraved with images of Taharqa interacting with various gods. [4] On two of them he is depicted with Amun-Re along with the gods of Gematen on the western side and Thebes on the eastern side. [4] The depiction of Amun-Re on the western side was painted blue, as was typical of the period, whereas the depiction on the eastern side was not. [4] The southern side depicts gods associated with Heliopolis while the northern side carries depictions of gods associated with Memphis. [4]
The shrine was built in or shortly after 684 BC under the rule of the pharaoh Taharqa. [3] [5] A neighbouring shrine was added in the 6th century BC under the rule of the pharaoh Aspelta. [4]
Westerners became aware of the broader temple site in the late 19th century. [2] Small digs were carried out in 1929 and 1930 and an extensive excavation began 22 November 1930. [2] These digs exposed the remains of the buildings to the weather and they started to decay. [6]
The carved walls of the shrine along with the Wall of Aspelta were removed from the site in 1936 with the permission of the Sudanese government while other carvings were transferred to Khartoum with the aim of protecting them from further decay. [6] [3] The blocks were removed by building sand ramps up the side of the shrine and then moving them to the ground on rollers. [6] They were then coated in a solution of nitrocellulose in amyl acetate and acetone, as a lacquer to help preserve the blocks' surface integrity, before being transported to the Ashmolean Museum in 233 cases. [6] [3] This process took about a month to complete. [6]
Once at the Ashmolean a further layer of nitrocellulose was applied to the stones. [3] A brick structure was built to cover the interior faces of the shrine. [3] It was then plastered with the plaster being coated with black paint. [3] The shrine was protected from rising damp by a layer of bitumen. [3]
By the 1960s the nitrocellulose had started to decay and in 1968 it was removed from most of the shrine and replaced with a layer of paraffin wax. [3] The remaining nitrocellulose was removed in the 1980s with the paint being stabilised with Paraloid B-72. [3]
The shrine's weight meant the decision was made not to move it when the gallery it was in underwent rebuilding work and since November 2011 the shrine has been on display to the public in the museum's refurbished Egyptian and Nubian galleries. [1] [7]
Taharqa, also spelled Taharka or Taharqo, was a pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt and qore (king) of the Kingdom of Kush from 690 to 664 BC. He was one of the "Black Pharaohs" who ruled over Egypt for nearly a century.
Piye was an ancient Kushite king and founder of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, who ruled Egypt from 744–714 BC. He ruled from the city of Napata, located deep in Nubia, modern-day Sudan.
Neferkare Shabaka, or Shabako was the third Kushite pharaoh of the Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, who reigned from 705 to 690 BC. The Greek sources called him Sabacon (Σαβακῶν) and is mentioned by both Herodotus and Manetho.
Aspelta was a ruler of the kingdom of Kush. More is known about him and his reign than most of the rulers of Kush. He left several stelae carved with accounts of his reign.
Jebel Barkal or Gebel Barkal is a mesa or large rock outcrop located 400 km north of Khartoum, next to Karima in Northern State in Sudan, on the Nile River, in the region that is sometimes called Nubia. The jebel is 104 m tall, has a flat top, and came to have religious significance for both ancient Kush and ancient Egyptian occupiers. In 2003, the mountain, together with the extensive archaeological site at its base, were named as the center of a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. The Jebel Barkal area houses the Jebel Barkal Museum.
Napata was a city of ancient Kush at the fourth cataract of the Nile founded by the Egyptian Amun cult for Egyptian pilgrims given by its, as suggested, Egyptian name. It is located approximately 1.5 kilometers from the east side of the river at the site of modern Karima, Sudan.
The mortuary temple of Hatshepsut is a mortuary temple built during the reign of Pharaoh Hatshepsut of the Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt. Located opposite the city of Luxor, it is considered to be a masterpiece of ancient architecture. Its three massive terraces rise above the desert floor and into the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari. Her tomb, KV20, lies inside the same massif capped by El Qurn, a pyramid for her mortuary complex. At the edge of the desert, 1 km (0.62 mi) east, connected to the complex by a causeway lies the accompanying valley temple. Across the river Nile, the whole structure points towards the monumental Eighth Pylon, Hatshepsut's most recognizable addition to the Temple of Karnak and the site from which the procession of the Beautiful Festival of the Valley departed. The temple's twin functions are identified by its axes: its main east-west axis served to receive the barque of Amun-Re at the climax of the festival, while its north-south axis represented the life cycle of the pharaoh from coronation to rebirth.
The National Museum of Sudan or Sudan National Museum, abbreviated SNM, is a two-story building, constructed in 1955 and established as national museum in 1971.
Senkamanisken was a Kushite King who ruled from 640 to 620 BC at Napata. He used royal titles based on those of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs.
Atlanersa was a Kushite ruler of the Napatan kingdom of Nubia, reigning for about a decade in the mid-7th century BC. He was the successor of Tantamani, the last ruler of the 25th Dynasty of Egypt, and possibly a son of Taharqa or less likely of Tantamani, while his mother was a queen whose name is only partially preserved. Atlanersa's reign immediately followed the collapse of Nubian control over Egypt, which witnessed the Assyrian conquest of Egypt and then the beginning of the Late Period under Psamtik I. The same period also saw the progressive cultural integration of Egyptian beliefs by the Kushite civilization.
Amun was a major ancient Egyptian deity who appears as a member of the Hermopolitan Ogdoad. Amun was attested from the Old Kingdom together with his wife Amunet. His oracle in Siwa Oasis, located in Western Egypt near the Libyan Desert, remained the only oracle of Amun throughout. With the 11th Dynasty, Amun rose to the position of patron deity of Thebes by replacing Montu.
The temples of Wadi es-Sebua, is a pair of New Kingdom Egyptian temples, including one speos temple constructed by the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh Ramesses II, in Lower Nubia.
Nubia is a region along the Nile river encompassing the confluence of the Blue and White Niles, and the area between the first cataract of the Nile or more strictly, Al Dabbah. It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, the Kerma culture, which lasted from around 2500 BC until its conquest by the New Kingdom of Egypt under Pharaoh Thutmose I around 1500 BC, whose heirs ruled most of Nubia for the next 400 years. Nubia was home to several empires, most prominently the Kingdom of Kush, which conquered Egypt in the eighth century BC during the reign of Piye and ruled the country as its 25th Dynasty.
The Kingdom of Kush, also known as the Kushite Empire, or simply Kush, was an ancient kingdom in Nubia, centered along the Nile Valley in what is now northern Sudan and southern Egypt.
Kawa, known as Patigga or Patinga during Greek and Roman times, is a town and archaeological site in Sudan, located between the Third and Fourth Cataracts of the Nile on the east bank of the river, across from Dongola. In ancient times it was the site of several temples to the Egyptian god Amun, built by the Egyptian rulers Amenhotep III and Tutankhamun, and by Taharqa and other Kushite kings.
At least three ancient Egyptian granitic gneiss statues of Amun in the form of a ram protecting King Taharqa were displayed at the Temple of Amun at Kawa in Nubia. Construction of the stone temple was started in 683 BC by the pharaoh Taharqa. The ram is one of the animals sacred to Amun and several temples dedicated to Amun, including the one at Karnak, featured ram or ram-headed sphinx statues.
The Sphinx of Taharqo is a granite gneiss statue of a sphinx with the face of Taharqo. He was a Nubian king, who was one of the 25th Egyptian Dynasty rulers of the Kingdom of Kush. It is now in the British Museum in London.
The Twenty-fifth Dynasty of Egypt, also known as the Nubian Dynasty, the Kushite Empire, the Black Pharaohs, or the Napatans, after their capital Napata, was the last dynasty of the Third Intermediate Period of Egypt that occurred after the Kushite invasion.
The Temple of Amun is an archaeological site at Jebel Barkal in Northern State, Sudan. It is situated about 400 kilometres (250 mi) north of Khartoum near Karima. The temple stands near a large bend of the Nile River, in the region that was called Nubia in ancient times. The Temple of Amun, one of the largest temples at Jebel Barkal, is considered sacred to the local population. Not only was the Amun temple a main centre of what at one time was considered to be an almost universal religion, but, along with the other archaeological sites at Jebel Barkal, it was representative of the revival of Egyptian religious values. Up to the middle of the 19th century, the temple was subjected to vandalism, destruction, and indiscriminate plundering, before it came under state protection.
The reign of Amanitore was considered one of the most prosperous times of the Meroitic period. She ruled alongside Natakamani, who was either her husband or her son. The success of the two rulers is evident through their work towards the building, restoration, and expansion of many temples throughout Nubia. The temples that can be accredited to the work of the two include: the Temple of Apedemak, the Amun temple B500 at Napata, the Amun temple at Meroe, the Amun Temples of Naqa and Amara, the Isis temple at Wad ben Naqa, and the Meroitic palace B1500 at Napata.
