Temple of Ellesyia | |
---|---|
Location | Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy |
Coordinates | 22°37′21″N31°57′46″E / 22.622568°N 31.962662°E |
The Temple of Ellesyia is an ancient Egyptian rock-cut temple originally located near the site of Qasr Ibrim. It was built during the 18th Dynasty by the Pharaoh Thutmosis III. The temple was dedicated to the deities Amun, Horus and Satis. Tuthmosis III (1479-1425 BCE) had a small temple carved into the rock at Ellesiya, not far from Abu Simbel, dedicated to Horus of Miam and Satet. The temple is only accessible from the river. The interior features an inverted T-shaped structure, consisting of a corridor and two side chambers. On the walls, scenes depict offerings made by the king to the Egyptian and Nubian gods. The figures face the back wall, where statues of Horus, Satet, and Tuthmosis III on a throne are carved in half-relief.
During Akhenaten's reign (1352-1336), the decorations were chiseled at various points. Rameses II (1279-1213) later restored it, remodeling the triad in the rear niche with Amon, Horus, and the king. Eventually, it became a Christian place of worship, evident from crosses and five-pointed stars engraved on the entrance portal and interior walls.
Being within the area slated to be submerged by Lake Nasser after the construction of the Aswan High Dam, the temple of Ellesiya is also part of UNESCO's mission to rescue Nubian temples. Arriving in Turin in 1967, the structure was reconstructed in the museum's wing dedicated to Ernesto Schiaparelli.
During the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the Nubian monument salvage campaign guided by the UNESCO in the 1960s, the temple was moved to the Museo Egizio at Turin in order to save it from being submerged by Lake Nasser.
The four temples donated to countries assisting the relocation are:
Abu Simbel is a historic site comprising two massive rock-cut temples in the village of Abu Simbel, Aswan Governorate, Upper Egypt, near the border with Sudan. It is located on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km (140 mi) southwest of Aswan. The twin temples were originally carved out of the mountainside in the 13th century BC, during the 19th Dynasty reign of the Pharaoh Ramesses II. Their huge external rock relief figures of Ramesses II have become iconic. His wife, Nefertari, and children can be seen in smaller figures by his feet. Sculptures inside the Great Temple commemorate Ramesses II's heroic leadership at the Battle of Kadesh.
Elephantine is an island on the Nile, forming part of the city of Aswan in Upper Egypt. The archaeological sites on the island became a World Heritage Site in 1979 along with other examples of Upper Egyptian architecture, as part of the "Monuments from Abu Simbel to Philae".
The Museo Egizio or Egyptian Museum is an archaeological museum in Turin, Italy, specializing in Egyptian archaeology and anthropology. It houses one of the largest collections of Egyptian antiquities, with more than 30,000 artifacts, and is considered the second most important Egyptological collection in the world, after the Egyptian Museum of Cairo. In 2019, it received 853,320 visitors, making it one of the most visited museums in Italy.
The Philae temple complex is an island-based temple complex in the reservoir of the Aswan Low Dam, downstream of the Aswan Dam and Lake Nasser, Egypt.
Philae Island was an island near the expansive First Cataract of the Nile in Upper Egypt. Due to the building of the Aswan Dam, the island is today submerged under Lake Nasser. Prior to the submerging, the Philae temple complex which had been built on the island, was moved to Agilkia Island.
New Kalabsha is a promontory located near Aswan in Egypt.
The Temple of Dendur is a Roman Egyptian religious structure originally located in Tuzis, Nubia about 80 kilometres (50 mi) south of modern Aswan. Around 23 BCE, Emperor Augustus commissioned the temple dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis and deified brothers Pedesi and Pihor from Nubia.
The Temple of Debod is an ancient Egyptian temple that was dismantled as part of the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia and rebuilt in the center of Madrid, Spain, in Parque de la Montaña, Madrid, a square located Calle de Irún, 21–25 Madrid.
Faras was a major city in Lower Nubia. The site of the city, on the border between modern Egypt and Sudan at Wadi Halfa Salient, was flooded by Lake Nasser in the 1960s and is now permanently underwater. Before this flooding, extensive archaeological work was conducted by a Polish archaeological team led by professor Kazimierz Michałowski.
Buhen was an ancient Egyptian settlement situated on the West bank of the Nile below the Second Cataract in what is now Northern State, Sudan. Buhen, as a settlement was established during the Old Kingdom, but the fortress which Buhen is famous for was not established until the Middle Kingdom. During the Old Kingdom, Buhen was primarily used to smelt copper, until the Middle Kingdom, when the site was used by Egyptians to maintain the new southern border of Egypt.
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.
The Temple of Taffeh is an ancient Egyptian temple which was presented to the Netherlands for its help in contributing to the historical preservation of Egyptian antiquities in the 1960s during the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia. The temple was built of sandstone between 25 BCE and 14 CE during the rule of the Roman emperor Augustus. It was part of the Roman fortress known as Taphis and measures 6.5 by 8 metres. The north temple's "two front columns are formed by square pillars with engaged columns" on its four sides. The rear wall of the temple interior features a statue niche.
The Temple of Kalabsha is an ancient Egyptian temple that was originally located at Bab al-Kalabsha, approximately 50 km south of Aswan.
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.
The temple of Gerf Hussein was dedicated to pharaoh Ramesses II and built by the Setau, Viceroy of Nubia. Situated on a bank of the Nile some 90 km south of Aswan, it was partly free-standing and partly cut from the rock. It was dedicated to "Ptah, Ptah-Tatenen and Hathor, and associated with Ramesses, 'the Great God.'"
The Temple of Amada, the oldest Egyptian temple in Nubia, was first constructed by Pharaoh Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty and dedicated to Amun and Re-Horakhty. His son and successor, Amenhotep II continued the decoration program for this structure. Amenhotep II's successor, Thutmose IV decided to place a roof over its forecourt and transform it into a pillared or hypostyle hall. During the Amarna period, Akhenaten had the name Amun destroyed throughout the temple but this was later restored by Seti I of Egypt's 19th Dynasty. Various 19th Dynasty kings especially Seti I and Ramesses II also "carried out minor restorations and added to the temple's decoration." The stelas of the Viceroys of Kush Setau, Heqanakht and Messuy and that of Chancellor Bay describe their building activities under Ramesses II, Merneptah and Siptah respectively. In the medieval period the temple was converted into a church.
Aniba was a village in Nubia, about 230 km south of Aswan. The place is today flooded by the Lake Nasser. In ancient times it was an important town and called Miam. The region around the town was one of the most fertile in Lower Nubia.
Silvio Curto was an Italian Egyptologist.
The International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia was the relocation of 22 monuments in Lower Nubia, in Southern Egypt and northern Sudan, between 1960 and 1980. The success of the project, in particular the creation of a coalition of 50 countries behind the project, led to the creation of the World Heritage Convention in 1972, and thus to the modern system of World Heritage Sites.
Gebel Adda was a mountain and archaeological site on the right bank of the Nubian Nile in what is now southern Egypt. The settlement on its crest was continuously inhabited from the late Meroitic period to the Ottoman period, when it was abandoned by the late 18th century. It reached its greatest prominence in the 14th and 15th centuries, when it seemed to have been the capital of late kingdom of Makuria. The site was superficially excavated by the American Research Center in Egypt just before being flooded by Lake Nasser in the 1960s, with much of the remaining excavated material, now stored in the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada, remaining unpublished. Unearthed were Meroitic inscriptions, Old Nubian documents, a large amount of leatherwork, two palatial structures and several churches, some of them with their paintings still intact. The nearby ancient Egyptian rock temple of Horemheb, also known as temple of Abu Oda, was rescued and relocated.