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Temple of Debod

Introduction

The temple of Debod is an ancient Egyptian building currently located in the Spanish city of Madrid. It is located west of the Plaza de España "Plaza de España (Madrid)"), next to Paseo del Pintor Rosales (Parque del Oeste "Parque del Oeste (Madrid)"), on a hill where the Montaña barracks "Cuartel de la Montaña (Madrid)") was located. When it was transferred to Spain, it was located so that it maintained approximately the same orientation as in its place of origin, from east to west.

The property was a gift from Egypt to Spain in 1968 in compensation for Spanish aid after the international appeal made by UNESCO to save the temples of Nubia, mainly that of Abu Simbel, in danger of disappearance due to the construction of the Aswan Dam. In gratitude, Egypt donated four monuments to countries that responded to this claim in a significant way: Dendur to the United States (currently in the Metropolitan Museum in New York), Ellesiya to Italy (Egyptian Museum in Turin),[1] Taffa to the Netherlands (Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden)[2] and Debod to Spain.

It is about 2200 years old. Its oldest core was perhaps erected under Ptolemy IV Philopator, and later decorated by the Nubian king Adijalamani of Meroe around 200-180 BC. C., being dedicated to Amun "Amun (mythology)") of Debod (Amani, in the Kushite language) and Isis, although to tell the truth most researchers think that its erection was the work of Adijalamani, with Ptolemy IV later intervening in it. It has important additions from the Ptolemaic and Roman-imperial era (from the century BC to the century AD).

In September 2017, after more than a year of closure due to the malfunction of the air conditioning systems, the Debod temple reopened its doors to the public.[3].

Original location in Egypt

The temple of Debod was located in the small town that bore this name (Debod), on the banks of the Nile River, near the first cataract, in Lower Nubia, "country of gold", south of Egypt, very close to the place where the Nile cuts the Tropic of Cancer. A little further north, on the island of Philé, was the great sanctuary of the goddess Isis. The temple of Debod was indirectly part of that sanctuary, although its cult was dedicated to the god Amun "Amun (mythology)") of Debod. Theologically linked to Philé since the century BC. C., will also have a special connection with other temples in the area. This region, bordering the kingdom of Meroe, was the subject of dispute between Egyptian and Meroite rulers until the century BC. C., when the Roman emperor Augustus definitively established the border.

Temple of Debod

Introduction

In September 2017, after more than a year of closure due to the malfunction of the air conditioning systems, the Debod temple reopened its doors to the public.[3].

Original location in Egypt

History of the temple

The construction of the temple began at the beginning of the century BC. C. the Nubian king Adijalamani of Meroe, who built a chapel dedicated to the gods Amun and Isis. The chapel, decorated with reliefs, is one of the few places where this monarch is documented. Adikhalamani's other monuments are his Philé stele "Phile (Egypt)") (fragmented, and reused in the expansion of the temple of Isis by Ptolemy V Epiphanes) and his tomb at Meroe. Later, different kings of the Ptolemaic Dynasty built new rooms around the original core until it gave it an appearance close to its current one. After the annexation of Egypt by the Roman Empire, it was the emperors Augustus, Tiberius and, perhaps Hadrian, who completed the construction and decoration of the building. With the closure of the sanctuaries of Isis in Philé in the 2nd century, the temple ceased to be a place of pagan worship, and its progressive abandonment and deterioration began.

As already mentioned, King Ptolemy IV Philopator or more probably the Nubian king Adijalamani (Adikhalamani) of Meroe, ordered construction around the year 200 BC. C. a chapel in honor of the god Amun of Debod, in the town of Debod, southern Egypt (in the place where the remains of an ancient Ramesside cult building were located). This is the chapel known as the "chapel of the reliefs", or "chapel of Adijalamani", where inscriptions referring to Amun can be seen. Ritual scenes also appear in the reliefs of the chapel where it is said that "King Adijalamani orders the construction of the monument in honor of his father Amun" and that "Amun lives in Debod." The temple is closely linked to a historical event of extraordinary importance in the history of Ptolemaic Egypt: the so-called "Theban Secession". At this time, for twenty years (205-185 BC) all of Upper Egypt will be independent of the Alexandrian power; The Thebaid, as an independent state, will have its own kings. These internal dissensions in Egypt allow the Kushites to advance to Philé, occupying the entire Dodekaschoenos, which explains their presence in Philé itself, in Kalabsha, in Dakkah and in Debod.

Amun of Debod is going to be the main deity of the temple. Little by little Isis will displace him from this preeminent place, but certain indications make researchers think that, at the end of the Ptolemaic era, Amun of Debod will recover his role as the main deity of the temple.

Adijalamani will bring Nubian divinities to Debod (this is the case of Apedemak, the powerful Meroite dynastic lion god, who is mentioned on the lintel at the entrance to the Adijalamani Chapel – this block is today in the temple museum, that is, on its upper terrace). This is the northernmost known mention of this Meroitic lion god.

In the Ptolemaic era, the sanctuary was expanded with new rooms, following a traditional policy that left the previous building "invisible" (the initial architectural core), which was surrounded by the Ptolemaic additions, visible from the outside. Ptolemy VI Philometor, once the lágida dominion had been restored in Nubia, consecrated the temple of Debod to Isis. Ptolemy VIII Evérgetes dedicated a naos to Isis in the temple and perhaps added another room to the initial chapel. Ptolemy XII Auletes dedicated another naos (now lost) to the god Amun of Debod.

With the arrival of the Romans and the incorporation of Egypt into the Empire, new expansion works were carried out in the temple, dating back to the principalities of Augustus and Tiberius:.

• - Construction of a pronaos with a hypostyle façade (4 columns of floral order, two of the capitals unfinished) with access flanked by intercolumnial walls.

• - Reliefs on the outside in the aforementioned intercolumniations (Augustus before the gods Isis, Osiris, Amun of Debod and Maahes or Mahesa).

• - Complete decoration of the interior walls of the pronaos (or vestibule) hypostyle; Augustus would have started this decoration, which would be finished by Tiberius.

• - Construction of an annex building, attached to the temple, which has been considered a mammisi.

The Romans will bring new divinities to the temple, linked mostly to the theological order of Philé. In the vicinity of the temple, although outside the religious area and necropolis, there are authors who think that a small Roman garrison was installed, called - in the topography of the area - Parembole, but the truth is that no Roman military vestige has been found in the area, nor any graffiti in Latin on the temple to corroborate it.

It is likely that we owe some of the final architectural reforms of the Greco-Roman temple to the Antonine emperors. Beginning with the reign of Diocletian, the area suffered with special intensity from the attacks of nomads, in what appears to be a two-way Nubian Völkerwanderung: south-north and deserts-Nile. The Romans abandon the border of Maharraqa, which goes back to Philé. All Roman camps south of Philé are set up. Nubia, and therefore Debod, are at the mercy of the nomads Blemios, who leave their peculiar mark (both epigraphic and iconographic) on the walls of the sanctuary. When Emperor Theodosius I closes all the pagan temples of the Empire (with the exception of Philé), Debod is no longer sensu stricto under Roman orbit.

Later, Emperor Justinian (1st century AD) would decree the closure of the few pagan temples that were still functioning throughout the Byzantine Empire (of which Egypt was a province). With this decree, Egyptian temples dedicated to traditional gods were also closed. The Justinianic legal measure fundamentally affected two temples with a long tradition in Egypt: the oracle of Zeus-Ammon in Siwa and the temple of Isis in Philé. The Isiac cult in Philé was eliminated and its premises occupied by a Christian community that consecrated the temple to Saint Stephen. At that time the Christianization of Nubia began. In Debod there are traces of the Christian stage.

Debod will be visited during Late Antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Modern Age, by nomads, by pagan pilgrims (who leave proskynemata[4] on its walls) and by Christians; Finally, it will be a building occasionally occupied by Muslims. All these human groups will leave their mark on the ancient walls of the temple, as will later romantic travelers. The toponymy of the place will maintain the original, Egyptian name (ta-Hut), deformed into "Dabud", "Debod".

The first exact description of the building in Europe was made in 1813 by the Swiss explorer Johann Ludwig Burckhardt when he was traveling on a mission for the British African Association. Champollion himself visited Debod, leaving a brief reference to the building. Throughout the century, the temple was visited again by explorers and Egyptologists who offered a graphic description and indirectly showed in their work the gradual deterioration of the building. Here, as an example, is how the temple was described in the diary of a Russian traveler (Joseph Ssenkowsky, professor of oriental languages at the University of Saint Petersburg), in the spring of 1821: "In Wadi Debod there is a small temple of only 75 feet in length, in a very good state of preservation. In front of it are three moles, in a row, which once served as entrances through various walls that They must have surrounded the temple. Today, only the remains of the second of these walls are visible. This temple contains, in addition to the vestibule, only the central one is decorated with reliefs. It seems that it must have been dedicated to Isis. Its proximity to Philé convinces me that it is ancient Parembole, a place that was only 16,000 steps from Aswan.

When the first dam (known as the Aswan Low Dam) was built in that territory in 1907, the temple was greatly affected, as it remained underwater for about nine months a year. The almost constant flooding of the temple caused the loss of the polychrome and damage to some of its reliefs. The sandstone also suffered extensive wear. This erosion caused by the waters of the Nile was added to the damage caused by the earthquake of 1868. In view of this damage, the Egyptian Antiquities Service asked the Egyptian architect al-Barsanti to proceed with its restoration. After the completion of the work, the German Günther Roeder carried out an exhaustive study with photographic documentation, plan drawings, elevations and comments. His work remains the fundamental bibliographical reference of the building, a century later.

In 1961, due to the construction of the new Aswan Dam, the temple (and other buildings) was dismantled by a Polish archaeological mission (which located the oldest levels of the building, from the Ramesside period—Seti II—) and its stones were deposited on Elephantine Island until their later transfer to the port of Alexandria. From this port he made his final journey until he reached Spain, after a diplomatically complex transfer, full of lights and shadows, in which prestige, money, institutions and official organizations were at the core of a difficult and tough negotiation (in clear contradiction with the official statements that remain to this day) as Jambrina has shown (see bibliography).

In its new location, the Egyptian sanctuary was inaugurated on July 18, 1972 by Carlos Arias Navarro, mayor of Madrid.

Transfer of the temple to Spain

In 1960, a rescue group for the monuments of Nubia was established in Spain. It was called the Spanish Committee and its director was the Spanish professor and archaeologist Martín Almagro Basch, who collaborated in the excavation of the Nubian sites, in Egypt and Sudan. However, the excavation works at the site occupied by the Debod temple were not carried out by the Spanish Committee, but by the Egyptian Antiquities Service and a team from the Polish Archaeological Mission. UNESCO commissioned the work of copying all the temple inscriptions to the Egyptologists François Daumas and Philippe Derchain.

Once the temple was dismantled in 1961, it was taken to the Elephantine Island, next to Aswan, the ancient Siena "Siena (Egypt)"). Most of the stone blocks remained there until April 1970, when they traveled again; this time, heading to Alexandria.[5] On June 6 of that year, the packed boxes containing the blocks from the temple of Debod were embarked on the ship Benisa and arrived at the port of Valencia on the 18th of that same month. From Valencia they were transported by trucks to Madrid, where they were stored on the site of the former La Montaña barracks "Cuartel de la Montaña (Madrid)"), destroyed during the Spanish civil war.

The task of the Spanish archaeologists under the direction of Martín Almagro was difficult, since the Egyptian Antiquities Service only provided a plan and a sketch of the elevation of the monument, along with some photographs without reference of any kind. Of the 2,300 pieces that had to be fitted together, more than one hundred blocks had lost their numbering and many fragments bore a mark that did not correspond to the plan.[5] Finally, and after several hesitation, the reconstruction of the temple was an anastylosis, with which the hypostyle façade (that is, supported by columns), lost since the 1st century, was re-erected and the mammisi was closed on its east side.

On July 18, 1972, the temple opened its doors to the public. Previously, Pedro Lozano Bartolozzi had published in the January 1, 1964 edition of Diario de Navarra, that "it is possible that an entire pharaonic temple could be brought to Spain as a donation from the United Nations to the Spanish Mission."[6].

The friendship between Francisco Franco and Gamal Abdel Nasser was key to the concession of the Debod temple, rebuilt on the Montaña barracks "Cuartel de la Montaña (Madrid)"), where General Joaquín Fanjul had revolted against the Second Republic, within the framework of the coup d'état that led to the outbreak of the Spanish civil war.[6].

Reconstruction, restoration and conservation

Firstly, a stone base was built (as a podium) in order to isolate the original blocks of the temple and so that the ground would not have contact with them. The reconstruction began on the base, following the technique called anastylosis; that is, placing the original elements found in their place and adding the reconstruction parts with a stone of a different color, in order to distinguish the old and original elements from the new ones. The new stone was brought from the Salamanca municipality of Villamayor "Villamayor (Salamanca)").

Three exterior blocks were chemically treated at the Restoration Institute to protect and reinforce them (the gorge of the second pylon, a capital and a column drum).[5] Air conditioning was installed inside the building to create a constant dry atmosphere. And as a reminder of the river that the temple had in its vicinity (the Nile), a shallow pond was built along the pylons leading to the temple. The reconstruction work on the monument lasted two years. Its inauguration took place on July 18, 1972.[5].

Since its opening to the Madrid public, the conservation of the temple has been surrounded by controversy. The building was used indiscriminately for summer movie showings, for theatrical performances, for advertisements, for musical spots. The pollution and climate of Madrid, as well as vandalism, have left deep marks on the building. The alarm has been raised by the Iberian Egyptology Congresses that have been held (Madrid, Barcelona, La Laguna) and – recently – UNESCO. Regarding them, the official position of the guardian entity (the Madrid City Council, through Municipal Museums) has been, systematically, to deny the reasons for alarm, and to carry out small-scale actions. However, the temple continues to deteriorate.

The state of the monument is a flagrant transgression of what the conservation of a historical monument entails according to the Venice Charter. The roof of the original temple was roofed to house some elements of the temple museum, such as models and blocks of dubious location. A large glass window attached to the sandstone using silicone was also installed on the hypostyle façade, whose insulating purpose paid the dear price of modifying the pristine appearance of the colonnade. The roof uses a covering technique from the seventies of the last century. Deteriorated by the action of time and pollution, it has received specific repairs. The air conditioning ducts are used as supports, and in general terms the temple from its interior does not reflect its original state.

The initiation by the General Directorate of Historical Heritage of the Community of Madrid, by Agreement of April 2, 2007, of the file for the declaration as an asset of cultural interest of the temple[7] and the subsequent declaration as an asset of cultural interest "Asset of cultural interest (Spain)"), carried out on April 17, 2008,[8] encourages new hopes about the role regarding its conservation. But the factors of deterioration continue to act persistently on the building without being stopped.

In 2020, the archaeologist Zahi Hawass requested by letter to the mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida,[9] for greater protection for the temple, requesting that it be covered to protect it from rain.[10] In February 2020, the Madrid City Council announced that it would call a contest of ideas to protect the Debod temple starting in 2021.[11].

The building

Contenido

El templo se halla en la actualidad restaurado y algunas partes desaparecidas han sido reconstruidas, como ya se ha comentado. Consta de una serie de estancias que se pueden visitar. El mejor momento para admirarlo desde el exterior es a la caída de la tarde.

Adijalamani or Relief Chapel

It is the architectural core of the sanctuary, the oldest preserved part of the temple, which is in an acceptable state of conservation (except for the polychrome); It is decorated with scenes depicting the king worshiping the gods and offering sacrifices. They are motifs related to the royal cult of the gods of the area and those linked to the sacred monarchy. This chapel has been consecrated, since its beginnings, to the god Amun of Debod, who is worshiped along with other divinities (Isis, Hathor, Osiris, Horus, Apset, Mut, Satis, Anukis, Horajty...) Imhotep occupies a prominent place at the entrance. The conception of the design of this room and its concrete execution can only be attributed to guidelines emanating from Filé, both for its artistic quality and for the rigid application of canons in each and every one of the scenes and texts of theological content.

Mammisi

The word mammisi is of Coptic origin and means "place of birth." It alludes to the room where the goddess venerated in the temple gave birth, where the "mystery of divine birth" was celebrated.

In 1991, researchers considered the possibility that this temple room was a mammisi, given its location and uniqueness, but the truth is that its use was probably of a different nature, as more recent research has suggested. Despite this, she is still called mammisi.

This room was probably the last contribution that Roman Egypt made to the architecture of the temple, with the reliefs in the vestibule constituting a post-quem of it, made under Augustus and Tiberius (42 BC-37 AD). The construction breaks the axial symmetry of the temple's plan. To access this room from the temple, an opening had to be opened in the south wall of the hypostyle vestibule (the sloped wall of this area of the mammisi corroborates this). Otherwise, there are no inscriptions on the walls. In the west wall you can see a hole (used to house some divine image?). A skylight opens in the south wall through which indirect light would enter and provide the necessary atmosphere for the ceremonies that took place there.

Other rooms or rooms

• - Vestibule or hypostyle pronaos: with a decorative program carried out by Augustus and Tiberius, most of which has now been lost due to the earthquake of the century and the subsequent theft of ashlars.

• - Antesala of the naos: small room, redistributing the visitor between the three head chapels. It is important to highlight that, at the top of this anteroom, through a flared opening, the only possible overhead lighting was received from the temple terrace, reaching the central chapel and the naoi.

• - Hall of the naoi, or central chapel at the head: it contains the only naos that is currently preserved (there was a second monolithic naos that disappeared in the century ). This central chapel, erected in the Ptolemaic era after the expansion of the temple, was dedicated to Isis and Amun of Debod.

• - South corridor: one of its walls (which was once exterior) contains an interesting sundial.

• - Osiriaca chapel: chapel-reliquary of Osiris, on the terrace, next to the ritual access staircase. The chapel-reliquary of Osiris is always, in Egyptian temples, a covered chapel, located on the terrace of the sanctuary. And it was built with a roof precisely because rainwater was not beneficial to the god Osiris (unlike the water of the Nile). For this reason, the room was covered to prevent rainwater from touching the relic of Osiris that was kept in this room.

• - Terrace: place where important solar ceremonies took place, especially the New Year Ritual (moment in which the fusion of the ka of the god Ra with the ka of the divine statues of the temple took place, which were brought to this terrace by the priests the night before the Egyptian New Year).

• - Chapels of the head: flanking the naos chapel are two anepigraphal chapels, presumably attributed to Osiris (lower south chapel) and Mahesa (north chapel).

• - Uabet: place of purification for the priests of the temple (before accessing the rest of the sanctuary), it opens its door to the vestibule. In this case, the possibility that said room was the "uabet" of the temple is supported exclusively on the basis of its relative location. The "uabet" of the Ptolemaic temple, in general, has specific characteristics that we do not know if they occurred in this room, given that the vestibule was completely disfigured when archaeologists worked in Debod in the 19th century.

• - Crypts: Debod is one of the few Ptolemaic temples that had crypts, open to the chapels of the head. The main one is the Treasure Crypt (which opens onto the Mahesa Chapel), where statues of the gods made of noble materials were kept. The other crypt is probably the so-called Laboratory, the place where the perfumes of the divinities were kept; this opens to the lower chapel of Osiris.

• - Almagro, M. (1971) The Temple of Debod. Madrid: Institute of Madrid Studies. 88 pages

• - Almagro, M.; Griño, R. and Almagro, A. (1971) "On the placement of two fragments of lintels engraved with hieroglyphs from the door of the Azakheramón chapel in the temple of Debod." Prehistoric Works, 28: 211-222.

• - Burckhardt, John Lewis (1819) «Travels in Nubia» pages 126-128, Published by the Association for promoting the discovery of the interior parts of Africa; Google digital copy*.*.

• - Daumas, F. and Derchain, Ph. (1960) Debod, textes hiéroglyphiques et description archéologique. Cairo: Center de documentation et d'études sur l'ancienne Égypte. Scientific collection. Temples.

• - Fort, R. (1997) «The temple of Debod. Solutions to its deterioration. Restoration and Rehabilitation, 10: 18-23.

• - Hernández Marín, A. (2005; modified 2006) «The inscriptions of Mut in the temple of Debod Archived June 30, 2012 in the Wayback Machine.». Friends of Egyptology Newsletter, 26: 22.

• - Herráez, S. (2002) «Rehabilitation works of the Debod temple». Liceus, 4.

• - Jambrina, C. (2000) «The trip from the temple of Debod to Spain». Story 16, 286.

• - Jaramago, M. (1986) «Lion gods in the temple of Debod». Archaeology Magazine, 65.

• - Jaramago, M. (1988) «The temple of Debod: factors of degradation». Archaeology Magazine, 88.

• - Dandelion. M. (1991) «A Mammisi in the temple of Debod?». Bulletin of the Spanish Association of Egyptology, 3: 183-187.

• - Dandelion. M. (1994) "On the Ramesside origin of the sanctuary of Amun in Debod." Studies of Prehistory and Archeology of Madrid, 9: 153-154.

• - Jaramago, M. (1998) «The temple of Debod. Historical sketch of a "Madrid monument"». Story 16, 265.

• - Jaramago, M. (1998) «The temple of Debod: recent research». In: Egypt, 200 years of archaeological research. Ed. Zugarto.

• - Jaramago, M. (2004) « ». Bulletin of the Spanish Association of Orientalists, 40: 123-133.

• - Jaramago, M. (2008) «The temple of Debod, an agonizing death». Very History, 15 (January 2008), p. 85.

• - Jaramago, M. (2015) «Beyond Borders: New Evidence of Barbarians in Debod». Works of Egyptology/ Papers on Ancient Egypt, 6: 48-58.

• - Molinero Polo, M.A. and Martín Flores, A. (2007) «Le naos de Ptolémée XII pour Amon de Debod». In: Goyon, J.-C. and Cardin, Ch. (eds.) Proceedings of the Ninth International Congress of Egyptologists. Orientalia Lovanensia Analecta, 150(2): 1311-1325.

• - Priego, C. and Martín, A. (1992) Temple of Debod. Madrid: Madrid City Council. 67 pages

• - Royal Academy of History. (2007) «Declaration of Asset of Cultural Interest of the Temple of Debod (Madrid)». In: Official reports approved by the Royal Academy of History. RAH Bulletin, 204(2): 137-138.

• - Roeder, G. (1911) Debod bis Bab Kalabsche. Tempel und inschriften aufgenommen. Cairo: Service des Antiquités de L'Égypte. The temples immersed in the Cloud. Vol. 1, 232 pages.

• - Usick, P. (2002) Adventures in Egypt and Nubia. The Travels of William John Bankes (1786-1855). London: British Museum Press. 224 pages ISBN 978-0-7141-1803-1.

• - Žabkar, L. V. (1975), «Apedemak, Lion God of Meroe. A Study in Egyptian-Meroitic Syncretism.