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The comparison
Architecture
General design
The Taffeh temple is a one room structure with six columns. The southern temple that belonged to
the same temple complex was a two room structure in which the first room possibly had six
columns as well, and a second room had no columns at all. There is no description on the
decoration and the temple was heavily damaged, making it hard to interpret it. Based on the
groundplan however the first room seems to have functioned as a hypostyle hall, and may have
functioned like a pronaos as well. The second room was most likely the sanctuary. The complex
had an enclosure wall and possibly more religious structures build on a second platform close to
the Taffeh temple (Schneider 1979, 12-93).
The groundplan of temple of Dendur is very similar to the standard design of new kingdom
temples with its pylon gate, that likely came with an enclosure wall, the hypostyle hall/pronaos, an
offering room and a sanctuary. These can all be found in the standard design of new kingdom
temples although slight differences in this design could occur. The burial rooms behind the
sanctuary and in the rocks behind the temple however cannot be seen as standard. In the new
kingdom the deceased was buried in a grave located away from the temple. Therefore it is unlikely
the graves would have normally been located this closely to the temple. This could have been
tradition that started later periods or be related to the symbolic function the bodies had to this
specific temple. As the princes died in a symbolically important manner it is possible their bodies
became important symbols in the temple as well and therefore had to be buried close to the
temple. It is possible the bodies were initially hidden in the burial chamber in the rocks, but were
later moved to the chamber behind the sanctuary with the movable slab stone entrance so the
body or bodies could for example be used in religious processions (Wilkinson 2007, 24; Aldred
1978, 40-43, 61-64).
The temple of Shenhur as a whole does conform to the general design of new kingdom temples,
except for the lateral chapel/mammisi. It has a hypostyle hall, followed by a pronaos and lastly the
inner temple with multiple rooms including the sanctuary. It is important to note in this temple