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however that the hypostyle hall and pronaos, as well as the lateral chapel, were added in later
periods and had not been part of the original design.
The original temple, the Augustan temple, does not show this general design, as it does not have a
clear hypostyle hall and pronaos, but this could be related to the relatively small size of the temple.
The Augustan temple has a sanctuary in the back. Behind the temple, positioned against the
outside wall of the sanctuary, a contra-temple was located where people who were not allowed
into the temple could commune with the gods. The Augustan temple also has a wabet. The wabet
has a zodiac ceiling at which six zodiacs are portrayed, which is related to the sun’s journey from
summer to winter. This in turn is related to the new year’s rites. Preceding this room is the new
year’s court, where the new year’s rite(s) could be celebrated. There also seem to have been stairs,
which were commonly used to access the roof during the new year’s rites (de Meyer and Minas-
Nerpel 2012, 2-5; Huxley 1985, 75-77).
Columns
The column design of Shenhur could unfortunately not be taken into account as none of the
columns are preserved. Only their location in the temple is known (de Meyer and Minas-Nerpel
2012, 3-4).
The columns of the Taffeh temple and the temple of Dendur are all in a style that was commonly
used in the Graeco-Roman period and was rarely seen before this. I identified the style of the
columns in the Taffeh temple as the campaniform, Aldred defined the style of the columns in
Dendur as the composite form. It is difficult to tell the exact difference between the two forms as
the composite form is derived from the campaniform. The capitals of both temples have an open
flower motif and represent clustered papyrus umbels. The shafts are decorated to represent
bundles of stems held together by a number of bands. The number or stems and bands could differ
per capital. Within the Taffeh temple itself the details of the decoration even differs per row of
columns or in one case between two columns in the same row. In the temple of Dendur the
decoration on both capitals is the same. The Taffeh temple with its six columns does have more
columns compared to the temple of Dendur, which only has two.