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The front entrance faced south. What is important to note here is that it was positioned directly
opposed of another temple, the southern temple, which was facing east, towards the Nile. It was
located about 90 meters from the Taffeh temple. It was common for Egyptian temples to be
directed towards the Nile, as the river had an important symbolic meaning in Egyptian religion.
Another important form of symbolism was the sun coming up between the two pylons that formed
the gate of many Egyptian temples. As the Nile was usually in the eastern direction of the temple,
temples were probably mostly facing east for these two reasons. There were areas in which the
Nile was not in the eastern direction of the temple, in which case the temples might have been
positioned differently as is the case for the temple of Shenhur, which will be discussed later
(Schneider 1979, 93; Clarysse 2010, 275).
Schneider mentions it is odd that the Taffeh temple has its entrance pointing south, however he
does not mention that the southern temple, located only 90 meters south of the Taffeh temple,
was facing east, as is expected of Egyptian temples (Schneider 1979, 12).
Decoration
The roof of the temple was undecorated and so were the walls. The capitals of the columns were
sculptured. There was no decoration other than the sculptured columns in the original design of
the temple. The facade does have decoration in its current state, but this was all added during the
reconstruction (Schneider 1979, 95-103; Raven 1979, 40).
For an ancient Egyptian temple the lack of decoration can be considered to be abnormal. The roof
was usually decorated to represent the sky. Also more decoration would be expected on the walls,
depicting scenes concerning whoever the temple was dedicated to, or statues depicting the god or
goddess of the temple. It is however possible that the statues or decoration had actually once
been part of the temple, but were lost over time (Teeter 2011, 78-79; 93).