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In another scene on the east wall, Claudius is shown representing the temple to the main deity, a
female with a horned disk on her head, who is interpreted as Isis in this article, seen in figure 8.
This scene is also connected to the raising of the pole scene, as this ritual is an adaption of the
ritual: “giving the house to its lord”, which is a ritual performed as the final stage of the foundation
rituals of a temple. The raising of the pole is the same, although specifically for Min. The pose of
Claudius in the scene on the west wall is now interpreted by the article as Claudius holding a
ceremonial staff
and a scepter, that was most likely a mace, in his left hand, and most likely
another scepter in his right hand. The staff and mace are typically used in the ritual of giving the
house to its lord, which therefore shows the link between the west and east scenes (de Meyer and
Minas-Nerpel 2013, 157-158).
An interesting question is why this raising of the pole scene is depicted in a small temple at
Shenhur, while only three of these are so far known from the Roman period. Another is why the
specific date was mentioned for the raising of the pole ritual, when this usually did not occur (de
Meyer and Minas-Nerpel 2013, 158).
To find an answer to these it is important to look at the geographical distribution of the known
raising of the pole scenes. One element they have in common is that they are all located near
popular roads from the Roman period into the eastern and western dessert, where certain popular
cities such as Edfu, Dendera end Thebes were located. Shenhur is located at the crossroads with
the eastern desert road (de Meyer and Minas-Nerpel 2013, 158-159).
What is also important is that the Koptite region, which Shenhur is located closely to, was
particularly interesting to the Roman rulers because of its geographical position. They exploited
this region for its mineral resources and were able to reach the Red Sea and Indian ocean through
Wadis from this region. This was an important location for long distance trades with India and
Arabia (de Meyer and Minas-Nerpel 2013, 159).