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Ghueita Temple: Central Rear Chamber 1
John Coleman Darnell
The sandstone temple of Ghueita comprises
four sections — a forecourt, a hypostyle hall with four columns,
a vestibule, and three inner chambers, of which only the center room
bears decoration. On the façade and jambs of the entrance portal
to this central sanctuary are scenes and inscriptions of Ptolemy III
Euergetes I in sunk relief. The north and south interior walls of the
sanctuary are covered with a layer of plaster, on which survive extensive
remains of painted decoration, while on the rear (west) wall of the
sanctuary is a scene in high raised relief. A bandeau text on the north
wall of the sanctuary preserves the cartouche of Darius I, on the basis
of which the painted decoration on the north and south walls has been
correctly attributed to him.2 The
raised relief on the back wall, on the other hand, has been ascribed
to earlier Kushite3 or Saite4 rulers,
or to later Ptolemaic kings.5 Those
attributions are, however, incorrect — the work of the TDRS has
revealed that the decoration on the back wall of the sanctuary was
executed during the reign of Darius I, and all decoration within the
sanctuary, both painted plaster and carved relief, represents a unified
decorative program.
 The
back wall of the sanctuary depicts a king offering the goddess Maat
to the Theban triad in their oasean manifestations — Amun, Mut,
and Khonsu of Ghueita, resident in Hibis. Although all who have commented
on the scene thus far appear to have assumed or even stated that
the cartouche of the king is illegible, the king is in fact certainly
a Darius, probably Darius I (Figure 1). The cartouche before the
king is badly damaged, but enough survives of the first two signs
to identify a clearly written in-pot and ti-sign
( );
although little of the cartouche survives, the extant signs suffice
to identify the name of Darius (I).
The image of Darius offering Maat to the triad of Ghueita on the back wall of
the sanctuary mirrors the images in the painted decoration, in which Darius offerings a kneeling figure of Maat to a row of deities on the south wall and two nw-pots to a different row of divinities on the north wall (facsimile
and reconstruction drawings now in preparation). The presence of Darius I’s
cartouche on the back (west) wall indicates that both the painted and carved
decorative elements within the central sanctuary belong to a single decorative
program. The bandeau text, beginning on the north wall and continuing along the
west wall onto the south wall (Figure 2), further reveals the unified nature
of the sanctuary’s decoration.  Although
portions of the painted text on the north and south walls have suffered damage,
enough survives to reveal that the bandeau text is continuous throughout the
chamber — the determinative of the last word at the west end of the north
wall ( ) appears in carved relief on the immediately
adjacent north end of the west wall. Just as the bandeau text continues across
the painted side walls and carved rear wall — consistent with the origin
of both the painted and carved decoration during the reign of Darius I — so
the carved cartouche of Darius on the rear wall is original to the scene and
reveals no evidence of any usurpation of an earlier royal name. No definite epigraphic
evidence of any ruler prior to Darius I is thus far known at Ghueita Temple,
and the extant decoration of the rear central sanctuary belongs to the Persian
Period.
Although no textual material of pre-Darius date has survived on the stones of
Ghueita Temple in its final form, Amasis has been suggested as the ruler responsible
for constructing the four-columned hypostyle hall.6 No
compelling architectural or archaeological indications appear to plead for such
an attribution, and epigraphic evidence argues against any Saite Period construction
activity in front (east) of the rear chambers of the temple. In inscriptions
within the door thickness of the sanctuary and forecourt, Ptolemy III Euergetes
I states that he built both the wx-hall — the
four-columned hypostyle hall — and the  -court — the
forecourt of the temple. Indeed the seam of the juncture between the rear portion
of the temple and the hypostyle hall is consistent with an architectural history
of Ghueita Temple in which the hypostyle hall was constructed after the rear
portion of the temple.7
In its present form Ghueita Temple dates essentially to the reigns of Darius
I and Ptolemy III, with additional texts and scenes added by Ptolemy IV Philopator
and Ptolemy IX Soter II. All suggestions made to present for a pre-Darius I date
for any element of Ghueita Temple are not founded on clear architectural, archaeological,
or epigraphic evidence. However, that is not to say that evidence for a pre-Darius
date for some element of Ghueita Temple does not survive.
 The
work of the Theban Desert Road Survey at Ghueita Temple has revealed
that the central rear chamber of the temple, decorated in both painted
plaster and raised relief carving under Darius I, incorporates within
it a small, formerly freestanding sandstone shrine of some date prior
to the Twenty-Seventh Dynasty. Contrary to all previously published
plans of Ghueita Temple, which show the rear central chamber aligned
with the central axis of the rest of the temple, the central sanctuary
is off-center, oriented more closely east-west than the remainder
of the temple (Figure 3).8  The
central chamber contains two sets of upper door-sockets, those in
front (east) — with corresponding sockets below — belonging
to the room in its final appearance under Darius I, and those behind
(west) — the lower rear sockets covered by later flooring — belonging
to the original shrine before its incorporation into the structure
of Darius I (Figures 4, 5 and 6). The sloping front walls of the
earlier shrine are visible as continuous seams on the north and south
walls just within the entrance to the present chamber.  Because
Darius I made a slight alteration to the axis of the original shrine,
the front of the original structure is 10cm closer to the interior
front of the Darius chapel on the north side than on the south side,
resulting in the south wall of the chamber in its final form being
approximately 10cm longer than the north wall. The painted decoration
of Darius I fills the north and south walls of the chamber, extending
from the inner side of the doorjambs to the back wall, passing across
the seam between his final version of the chamber and the original
shrine (Figure 7).  The
artists who designed the decoration of the north and south walls
appear to have based the layout of their decoration on the measurements
of the south wall, resulting in the exceptionally cramped spacing
and attitude of the goddess Isis, the final (westernmost) divinity
to whom Darius offers on the north wall. 
The incorporation of the free-standing central chamber within the later temple
led to the removal of the lower portion of the original lintel of the earlier
chapel, the extent of which is evidenced by a surviving stump of the lower portion
on the north wall of the present shrine  (indicated
by the arrow in Figure 5). The roofing stone that includes the earlier lintel
reveals the remains of a raised relief winged sun disk with twin uraei, traces
of the painted feathers of the wings surviving (Figure 8). A freestanding shrine
with a portal bearing a winged sun disk on its lintel originally stood on the
site of the present central chamber, and still stands, forming most of that central
chamber. Darius I — or an earlier ruler — built his version of Ghueita
Temple around this original structure, although he deviated the axis of his temple
from that of the earlier shrine.
For a three-dimensional reconstruction of the rear chamber, click here.
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