1. The following text
is a summary of J. C. Darnell, “The Antiquity of Ghueita Temple,” Göttinger Miszellen 212 (2007): 29-40.
2. Ahmed Fakhry identified the painted cartouche of
Darius I in the sanctuary in January 1972, when he began his clearance
of the temple (A. Fakhry, ”Charga Oase,” LÄ I,
col. 909; W. Helck, “Qasr Gueida,” LÄ V, col. 43).
The TDRS has completed the epigraphic recording of the chamber (publication
in progress); the imagery, deities, and their epithets, within the
Ghueita central sanctuary find their closest parallels within the
Inner Gateway of Hibis Temple—PM VII, p. 278.
3. R. Naumann, “Bauwerke der Oase Khargeh,” MDAIK 8
(1939): 4-7.
4. E. Cruz-Uribe, “The Persian Presence at Qasr
el-Ghueita, Egypt,” at www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/History/hakhamaneshian/
persians_at_qasr_el_Ghieta.htm or http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/%7Egdc/ghu/ghuieta.htm
5. H. Onishi, “A Kushite Temple in a Western
Oasis?,” in K. Piquette and S. Love, eds., Current Research
in Egyptology 2003 (Oxford, 2005), pp. 121-133. Onishi visited
Ghueita after it was part of the TDRS concession, and after preliminary
results of our work—concentrating on the Middle Kingdom and
New Kingdom ceramic material at Ghueita—had already appeared
in print.
6. D. Arnold, The Encyclopedia of Ancient Egyptian
Architecture (Cairo, 2003), p. 190; idem, Temples of the
Last Pharaohs (New York, 1999), pp. 88-89. This suggestion
has not received universal acknowledgement—compare G. Hölbl, A
History of the Ptolemaic Empire (London and New York, 2001),
p. 87.
7. That rear section appears to have been conceived
as a single unit, and therefore would date to the reign of Darius
I, or perhaps earlier. The rear portion may have been constructed,
and the hypostyle hall added to the structure, prior to the reign
of Darius I, but for this no evidence has yet emerged, and the long
period of anepigraphic muteness would be difficult to believe.
8. Ms. Elisa Lui of Yale University prepared the architectural
drawings of the sanctuary. Of all published plans of the temple,
curiously only that of A. Edmonstone, A Journey to Two of the
Oases of Upper Egypt (London, 1822), plan opposite p. 65, reveals
an observation that the rear central chamber is somewhat off center.
Copyright 2006 Yale Egyptological Institute in Egypt
Supported by the William K. and Marilyn M. Simpson Endowment for Egyptology