Umm ʿUbeida - Umm ʿUbeida

Umm Ubeida (also Umm ʿUbayda, Umm ʿUbaydah, Umm ʿEbeida, Ummebêda, Arabic:أم عبيدة‎, Umm ʿUbaida) is an archaeological site about 400 meters south of Aghūrmī or just under a kilometer southeast of the city Siwa. Here is the Amun Temple of Umm ʿUbeida, which had an important function as the starting point of the ancient public procession oracle that led to the Amun Temple, the oracle temple, in Aghūrmī. Another 900 meters south is the so-called sun spring, also known as Cleopatra's bath.

background

When travelers at the end of the 18th and 19th centuries undertook the arduous expedition to Siwa, they had only one goal: the oracle temple of Jupiter-Amun, described by Greek historians, in which Alexander the Great was sons of God in 311 BC. Was awarded - an important requirement to be King (Pharaoh) of Egypt in the Ptah Temple Memphis to be able to.

The real temple in Aghūrmī but was unknown until 1853. Until then, it was assumed that this more accessible temple was the famous oracle temple.

To the name of the place

The most common name is Umm ʿUbeida. The meaning is not certain. On the one hand, it was suggested that the name would derive from Ummu bayḍā Koch for cooking pot or resting place. Bayḍāʾ could also be the name of a “white thing” in the sense of the “place of origin of the white rock”.

Occasionally the place is also called Umm el-Maʿbad, the mother of the temple. This means the place where there is a temple.

Building history and dedication

The temple was built by Wenamun (Un-amon), the great head of the desert, as his mortuary temple probably at the time of Nectanebo II (30th Dynasty). But it is also conceivable that the Nektanebos ’cartridge was only attached due to a temple extension.

Amun-Re, to whom the temple is dedicated and who was depicted sitting in a kiosk, is described as "Lord of advice" and "great God who dwells in the oasis". That is, not only in Aghūrmī, but also here Amun-Re is worshiped as an oracle god. However, the temple was consecrated to Amun in his ram-headed form, which includes the aspect of the god Osiris, and not with the aspect of a fertility god as in Aghūrmī.

The temple was built from local limestone and alabaster. The pure Egyptian decoration was made by specialists from the Nile Valley.

It is conceivable that the temple was surrounded by a triple wall, within which the priestly apartments were located. In 1811, Caillaud found a rectangular temple 38 meters long and eight meters wide. There was apparently a portico (vestibule) in front of the temple. Blocks of alabaster were found in the area of ​​the sanctuary. At the beginning of the 19th century, the ceiling blocks were still on the temple.

The entrance portal, which was still there in the 18th century, has now disappeared. The temple was affected by an earthquake in 1811, but large parts of it have been preserved. Rohlfs found both side walls of the inner chapel in 1869. In 1897 the temple was demolished by the military commander Maḥmūd ʿAzmī to get stones for the police station Qaṣr Ḥassūna - it is located in what is now the restricted military area in the south of the city of Siwa.^[1] Since then, the western side wall no longer exists. The appearance, which is still visible today, was first documented photographically in 1898 by the British geographer Arthur Silva White (1859–1932).^[2]

Research history

Hoping to find the oracle temple, the British visited William George Browne (1768–1813) 1792,^[3][4] the German Friedrich Hornemann (1772–1801) disguised as an Islamic merchant 1798,^[5] the Frenchman Frédéric Cailliaud (1787–1869) 1819^[6] and the German Heinrich Freiherr von Minutoli (1772–1846) 1820^[7] the sink. Browne was named a ruin by locals early on March 10, 1792 Birba (Arabic for temple), which consisted of one room. On the walls there were representations similar to a procession and hieroglyphics in three rows. The ceiling was decorated too. But one of the six ceiling beams had already fallen and broken. There were still paint residues in some places. There were the first graphic traditions from the Baron von Minutoli. These are significant as they are a fairly detailed description of the time before the temple was destroyed.

getting there

The place is easy from the city Siwa reachable from. Follow the road in the northeast of Mīdān es-Sūq, the market place of Siwa, in an easterly direction past the Siwa Paradise Hotel to Aghurmi. In the south of the castle hill, follow the western of the two paths. The signage is a bit misleading here.

The green lanterns on the roadside to Aghurmi indicate that you are on the right path. The road is narrow, but it can also be driven on by a van or pick-up.

Tourist Attractions

Today only the eastern side wall of the sanctuary of the Amun temple to the sky. The wall, which is still 6.12 m high, consists of 26 limestone blocks, some 7 m long. The inside is decorated with a raised bas-relief that still shows remnants of colored painting in green and blue.

In front of this wall there are several blocks from this temple, including a ceiling block. The visitor inscriptions are, of course, only recently.

The top of the wall, a row of vultures with outspread wings, is missing today.

The relief shows a series of sacrificial scenes in which the builder of the temple, Wenamun, is involved. A large inscription with 51 columns of text has survived above the sacrificial scenes. The religious inscriptions describe the opening of the mouth ceremony for the “princely builder of the temple”, who is the “great man of the foreign lands, Wenamun, the blessed, the son of Nefret-ronpet”.^[8] It is extremely unusual for such a text to be found in a temple. This means that the temple is also Wenamun's burial chapel!

The register (strip of images) immediately below shows seven deities and the kneeling Wenamun in front of the ram-headed Amun-Re sitting in the kiosk and his wife Mut, "the eye of Re, mistress of heaven". The seven deities on the left still preserved today are each alternately Amun-Re and Mut.

Underneath, eight deities are depicted, from right to left: a falcon-headed god, of whom only the sun disk has survived, the creator god Atum with a double crown, the air god Schu with a feather, his wife, the lion-headed Tefnut with a sun disk, Seth with a double crown , the earth god Geb with an Upper Egyptian crown, his wife, the sky goddess Nut and a falcon-headed deity.

The third register shows the remains of three deities, from left to right: the falcon-headed Horus with a double crown - Amun-Re and his wife Mut were definitely standing in front of him - a lion-headed goddess who is designated as the “Lady of Heaven” - Conceivable would be, for example, Buto, Mut or Sachmet - as well as the crown and protection goddess Nechbet with an Upper Egyptian crown. Behind Nechbet stood the ram-headed creator god Khnum, who is now lost.

If you follow the path about 900 meters further south, you will reach the so-called Sun source, also called Cleopatra's bath or better Cleopatra's spring, surrounded by date palms. There are various names among the locals such as ʿAin Kliyūbātrā (عين كليوباترا‎, „Cleopatra source"), Ḥamāmāt Kliyūbatrā (حمامات كليوباترا‎, „Cleopatra baths"), ʿAin esch-Schams (عين الشمس‎, „the sun source") Or ʿAin el-Hammām (عين الحمام‎, „Bath source“).

The spring has a diameter of about 20 m and should be about 6 m deep. The Greek historian Diodorus reports an unusual temperature change in the spring: it is coolest at lunchtime and warmest at midnight.^[9]

“In the vicinity of it [the temple of Umm ʿUbeida] is a spring which, because of its nature, is called the Sun Spring. The water of the same always changes in a strange way according to the hours of the day. At dawn it gushes out lukewarm; in the course of the morning it gets cooler by the hour and is coldest in the midday heat; in the same proportion the cold decreases again towards evening, and when night begins the warmth rises until midnight; from then on it decreases until it has returned to the initial level at daybreak. "

In contrast, Rohlfs found in 1869 that the water temperature was a constant 29 ° C all day. The temperature profile described by Diodor is a deception due to the changing outside temperature. The spring has a relatively low salt content of 0.16%.^[10]

Occasionally you can see men and boys taking a bath. But whether Cleopatra really bathed in this spring is rather unlikely. Even the origin of the name “Cleopatra Bath” is obscure. The ancient historians only ever talk about the source of the sun. You cannot avoid seeing the “Cleopatra bath” as an invention of tourists or travel book authors.

A few meters north of the sun spring is another, smaller spring, ʿAin Gūbbā (Arabic:عين جوبا‎, „Gūbbā source"). The pool is about 3 meters in diameter and about three meters deep. The water from this spring is carried north via a canal.

kitchen

There are two small cafés in the immediate vicinity of the sun source. On the one hand, these are the Cleopatra Spring Coffee Shop and Restaurant and the Tito's cafe. There are more restaurants in the nearby town Siwa.

accommodation

Accommodation is available in the nearby town Siwa.

trips

A visit to the temple of Umm Ubeida can be compared to that of the temple of Aghūrmī connect. One can also visit the burial mound Gebel el-Mautā or the double mountain Gebel et-Takrūr append.

literature

• Minutoli, Heinrich Freiherr von: Journey to the Temple of Jupiter Ammon in the Libyan Desert and to Upper Egypt in 1820 and 1821. Berlin: August Rücker, 1824, Pp. 85–96 (Siwa), pp. 96–100 (temple), pp. 101–162 (explanation of the images), panels VII – X.
• Steindorff, Georg: Through the Libyan desert to the Amonsoasis. Bielefeld [et al.]: Velhagen & Klasing, 1904, Land and people: monographs on geography; 19th, Pp. 120–122, fig. 71 f. (P. 95 f.).
• Fakhry, Ahmed: Siwa Oasis: its history and antiquities. Cairo: Government Press, 1944, The Egyptian deserts, Pp. 97-120, panels XX-XXIII.
• Fakhry, Ahmed: Siwa Oasis. Cairo: The American Univ. in Cairo Pr., 1973, The oases of Egypt; 1, ISBN 978-977-424-123-9 (Reprint), pp. 165-172.
• Kuhlmann, Klaus P [eter]: The Ammoneion: Archeology, History and Cult Practice of the Oracle of Siwa. Mainz: from Zabern, 1988, Archaeological publications; 75, ISBN 978-3-8053-0819-9 , Pp. 37–41, figs. 14, 15, plates 28–33.

Individual evidence