Chapter30
Baboons at the Temple of Khonsu
An hour later
Located to the west of the Temple of Amun-Re, the much smaller Temple of Khonsu seemed in far better condition than the temples they had toured earlier that day.The gateway, its tapered sides and lintel heavily carved, still had its transom, a sun disk carved in relief at the center.The pylon behind it was also symmetrical, a sign it had been finished, and the frame around the entry was intact.There were vertical niches built into the angled front, but no statuary occupied the four spaces.
“We believe this was constructed during the rule of Ramesses the Third,” Mahmood announced as they approached the pylon indicating the entry to the temple.In front of it, a sphinx similar to the one they had seen in front of the Temple of Amun-Re seemed to act as a guard.“There is some thought that it was one end of an avenue of sphinxes which connected Karnak to the Temple of Luxor,” he said, pointing to the west.“A road lined with these statues would be nearly two miles long.”
Will glanced to the west.There was no sign of a temple, but he knew from his days at sea that anything at a distance of two miles would not have been visible above the horizon.“Then where are all the sphinxes?”he asked in alarm.Even if the French had found a few and relocated them to Paris, nearly two miles of sphinxes suggested there had been hundreds of them.
“Under the sand,” Mahmood replied.“Although there are places between here and there where you can see them or part of them as if they are trying to emerge from the desert.”He turned and waved to the temple gateway.“Although there was a wall around this temple at some time in its history, only this remains to show us the way in.Follow me.”
While he spoke, most in their party had moved to examine the sphinx, but when it was time go inside, the women once again paired up with their husbands.Although Tom hurried over to offer his arm to Helen, David beat him to it, saying, “My lady?”
Helen nodded.“Penton,” she acknowledged, placing a hand on his arm.Although she had seen Tom’s attempt to offer his arm from the corner of her eye, she pretended ignorance and gave David a brilliant smile.
Except Tom wasn’t having it.Before she could put voice to a protest, he had stepped up to her other side and gently pried her parasol from her hold, offering his free arm as he angled the parasol over her head.
Surprised, she managed only a scoff before Mahmood resumed speaking.
“Here we find a forecourt in fairly excellent condition,” he said, his arms outstretched.Like the forecourt of the Karnak complex, this one featured columns with closed-bud capitals on either side.Sand had drifted inside, but it wasn’t nearly as deep as that in Karnak, probably because the temple was fairly intact.“You will find inscriptions here we think may have been added by Herihor, a general and high priest of Ramesses the Eleventh.”
Diana inhaled softly.“Can you read them?The inscriptions?”she asked in surprise.
“I cannot.The histories of these temples are mostly passed along in spoken form.I am merely telling you what I learned from my teacher.”
He continued walking into the next section of the temple, the hypostyle hall.Far smaller than the one in Karnak, the hall featured eight columns.What they saw in the sanctuary beyond the hall caught their attention, though.
Two carved baboons.
“Are those monkeys?”Stella asked in awe.Although the bases of the statues were covered by sand, the statues themselves were not.
“The god Thoth, actually,” Mahmood replied.“The god of wisdom is depicted as a baboon,” he explained.“The statues are probably leftover from an earlier temple.One of the last pharaohs native to Egypt, Nectanebo, is credited with restoring or rebuilding this one as well as others throughout Egypt,” he explained.
“Why a baboon?”Helen asked, still flanked by David and Tom.
“Baboons are known to stand in the sun and raise their arms every morning.To warm themselves.They shout as if to greet the sun, to greet the sun god, Ra, and because they are considered a very intelligent animal, they are Thoth’s representation here.”
“We’ve certainly heard them,” Tom remarked.
“You have?”Helen asked, turning to regard him with a quizzical expression.
“When we were sailing through the Strait of Gibraltar,” he replied.“Did you come a different way?”
She shook her head.“We were on a steam ship,” she replied.“But we went through the strait in the late afternoon, so the baboons would have finished warming themselves.”
Tom nodded his agreement.“You are fortunate they did not wake you...or the babe...whilst you slept,” he commented.
“Most fortunate,” she agreed, glancing up at David to see him smirking.
Diana had already pulled her sketchbook from her satchel and was doing a quick drawing of the statue when Randy joined her from where he had been examining the walls.“You’ll want to take a look at the inscriptions,” he murmured.
She glanced up.“Did you find more graffiti?”she asked, grinning.It had become almost a sport for him to search for and read whatever inscriptions he could find from those who had visited the temples in the past.
Randy shook his head.
Intrigued, she tucked the sketchpad under her arm and moved to the wall, her brows furrowing as she moved from block to block, studying each before finally scoffing in frustration.
