Ancient Egypt
Elements of its Cultural History

  by Sjef Willockx

  
 


Purpose and meaning of papyrus columns

The immense popularity of papyrus columns in the design of temples may have a specific background. We will now have a look at some considerations with respect to a possible explanation.

The surrounding walls of most temples were made of bricks, that were laid in "wavy layers". Here, we have the almost completely intact walls around the Ptolemaic temple  at Deir el Medineh. (From this point, the rather modest temple itself can not be seen).

This is part of the wall. The wavy layers are quite apparent. One possible explanation for this design is, that it represents water, or a watery surface.

(From Aegypten, by Lange & Hirmer. Copyright: Hirmer Verlag. Used by permission)

Here you see a longitudinal section of a typical ancient Egyptian temple (in this case: the mortuary temple of Ramesses III at Medinet Habu). As you can see, going from left to right (i.e. going from the first pylon to the shrine) each next section lies a little bit higher. This is meant to reflect the position of the temple as being build on the Primeval Hill. According to the most common of ancient Egyptian creation myths, the actual moment of creation consisted of the emergence of the first dry land out of the primeval waters. This was the Primeval Hill, where the creator-God found for the first time room to stand. Therefore, it was here that the first shrine was build: still surrounded by water, in a papyrus swamp.
Later, when the water slowly subsided and more and more ground emerged, the temple was gradually extended. Since these later appearing grounds were lying below the level of the first dry land, the rest of the temple floors was lying slightly lower. Therefore, when moving from the entrance to the back of the temple, one goes up a bit.

Papyrus columns usually have a slight constriction at the base of the shaft. Above this, the shaft bulges out a little, and then tapers a bit going up. The lowest part of the shaft often shows a characteristic sheathing of pointed leaves. These were sometimes engraved in the column, sometimes only painted on it.
Above, you see a column in the hypostyle of Amenhotep III (18th dynasty) in the Luxor temple. Below is part of a giant papyrus column from the kiosk of Taharqa (25th dynasty) in the 1st court of the Amun temple at Karnak. Originally, this column was painted also, but the pattern of the leaves is now only visible thanks to the relief.

 

These details considerably enhanced the vegetable suggestion of the columns. When they all still had their original painting intact, a hall like this, with it’s crowded columns, in the gloom would have seemed like a giant papyrus swamp.
And that may just have been the objective...


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