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The Rock shrine

The number of chapels and shrines dedicated to various deities by the Deir el-Medina community indicates their devotion and need for public religious expression. Each individual chapel would have provided a local residence for the god or goddess to whom it was dedicated and an area for offerings to that deity. The chapels symbolise the community's recognition of both local and national gods.
On the narrow path leading north-east from the Valley of the Queens to the village of Deir el-Medina, a low hill rises from the desert, its slope carved with several reliefs and inscriptions of Ramesside kings. To the right of these is a rock-cut sanctuary dedicated to the gods who guarded the Theban necropolis. Today the chapels are numbered A-G. One shrine was dedicated in the New Kingdom to the goddess Meretseger, another to Ptah. The sanctuary was probably begun during the Ramesside period.
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Several large stelae dating from the reign of Ramesses III (1182-1151 BC) have been carved into the rock at the northern end of the sanctuary. They are decorated with scenes of human beings
before various deities.
Stone walls surround an irregular courtyard of the large cave-like shelter at the southern end. During the Coptic period it was used by hermits. Today it is known to the locals as the "Snake Room".
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They are damaged and worn, but the inscriptions are legible and there are cartouches with the name of the king.
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Detail of a hieroglyphic inscription
- nsw-bity nb tawy -
"the dual king of the two lands".
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Pharaoh Setnakhte (1185-1182 BC) with the goddesses Mut of Asher and Hathor receiving the symbol of the Heb-sed festival from Amun-Ra and Ptah.
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The walls of the shrine still show traces of the original pigment.
Ptah's original cultic association seems to have been with craftsmen. The high priest of
Ptah held the title wr kheper hmw - "supreme leader of craftsmen".
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This badly eroded wall shows the remains of a relief of the goddess Meretseger with the head of a cobra. She was the goddess associated with the pyramidal top of al-Qurn and presided over the entire Theban necropolis. Her name means "she who loves silence". She was worshipped mainly by the workmen of the royal necropolis.
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The site was first excavated in 1905 by Ernesto Schiaparelli. Fragments found there date back to the 19th dynasty. As the rock that once formed the roof of the sanctuary had collapsed in several places and the whole sanctuary was full of stones and sand, the French Institute carried out the clearing of the site in 1926. Special permission was needed from the Egyptian Antiquities Service, as the rock-cut sanctuary was already outside the boundaries of the French concession.

"Only a small number of workmen sufficed for the excavation; most problematic were the large boulders which had to be either crushed by stones and carried away piece by piece, or pulled out of the sanctuary on ropes. After turning over of one boulder, which had once formed a wall of the sanctuary, a stela was discovered engraved with scenes and inscriptions. We decided that we could not leave the stela in its place. As the stone was too heavy to be transported into our house, the scene with inscription was to be cut off. But before we received the necessary tools - we were not equipped for work of this kind - the entire stone was stolen at night and no trace of it or of the thieves was ever found. Fortunately, we had taken photographs after the discovery, as well as a hand copy and a proof leaf, so at least for study the stone is not completely lost. The photographs were sent to all antiquarians with a warning not to buy the inscription, because is stolen but I think that after some years the thieves will nonetheless succeed to sell it and the stone will appear in a European or American museum."

The excerpts came from Jaroslav Černý's manuscript of his lecture called "Ten Months on Excavations in Egypt", which was held in Cairo on April 4th 1932.
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View of the Theban hills in the west from inside the rock shrine
"Ptah of the Place of Beauty", a term frequently mentioned in ancient sources, is Ptah from one of the sanctuaries at the rock-cut shrine near the Valley of the Queens ("the Place of Beauty").
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Traces of small stone huts of Ramesside date have been found in the area opposite the shrine of Ptah.
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About 10 metres down the path towards the Valley of the Queens we found this ancient graffiti.
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Vandalism in the form of modern graffiti
Photography on this page © Lenka and Andy Peacock
Sources:
1. Weeks, Kent R.: The treasures of Luxor and the Valley of the Kings
Cercelli : White Star Publishers, 2005.
2. Pharaoh's workers : the villagers of Deir el-Medina / edited by Leonard H. Lesko
Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 1994.
3. Wilkinson, R. H. : The complete gods and goddesses of Ancient Egypt.
London : Thames & Hudson, 2003.
4. Černý, Jaroslav: A community of workmen at Thebes in the Ramesside period
Cairo : Institut Francais d'archeologie Orientale du Caire, 1973.
5. Théby : město bohů a faraónů = Thebes : city of gods and pharaohs / Jana Mynářová & Pavel Onderka (eds.)
Praha : Národní Museum, 2007.
6. http://egyptsites.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/sanctuary-of-ptah-and-meretseger/
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