A program to protect Abydos
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The most famous of all the monuments in Abydos is the well- preserved temple of Seti I, which has some of the finest reliefs of any period to be found in the Nile Valley. It has seven separate sanctuaries, dedicated to Seti I himself and to Osiris, Isis, Horus, Amen, Mut and Khonsu. Their entrances are delicately carved in bas-relief, and they still retain their original color.
This is the temple which contains a Kings’ List, a roll of gods and kings engraved in royal cartouches. More than 70 Pharaohs preceded Seti I, starting with Mena, founder of the First Dynasty. For political reasons the names of the monotheist Pharaoh Akhenaten and Queen Hatshepsut were not included in the list.
Several tales were told about the temple, the most interesting being that of the British archaeologist who married an Egyptian and was much respected by the locals, who called her Um Seti (mother of Seti). She would treat the temple as a sacred place, and would remove her shoes before entering. She was very devoted to the memory of the Pharaoh Seti, and believed that she had lived at his court in a previous life. She devoted her life to studying the reliefs and transcribing the texts of the temple. When she died she was buried beside her divine god-king Seti.
Local women believed they could enhance their fertility by immersing themselves in the water of what is known as the Osirian, a temple behind the temple of Seti I, which floods from time to time.
Over the decades, however, spontaneous urban and agricultural development around Abydos has affected the monuments. The city’s inhabitants have encroached on the area in the vicinity of Seti I’s temple. Some have cultivated the triangle in front of temple, leading to the leakage of drainage water into the temple, while others have constructed residential mud-brick and concrete houses around the temple walls and along the road leading to Ramses II’s temple, which in its turn affects the scenery of the whole site.
The Cairo-Aswan highway was another threat to the archaeological site. The highway, a the mega-project for the government, was meant to strengthen domestic transport routes as a way of promoting tourism and boosting trade between the governorates; it was the ground of a major debate between three ministries: housing, agriculture and culture. The controversy was sparked when construction began on the section of the road linking Assiut to Aswan. Archaeologists from the SCA argued that the road would cause irrevocable damage to the major archaeological sites at Abydos, the primary pilgrimage destination for ancient Egyptians, through which it runs.
After several meetings and inspection tours, the controversial parties agreed on the rerouting of the road and that the LE15 million which would be used for recompensing the residents would be provided by the three ministries concerned — each would pay LE5 million. So far the SCA has paid three million, and when the construction of the new houses starts it will pay the rest.
In an attempt to protect the archaeological site of Abydos from any further encroachment, a wall will surround it and the 92 houses located along the road between both temples will be demolished. Residents will be moved to other houses now under construction by the Ministry of Housing in a nearby area after it has been archaeologically investigated. A high-tech visitor centre will be set up un front of the temple of Seti I, replacing the cultivated triangle, along with a cafeteria and a bookshop. A sound and light show for the archaeological sites of Abydos is now under study as another tourist attraction.
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