Welcome back everyone Today we visit Tanis (Bubastis) Temple and Dr Morad also gives us the opportunity to better understand and appreciate the history and beauty behind the building of Egypt's Great Temples.  Temple is not a word in the Ancient Egyptian language...and what you think about a Temple is not what they think about the Temple.  Then what was the Temple...the Temple was called the house of the God and God is living in this house and nobody was allowed to go and disturb the God in the house. And the servants of the God were called the priests and their job is serving the God....daily from sunrise to sunset. And all the people did if they wanted something from these Temples and Gods...they were coming outside the Temple...knocking on the door...the priest would open the door and listen to them...what exactly they want.  They carried a message to the God in his room...and the room was called the Holy of Hollies. The other thing I want you to understand is the God would know in this spot in this instance...the human appeared. In a time the people they worship these Gods...for example if they suffered from scorpions killing them here and there...they would pick up the God who controlled the scorpions and they built him a house and they gave him service everyday from sunrise till sunset. The Gods would be satisfied from the service....he would protect them from the harm that can happen by these scorpions. Then you'll find the God here in this area was the scorpion God.  The other area was the cow Goddess because the meaty bits from the cattle who would be protected...then they would bring the Goddess who controlled the cow....this was Hathor in some places. Then they built that God a house and they built it by the material they are using. We will go back 10,000 years BC...only the material there they were using was straw....straw huts. Then the house of the God was designed by the straw huts like their houses as well. Then after thousands of years they discovered we can mix the straw with mud and we can make bricks....mud bricks....and they use these mud bricks for building.... and they came to the same location of the God and they move the straw house...and they built one by mud bricks but in the same spot. Then the spot was so Holly even after thousands of years past and many buildings had been added. They recycled the building....but the soul of the God and the power of the God still in that same spot. And after years the mud gets deteriorated...they have to renew it...then every time it was the duty of the King in charge to keep this Temple alive and then a lot of rebuilding and rebuilding of the same place. Then they discovered the stones....then they made the same design of the straw hut by the stone and so on. Kings came and built it here in the Temple which you did see. Most of these were re built by the older King who was called Rames II and the date of Rames II is one thousand two hundred years before Christ.  But the Goddess Bastet was known ten thousand years before his appearance....then that give you an idea about the importancy of the place. Some of you came to me and I showed you the old stones that were used by the King to make his statue and the bottom of the stone draws the remains of a Temple before writings of the Temple before. In the same area a little bit further to the east from where we are standing....we found a big cemetery of mummified cats....thousands of them as mummies were found in that location. A lot of them now are moved in the different museums and most of them are kept in the area there.  And there were a lot of sacred animals who were buried in different Temple. In that area cats were found here because the Goddess Bastet was the Goddess of this spot here and had a big Temple and the true Bastet is the name of the place. What happened to the mummies in general....if these mummies were found especially in the 17 & 18 th century...18 mostly... there was a kind of idea in Europe that you can heal by the Egyptian mummy dust. Then they were imported a lot of the mummies....human mummies or animal mummies from Egypt....and actually powdered them and use them for healing...put them in bottles and that's what destroyed a lot of our mummies....what ever they were because it was a big business happened in that time.  Next.......All aboard as we travel overnight to Aswan on the train. |
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