Miraculously preserved colored frescoes found in an ancient Egyptian temple
Miscellaneous / / May 19, 2022
Thanks to the soot, dust and dirt that made it possible to save these works of art.
In the Egyptian temple of Khnum at Esna, German and Egyptian researchers discovered a series of brightly colored ceiling frescoes. The relief images in the central part of the ceiling, according to Professor Christian Leitz of the University of Tübingen, amount to a total of 46 images of a vulture.
In the image of such a bird, the Upper Egyptian goddess Nekhbet and the Lower Egyptian goddess of snakes Wajit were represented. The first has the head of a vulture, and the second has the head of a cobra.
Soot, dust and dirt covered these ceiling frescoes for several thousand years. The painstaking restoration work of archaeologists, which began back in 2018, brought these incredible works of art back to life, and even in their original color.
Temples and ancient images of the gods were often painted with bright colors, but they usually faded or even completely disappeared as a result of external influences. At Khnum's temple in Esna, the colors have been covered in mud and soot for almost 2,000 years, and this has helped to preserve them.
Christian Leitz
University of Tübingen, Germany
Now cleared more than half of the ceilings and 8 of the 18 columns are preserved and documented by a team led by Ahmed Amin. In addition, two platbands - horizontal beams supporting the superstructure - of the central section of the ceiling were cleaned of soot.
The temple where the work is being carried out was dedicated to one of the earliest Egyptian deities, Khnum, a ram-headed god who was considered the god of the source of the Nile. In Esna, Khnum and his wife Neith are considered creator deities.
The construction of this religious building began in the time of Ptolemy, but most of the work dates back to the Roman era and probably the time of Emperor Claudius (41-54 BC). AD).
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