Thoth Hill (Berg Thoth) is not located in the valleys of the West Bank at Luxor (ancient Thebes) but is relatively high on the southern spur of the great plateau, which forms the backdrop to western Thebes. It was named Thoth Hill because of many limestone fragments of three baboon statues found in the vicinity during Flinders Petrie’s 1909 investigation of the ruins. The hill is sometimes referred to as the “Crown of Thebes”.
Location of Thoth Hill
The spur of the mountain, now known as Thoth Hill, is at the very northern point of the Theban necropolis and an exhausting three-hour hike from the road leading to the Valley of the Kings, just past the house Howard Carter once used. The peak is known locally as ‘the Crown of Thebes’.
Excavations
In 1904, a structure was first discovered here by George Sweinfurth and surveyed in 1909 by Petrie, who identified it as a heb-sed monument built by the Middle Kingdom pharaoh Sankhkare Mentuhotep II. Fragments found at the site were inscribed with the name of the pharaoh and three baboon statues representing the god Thoth that gave the area its erroneous name of Thoth Hill.
The temple site was more thoroughly excavated during 1995-98 by a Hungarian Mission directed by Gyozo Voros. They found a mudbrick structure on an artificial Middle Kingdom stone terrace. Walls with an entrance pylon contained a free-standing sanctuary with three chambers. Many objects were found in the clearance work, including foundation deposits at the four corners of the temple and fragments of a limestone lintel and limestone door jambs carved with an inscription in the name of Sankhkare, dedicating the temple to the god Horus. The excavators thought the temple had been astronomically oriented towards the heliacal rising of the star Sirius (at that time), associated with the god Horus in ancient times.
Further work by the Hungarian archaeologists was to investigate the level below the artificial Middle Kingdom terrace. To everyone’s great surprise, a previously undiscovered stone temple was revealed, with a plan similar to the later structure but with only a single sanctuary. It would seem that the terrace of the latter temple had been built from the collapsed walls of the earlier design. The pottery and architectural fragments of the earlier remains date back to the Archaic Period. The earlier temple differs in its orientation to Sirius by around two degrees from the latter form, suggesting a shift in the star positions over the intervening centuries. The astronomical calculations involved assisting in its dating.
The Archaic Temple
Beneath the Middle Kingdom, the structure of Sankhkare Mentuhotep, the oldest known temple in the Theban region, was only recently discovered. Made of stone, it was tiny and had a similar plant to the later temple built upon it, though it probably only had a single-chambered sanctuary. Interestingly, the older temple appears to have had a pylon entrance, just like the newer temple. However, considering the age of this temple, this would be most unusual. Also, like the later temple, the earlier site was surrounded by an enclosure wall and had a free-standing inner sanctuary. However, the older temple had only one room within the sanctuary, while the newer one had three.
This older temple was slightly offset in its axial alignment (about 2 degrees towards the south). It was built upon an artificial terrace, as was the newer temple. Egyptologists believe that the older temple was oriented towards the helical rising of Sirus and have determined that the older temple’s orientation would have been correct in about 3000 BC, at the very beginning of Egypt’s dynastic period. The star Sirius was worshipped as the god Horus, and because the later temple was probably dedicated to Horus, Egyptologists believe the older structure was as well.
The Horus Temple of Sankhkare Mentuhotep
The newer temple, first investigated by Petrie, was thought by him to be a Sed-festival chapel. There is a Sed festival building to the west within the area, but he was wrong about Sankhkare Mentuhotep II‘s temple. The investigation by the Hungarians revealed that it was a small temple of Horus. However, they also investigated the Sed festival temple, which revealed roofing beams and imported tropical sycamore wood columns.
The 11th Dynasty temple is made of mudbrick and consists of an entry pylon and walls surrounding a free-standing inner sanctuary with three rooms at the rear (northwest). This temple was more closely aligned with the modern helical rising of Sirus. The floors of the newer temple were covered in plaster. Found among the ruins were foundation deposits, fragments of the foundation text, and dedicatory inscriptions from the fine limestone door jambs. The dedication reads:
“Horus Sankh-towi-ef [Who Causes his Two Lands to Live],
He of the Two Goddesses ‘Who Causes his Two Lands to Live,’
The Peaceful Golden Horus,
The King of Upper and Lower Egypt Sankh-ka-Ra [Who Causes the Soul of Re to Live],
Son of Re Montuhotep [The Peaceful Montu],
Living Eternally.
He made this as his monument to Horus,
may he make him given life,
like Re eternally.”
The foundation deposits were located at each of the complex’s four corners. Within the foundation, deposits were terracotta animal figurines, portions of animal sacrifices, alabaster vessels, and shallow saucer offerings. There were also parts of a lintel decorated with a winged sun disk and inscribed with hieratic graffiti that indicates an earthquake may have badly damaged the older temple before the end of the 11th Dynasty.
