Pylon of Egyptian temple

A pylon (term resulting from the Greek “pulon”, meaning gate ) is a formed monumental construction of two turns with rectangular base surmounted of a lintel, surrounding a main door in the Egyptian temples. Outside, of the recesses allowed to plant immense masts at the end of which floated of the streamers, announcing the presence of the divine house by far.

To go to the temple, the Egyptians borrow the paved alley bordered of Sphinx, called Dromos, which generally leaves a quay at the edge of the the Nile and where the priests and the god accost at the time of the ceremonies. The pylon (bekhenet, “bḫnt” as an Egyptian) mark the entry of the enclosure of the temple. Preceded by colossal statues of the king and obelisks, it opens on a court with gantry which constitutes the public part of the temple. This esplanade is the only zone accessible to crowd at the time of the processions because the sanctuary itself their is prohibited.

If, in the beginning, the pylon could be used to really defend the access of the temple, the function disappeared to become symbolic system, since pylons were set up inside even of the already protected crowned enclosures. In the absence of human enemies, they make obstacles with the impure forces thus.

On this diagrammatic level of the Egyptian temples, were grafted during the centuries of the alternatives and the successive additions. The most important temples can comprise one second court with a pylon of size lower than those of the first. At the time of successive enlargings of a temple, a new door, therefore a new pylon, was set up; thus one counts ten pylons with the temple of Karnak which was the subject of ceaseless rehandlings since the Moyen Empire.

Various parts of the pylon

The pylon consists of two large stone solid masses enclosing a door, with tilted sides. Each side of the frontage is dug from one to four vertical stripes reserved for masts at the top of which float of the multicoloured streamers, habit in force in all the temples as of the Nouvel Empire.

The external walls are in blocks of stone cut, assembled with sharp joints, without binder nor mortar, whereas the interior filling consists of stones variously gauged and built, and in blocks often recovered on old constructions having ceased liking. Thus Horemheb, last king of, will use for the construction of its own pylons, the stones of the temple of its predecessor Amenhotep {{IV}}.

In the beginning furnished with richly worked monumental doors, the high central gate is surmounted by a cornice and a lintel traditionally decorated with the winged disc. Its platform roof forms a curtain between the two turns. Each angle is decorated on all the height of a torus, circular moulding of section pointing out the pads of straw and cob of ancestral constructions. A traditional, scultée and painted cornice, called “Egyptian throat”, crown and encloses a roof forming higher terrace on each top of the building.

To the ground floor of the court, two small doors give access to the interior staircases to turning quarter, slightly lit by oculi. These staircases serve the terraces and of the utility small rooms of number and in variable levels, sometimes provided with an opening on the exterior facade to make it possible to fasten the masts and to hoist the streamers.

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