Sérabit el-Khadem

Sérabit el-Khadem () “mountain of the servant”, is a locality in the south-west of the peninsula of the the Sinai where the stone of turquoise was extracted massively from the layers during antiquity, mainly by the former Egyptians.

Archaeological excavations, carried out by Sir Kneaded Flinders, revealed campings of minors as well as a temple of the local Hathor, the “Lady of turquoise”, protective goddess of the desert areas. One found a stone sphinx there, carrying a double hieroglyphic inscription, and proto-sinaitic. Its deciphering showed that it was about a dedication “With Ba' alat, goddess of turquoise”. Ba' alat is the female one of Ba' Al, a word which will be used abundantly in the Bible to designate the pagan gods and divinities. The inscription engraved on the statue is the only one which could be deciphered.

One realizes of the frequentation of the site to the big number of furnace bridges devoted to Hathor disseminated that and it all around the temple.

A few kilometres from Sérabit-el-Khadem, in the Wadi-el-Mukattab valley, of many rock faces are engraved of a great quantity of signs. They were photographed for the first time by Francis Frith in 1857.

The temple

The site of Sérabit el-Khadem comprises a temple double, semi-rupestral, dedicated at the same time to Hathor and Sopdou. It is the mining sanctuary most important of the Pharaonic Egypt.

Built on a rock plate dominating the whole of the site, the temple comprises a double hémispéos: a double axis, with a succession in parallel of parts leading to two rooms of worship partly dug in the mountain. The sanctuary, built with the Average Empire, was increased under the Nouvel Empire, but only in the axis devoted to Hathor. The original temple is directed according to a south-eastern/north-western axis; however because of a lack of place the kings of the New Empire could not prolong it in the direction which was essential - towards the North-West -, but had to make evolve the unit more to the west, so that it draws a light elbow.

Although the temple is dedicated jointly to two divinities, Hathor remains the uncontested mistress about it. Sopdou thus plays a more secondary part but nevertheless significant; warlike god attache in the east and the desert, it protects the Eastern borders from Egypt and safeguard the men of the dangers inherent in the inhospitable zones. Beside these two principal divinities, it there with the presence of a god ram originating in the delta and Ptah of Memphis.

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