The Muzawaka tombs and others, from Egypt to Rome...

[Carmen Elsa Irarragorri Wyland]

The tombs of Petubastis and Padiosiris are both highly decorated with full color paintings which are about 2000 years old.

El-Muzzawaka means ‘the Painted Rock’ and here, not far from Deir el-Hagar, are hundreds of robbed tombs that honeycomb the flat-topped gebel. The most famous are the colourful painted tombs of Padiosiris and Petubastis which combine typical Egyptian funerary art with un-Egyptian classical figures. 

 

Please check out the link below to more wonderful amazing photo's and written tales filled with factual information of ancient Egypt,enter Su Bayfield's website Reflection In The Nile...

LINK

The Monastery of the Stone 

Further to the north-west Dakhla’s only mountain, Mount Edmonstone, named after the first western traveller to Dakhla (by whom, I wondered), rose high above the desert, marked by its distinctive flat top. We drove towards the mountain and turned off down a track past remains of several Roman farmsteads to the Temple of Deir el-Hagar, literally ‘the Stone Monastery’. It was Sir Archibald Edmondstone who first began to clear the sand-filled interior of the temple in 1819. When he and other early explorers first encountered this Roman temple it must have been a romantic sight, in reasonable condition but with an air of decay. Today it has been thoroughly restored by the Dakhla Oasis Project and the story and photographs illustrating the temple’s restoration can be seen in a small visitor centre at the site. There are many interesting elements at Deir el-Hagar including a single intact papyrus column at the entrance to the sanctuary which bears the names in carved graffiti of nineteenth century explorers of the Rohlfs expedition. A huge ceiling block with an astronomical motif has been pieced together and displayed upright for easier viewing on the south side of the temple – a unique scene for a sanctuary ceiling apparently. The original temple was built by the Emperor Nero, added to by Vespasian, Titus and finally Domitian in the first century AD.

This was an area of agricultural importance and the temple would have served the Roman soldiers and the farmers who lived in the area. A stone gate was the main entrance through a large mudbrick enclosure wall and a processional way was defined by 20 mudbrick columns leading to the temple. Inside there are six chambers, including a staircase to the roof. It gives the impression of a miniature version of the Ptloemaic temples seen in the Nile Valley and is similar in style to other Roman temples we had seen in Kharga. This was the only place in Dakhla we saw other tourists as a coach of around a dozen people was just leaving as we arrived.

This is a sandstone temple west of the Muzawaqa tombs which has been visited by many since ancient times, Some cartouches of Roman emperors are visible on the walls but the majority of the decoration comes from C19th travelers, they could not resist adding their names to the pillars as proof that they had reached this remote site, Edmond stone, Drovetti and Rohlfs are all represented here by their graffiti.

There is also an unusual stone step decorated with inscriptions from the Koran which is now covered so that it cannot be defiled by people walking on it. There are rock-cut tombs immediately behind the temple and ruins of pigeon houses all around

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