Trajan's Kiosk
This 15-x-20 metre kiosk is 15.85 metres high; its function was likely "to shelter the bark of Isis at the eastern banks" of Philae island. Its four by five columns each carry "different, lavishly structured composite capitals that are topped by 2.10-metre-high piers" and were originally intended to be sculpted into Bes piers, similar to the birthhouses of Philae, Armant, and Dendera though this decoration was never completed.
The structure is today roofless, but sockets within the structure's architraves suggest that its roof, which was made of timber, was indeed constructed in ancient times. Three 12.50-metre-long, presumably triangulated trusses, "which were inserted into a ledge at the back of stone architecture, carried the slightly vaulted roof." All the fourteen columns are connected by a screening wall, with entrances in the eastern and western facades. This building represents an example of the unusual combination of wood and stone in the same architectural structure for an Egyptian temple. The attribution to Emperor Trajan is based on a carving inside the kiosk structure, depicting the emperor burning incense before Osiris and Isis.
Gallery
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The Hypaethral Temple of Philae by David Roberts, 1838, in The Holy Land, Syria, Idumea, Arabia, Egypt, and Nubia
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Kiosk in December, 1839, Pierre-Gustave Joly de Lotbinière
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Kiosk in 1854 by John Beasley Greene
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The Hypaethral Temple, Philae, by Francis Frith, 1857; from the collection of the National Galleries of Scotland
References
- ^ Rutherford, Ian (1998). "Island of the Extremity: Space, Language, and Power in the Pilgrimage Traditions of Philae". In Frankfurter, David (ed.). Pilgrimage and Holy Space in Late Antique Egypt. Boston: Brill. p. 233.
- ^ Redford, Donald, ed. (2001). "Philae". The Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt. Vol. 3. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 43. ISBN 0-19-513823-6.
- ^ Arnold, Dieter (1999). Temples of the Last Pharaohs. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 235-236. ISBN 0-19-512633-5.
- ^ "Trajan's Kiosk". MadainProject. Retrieved 17 May 2019.
- ^ Elsner, Jaś (1998). Imperial Rome and Christian Triumph: The Art of the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press. p. 134.
External links
- Media related to Kiosk of Trajan in Philae at Wikimedia Commons