Abstract
Sacred water canals or lakes, which provided water for all kinds of purification rites and other activities, were very specific and important features of temples in ancient Egypt. In addition to the longer-known textual record, preliminary geoarchaeological surveys have recently provided evidence of a sacred canal at the Temple of Bastet at Bubastis. In order to further explore the location, shape, and course of this canal and to find evidence of the existence of a second waterway, also described by Herodotus, 34 drillings and five 2D geoelectrical measurements were carried out in 2019 and 2020 near the temple. The drillings and 2D ERT surveying revealed loamy to clayey deposits with a thickness of up to five meters, most likely deposited in a very low energy fluvial system (i.e., a canal), allowing the reconstruction of two separate sacred canals both north and south of the Temple of Bastet. In addition to the course of the canals, the width of about 30 m fits Herodotus’ description of the sacred waterways. The presence of numerous artefacts proved the anthropogenic use of the ancient canals, which were presumably connected to the Nile via a tributary or canal located west or northwest of Bubastis.
Highlights
Ancient Egyptian temples were essential elements of cities and settlements and were of great economic, administrative, religious, and cultic importance
The different lithological units are described and interpreted as follows: Figure 3. (a) Core stratigraphy of E7 showing the three major lithologic units: anthropogenic surface layer, clayey fluvial/limnic sediments with a high content of cultural debris, clayey fluvial/limnic sediments with a low content of cultural debris, and sands of fluvial origin. (b,c) Pottery fragments; (d) Clayey fluvial/limnic sediments; (e) Pottery fragments from a period before the 25th dynasty; (f) Sands of fluvial origin
Unit I: All profiles are covered by an anthropogenic debris layer up to ~6 m thick, characterized by varying contents of modern and ancient debris such as ceramic, charcoal, brick, and limestone fragments
Summary
Ancient Egyptian temples were essential elements of cities and settlements and were of great economic, administrative, religious, and cultic importance. The temple areas (i.e., the temenos), thought to be the residences of deities, were most sacred and were characterized by the use of specific architecture and a multitude of other elements that emphasized their importance and enabled daily cultic and other activities [2,3]. Sacred water canals or lakes, the so-called Isheru of the ancient Egyptian texts, were distinctive constituting features of such temples. These sacred water bodies provided water for all kinds of purification rites and activities. Because the lion goddesses were of an ambivalent nature, oftentimes considered mighty and fierce, the presence of a cooling water body close to their temples was supposed to calm their fiery
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