General views of the imperial cult chamber

Item Overview

Title

General views of the imperial cult chamber

Photographer

Vescovo, Arnaldo
Vescovo, Alessandro

Date Created

February-March 2009

Date

2009-02/2009-03

Collection

Luxor Roman Wall Paintings

Series

Post-conservation

Program

International Digital Ephemera Project

Notes

Contents note

“The imperial cult chamber at Luxor and its frescoes constitute evidence of a Roman ritual environment imposed on an even older pharaonic one. Similar visual programs so revealing of Roman imperial propaganda rarely survive, making Luxor an extremely important site for studying the way in which the meaning of an image is conveyed through the physical experience of the viewer as much as through the iconography of the images.' At sites connected with sacred images in the Roman world, artists and architects often deliberately manipulated the placement of images or objects within monuments to guide a viewer's initial encounter with the most important images in the space or to influence the peripatetic reading of image programs in a specific sequence.? The Roman paintings in Luxor, for example, were placed in the temple as the climax of a dramatic processional path laid out through the temple proper. Just as in popular parlance "all roads lead to Rome" in Luxor Temple all ritual paths and viewers' sightlines were directed toward the imperial cult chamber and the focal point of the entire composition, the ciborium and painted niche on the south wall in which one find representations of the Tetrarchs” (McFadden 2015, 135).
“The room that became the imperial cult chamber during the Tetrarchy was in pharaonic times the first in a series of halls that made up the temple's inner sanctum. Immediately upon entry, visitors (exclusively priests in the Egyptian cult, because the unpurified were never allowed into this part of the temple) were confronted with a large doorway on the opposite, southern wall that led into another hall, which led to the barque shrine, where the image-bearing boat was kept, and finally ended in the holiest chamber of all, the sanctuary of Amun. This first room was therefore a liminal space, marked as important by its inaccessibility to the general public, yet it was not a room in which the presence of the deity resided per-manently. It was, however, a space where a visitor physically realized the transition from secular to sacred space, by moving through it, or at least seeing through it, toward the gods (or rather, the statues of the gods in the inner sanctuary). The choice of this room as the focus of Roman modifications to Luxor Temple seems therefore a particularly powerful political statement. By the Romans' blocking the southern doorway of this room, which once led to the pharaonic inner sanc-tum, and filling it instead with images of the Roman emper-ors, the reconfigured room simultaneously usurped access to the pharaonic god and was reconstituted as a space in which the Roman emperors, represented by their painted presence, underwent a divine transformation. Diocletian especially, illustrated with the attributes of Jupiter, the Roman avatar of Amun, was not only presented as the divine ruler of Egypt but also as the arbiter of legitimate temporal power” (McFadden 2015, 127-128).
The following passages are excerpts from Susanna McFadden’s chapters “The Luxor Temple Paintings in Context: Roman Visual Culture in Late Antiquity” and “Picturing Power in Late Roman Egypt: The Imperial Cult, Imperial Portraits, and a Visual Panegyric for Diocletian” in ARCE’s publication, Art of Empire: The Roman Frescoes and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor.

Statement of Responsibility

Amenhotep III was responsible for constructing the greater part of the present Luxor Temple around 1400 BCE. Under Diocletian, Emperor of Rome, 245-313, the first Tetrarchy transformed the temple site, including one of the temple’s offering halls into what is now known as the imperial cult chamber. In the early 2000s, ARCE conducted several site visits to Luxor to extensively document the grounds and undertake conversation efforts for the Roman frescoes present in that chamber.

References

Nelson number: 172. "Reliefs and Inscriptions at Luxor Temple, Vol. 2," The Epigraphic Survey, The Oriental Institute at the University of Chicago. https://oi.uchicago.edu/research/publications/oip/reliefs-and-inscriptions-luxor-temple-volume-2-facade-portals-upper
McFadden, Susanna. 2015. “The Luxor Temple Paintings in Context: Roman Visual Culture in Late Antiquity.” and “Picturing Power in Late Roman Egypt: The Imperial Cult, Imperial Portraits, and a Visual Panegyric for Diocletian” In Art of Empire: The Roman Frescoes and Imperial Cult Chamber in Luxor Temple, edited by Michael Jones and Susanna McFadden, 127-135, New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Physical Description

Extent

8 color photographs

Medium

Color 35mm slide

Keywords

Genre

color photographs
color slides

Names

Ramses II, King of Egypt
Maximian, Emperor of Rome, approximately 240-310
Galerius, Emperor of Rome, approximately 260-313
Constantius I, Emperor of Rome, -306

Subject Geographic

Luxor, Egypt

Subject Temporal

Tetrarchy
Late Roman Period
New Kingdom

Longitude

25.69898998138758

Latitude

32.638614370482856

Resource type

still image

Subjects

Egyptian hieroglyphs
Animals in art
Mural painting and decoration
Painting
Columns
Niche (Architecture)
Fresco painting
Altered in antiquity
Relief (Art)
Emperors
Decoration and ornament
Temples
Deities
Apses (Architecture)
Borders, Ornamental (Decorative arts)
Rome--Officials and employees
Layered histories--material
Processions in art
Doorways
Imperialism in art
Inscriptions
Art, Greco-Roman
Art, Ancient--Egypt