Rock Inscriptions in the Feryl-Garden, Aswn

The Public Garden (Hadiqat Feryl) in Aswn is a nice place for recreation.
It is also the site of important ancient monuments. Situated on a hill of
granite rocks south of the ancient town of Aswn it overlooked the plain
of Aswn in the north. Before the river front was consolidated and the
corniche was built, there was a wide bay and a harbour.
In ancient times this area was used for shipping the big monuments from
the Aswn quarries. The biggest of these were the huge obelisks which
were set up in the temples of the country. Many rock inscriptions from the
time of the Pharaohs refer to such monuments.

Old photograph showing the wide bay of Aswn before the construction of the
corniche.

Right opposite the entrance into the garden, a big boulder is graced by a prominent
inscription. It dates from the reign of king Senwosret I. (ca. 1957-1910 BCE) and
belongs to a person named Dedusobek. He is standing on the left side, clad in a
wide garment.

The long inscription which accompanies the image reads:

May live the Horus-king living of births, the perfect god, son of the sun-god Senwosret, given
life like the sun-god forever.

An offering prayer to Osiris, lord of Busiris. May he grant an offering of bread, beer, oxen
and fowl, ointment and cloth and all the good offerings of Ptah-Sokar, lord of the necropolis, the
great god, lord of heaven, and may he grant a good voyage for the beloved one of his lord who
does every day what his lord wishes, the overseer of Lower Egypt, Dedusobek, who directed all
works in the area of Elephantine. (He says:) I am one who talks good things and who repeats
what is loved.

From the earliest times Aswn was the site of granite quarries. Many officials came
here to supervise the works on the great monuments of the pharaohs. Dedusobeks
official title overseer of Lower Egypt means that he had to pass the Nile Delta
during his expeditions.
In his prayer he asks the gods to grant him and the monuments he brought from the
quarries a safe northward journey. Perhaps he transported the famous obelisk of
Senwosret I. which is still standing in the ancient temple of the sun-god at Heliopolis.

With a very few exceptions

obelisks were carved in pairs
to flank the entrances to major
sanctuaries. From its origins
in the Old Kingdom, the shape
of the obelisk had a special
relationship to the cult of the sun
god.
Most of the Ancient Egyptian
obelisks were carved from red
Aswn granite, a stone which
was sufficiently strong and,
through its color, might have also
had a relation to solar symbolism.
In their monumental grandeur
second only to the pyramids,
obelisks were admired in
classical antiquity and into the
modern age. A great number of
obelisks was taken from Egypt
first to Rome and Constantinople,
later to the capitals of the modern
world to impart on modern urban
culture the authority of Ancient
Egypt.

Obelisk of king Senwosret I at Heliopolis

(modern Matariyeh / Cairo).

One of the most spectacular sites definitely not to be missed in Aswn is the ancient
quarry of the obelisks. Here one can see how these huge monuments were carved
from the living rock using very simple technical means. The hard work in the quarry
as well as the ambitious designs of the ancient engineers in carving and moving
some of the biggest stone blocks ever worked by man come to life here.
Quarry
of
the
unfinished Obelisk
at Aswn:
The photo shows
an
unfinished
obelisk still lying
in the quarry, and
one can discern
the
excavations
for a considerable
number of other
obelisks.

Google Earth

Even more inscriptions are to be found on the rock face below the Public Garden and
opposite the island of Elephantine. In ancient times this was a particularly prominent
place and every visitor to Elephantine would have admired these monuments and
remembered the powerful officials for whom they were carved.
An important group of such inscriptions can be visited following the path at the south
end of the garden down to the river. On the face of a huge boulder, high above the
ground, a group of three inscriptions is visible.

Inscriptions of high officials at the south end of the rock face below Feryl-Garden.

The texts belong to the highest state officials from the time of king Amenhotep III
(ca. 1388-1350 BCE). In the middle we see the viceroy of Nubia, Merimes; on the
right is the overseer of the treasury Nebsumenu, and on the left the administrator of
the estate of queen Tiye, wife of Amenhotep III, Kheruef.
The large panels on the left and right show the officials kneeling and in adoration in
front of the sun-god Ra-Horakhty. The god is depicted as a man with a falcons head
and a sun-disk on top, seated on a throne.
Surprisingly, the adoration texts which accompany the images are addressed not to
the sun-god but to the local gods of Elephantine, Khnum, Satet, and Anuket. The
fact that the sun-god was preferred for the images perhaps announces the advent
of the Amarna age, when the sun-god Aten was venerated as the only deity by
Akhenaten, son and successor of Amenhotep III.

Many other inscriptions,

though most of them
faded, can be seen while
travelling by boat along
the rock face. Looking
closely you will recognize
a number of big panels
showing the viceroy of
Nubia in front of the king,
sitting under a canopy.
The viceroys of Nubia
governed the colonial
empire Egypt established
during the New Kingdom
(ca. 1500-1100 BCE) in the
Nile valley south of Aswn
up to the Fifth Cataract of
the Nile at modern Berber
in northern Sudan.

The viceroy of Nubia, Heqanakhte, addressing king

Ramesses II (ca. 12791213 BCE).

The territory of the

Nubian
viceroyalty
however extended into
southern Upper Egypt
and included the area of
Aswn. Therefore many
inscriptions here relate
to the activities of these
powerful officials.

All of the inscriptions and images, many of which are nowadays faint and hardly visible,
were originally painted in bright colors. In ancient times the rock face below the Public
Garden therefore offered a spectacular sight from the river and also from the town
and the harbour of the ancient metropolis on Elephantine island. Creating a space
for the public representation of the uppermost echelons of Egyptian society the
natural rock formations played an important role in shaping the urban environment.

The Importance of Rock Inscriptions

Inscriptions carved onto the living rock are a special type of monuments in Aswn
area. They are of utmost value to understand, how the landscape was used in
ancient times. The German Archaeological Institute, in close co-operation with the
Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities, is working since 1987 on documenting, publishing
and protecting the rock inscriptions of Aswn.

On the rock face below Feryl-Garden are also located two of the most important
rock inscriptions of Aswn. They refer to the transport of obelisks in the reign of
queen Hatshepsut. Unfortunately both of them are not easily visible for the nonspecialist visitor in their present condition.
The first one is situated at the northern end of the rock face, above the site of
the modern nilometer. It shows the royal steward Senenmut announcing to queen
Hatshepsut (ca. 1473-1457 BCE) the completion of the work on two huge obelisks.
In this image which dates from the very first years of the queens reign, Hatshepsut
is still depicted as a woman, while she later assumed the iconography of a male
pharaoh. The titles above the image, however, style her as hardly inferior to a king:
The princess great of praise and grace, the greately beloved one, on whom the sun-god
bestowed true kingship among the gods, the daughter of a king, sister of a king, great divine
and royal wife, [the consort of the White Crown], Hatshepsut, beloved by Satet, the lady of
Elephantine and by Khnum, the lord of the cataract region.

The text in the lower part of the image reads:

Presenting this work to the divine consort, the
mistress of both lands (i.e. Egypt) in their entirety
by the sealer of the king of Lower Egypt, the official,
great of sympathy, the great steward Senenmut.
His Excellency, the great confident of the divine
consort; he about whose talk the mistress of the
two lands is content; the sealer of the king of Lower
Egypt; the steward of the princess Neferu-Re, may
she live!, Senenmut came to direct the work at two
great obelisks of millions (of years). Everything
happened through the power of Her Majesty.

Rock inscription of the steward Senenmut reporting

to queen Hatshepsut (drawing executed by the
Royal Prussian expedition to Egypt in 1844,
courtesy Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences
and Humanities).

The other inscription is to be found at the south end of the rock face, directly below
the inscription of Kheruef described above. It was carved by the high priest of
Amen of Karnak temple, Hapuseneb, another famous man from the reign of queen
Hatshepsut. This text is even more unusual; it reads:
His Excellency [--- broken ---] the High Priest of Amen Hapuseneb, justified, came to get two
great obelisks. He let both gods rest in a single ship and they reached the temple of Karnak
in peace. Never had the like happened since primordial times.

This text describes exactly the famous scene in the relief decoration of queen
Hatshepsuts mortuary temple at Deir el-Bahari (West bank of Luxor) where the
arrival of a pair of obelisks carried on a single ship is depicted. The total weight
of both obelisks can be estimated at some 600 tons. Shipping both obelisks of a
pair in a single vessel seems to have been common practice; the sheer size of
Hatshepsuts obelisks, however, overshadowed earlier achievements by far.

Above: Scene in the temple of Hatshepsut at Deir

el-Bahari showing the transport of two monumental
obelisks.
Right: Top of a broken obelisk from eastern Karnak
temple (now in the garden of the Egyptian Museum,
Cairo).

Queen Hatshepsut is famous for erecting

two pairs of monumental obelisks in Karnak
temple, in addition to setting up another pair left
unfinished by her husband Thutmosis II.
Probably the inscription of Senenmut refers to
the obelisks of Thutmosis II, while Hapuseneb
was entrusted with a pair of obelisks erected by
the queen in the eastern part of Karnak temple.

German Archaeological Institute,

Department Cairo, 2015
31, Sh. Abu el-Feda
11211 Cairo - Zamalek, Egypt
Phone: +20-2-2735-1460
Fax: +20-2-2737-0770
sekretariat.kairo@dainst.de
www.dainst.org
Layout & map: Anita Kriener
Printing: IFAO Cairo

1 Inscription of the overseer

of Lower Egypt, Dedusobek,

who directed quarry activities
in Aswn. The inscription
dates from the time of
Senwosret I.

2 Inscription of the viceroy

Heqanakhte and another
inscription
of
Senenmut
presenting two obelisks to
queen Hatshepsut.

Inscription of high
officials from the time of Amenhotep III and inscriptions of
the High Priest of Amen,
Hapuseneb, about the transport of two obelisks.