Note 33 — Chapter VII · SIUT TO DENDERAH.

The names of Augustus, Caligula, Tiberius, Domitian, Claudius, and Nero are found in the royal ovals; the oldest being those of Ptolemy XI, the founder of the present edifice, which was, however, rebuilt upon the site of a succession of older buildings, of which the most ancient dated back as far as the reign of Khufu, the builder of the great pyramid. This fact, and the still more interesting fact that the oldest structure of all was believed to belong to the inconceivably remote period of the Horshesu, or “followers of Horus” (i. e. the petty chiefs, or princes, who ruled in Egypt before the foundation of the first monarchy), is recorded in the following remarkable inscription discovered by Mariette in one of the crypts constructed in the thickness of the walls of the present temple. The first text relates to certain festivals to be celebrated in honor of Hathor, and states that all the ordained ceremonies had been performed by King Thothmes III (eighteenth dynasty) “in memory of his mother, Hathor of Denderah. And they found the great fundamental rules of Denderah in ancient writing, written on goat-skin in the time of the followers of Horus. This was found in the inside of a brick wall during the reign of King Pepi (sixth dynasty).” In the same crypt, another and a more brief inscription runs thus: “Great fundamental rule of Denderah. Restorations done by Thothmes III, according to what was found in ancient writing of the time of King Khufu.” Hereupon Mariette remarks: “The temple of Denderah is not, then, one of the most modern in Egypt, except in so far as it was constructed by one of the later Lagidæ. Its origin is literally lost in the night of time.” See “Dendérah, Description Générale,” chap. i. pp. 55, 56.