The Sacred Waterscape of the Temple of Bastet at Ancient Bubastis, Nile Delta (Egypt)

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.

Revealing the paleolandscape features around the archaeological sites in the northern Nile Delta of Egypt using radar satellite imagery and GEE platform

“…During the Late Palaeolithic era, the Nile Valley, from the Second Cataract to the seacoast, accreted significant sedimentary depth (Hayes, 1964). Furthermore, by the end of the Palaeonile phase the morphology of the Delta became flat, sloping to the north, through the distribution of the sediments (Gebremichael et al, 2018; Meister et al, 2021; Stanley, 2019). From a remote sensing point of view, buried channels can be traced using the surface geomorphological mapping detectable in satellite images that are a consequence of lower surface elevations consistent with a river shape.…”

Holocene landscape reconstruction in the surroundings of the Temple of Pepi I at ancient Bubastis, southeastern Nile Delta (Egypt)

“…The younger meandering river system created well-drained alluvial plains, suitable for pasture and agriculture, while the presence of large river courses favored the nearby development of early urban centers, as the river courses were used for regional and supraregional transport and communication (Pennington et al, 2017(Pennington et al, , 2020. To protect the settlements from the annual Nile floods, they were usually built close to the river on Geziras or high riverbanks, with important structures such as temples and cemeteries set on the highest spot (Butzer, 2002;Garbe et al, 2023;Meister, Garbe, et al, 2021;Said, 2012Said, , 2013Van den Brink et al, 1987;Wunderlich & Andres, 1991).…”

“…), leading to the modification and enlargement of the Temple of Bastet (Lange, 2008(Lange, , 2009Lange-Athinodorou, 2019a, 2019b, which is situated on the central elevation of a Gezira mound (the "Central Kom") (Kitchen, 1996;Lange-Athinodorou, 2019b;Naville, 1891). Several textual sources of the Late Dynastic and Ptolemaic Period refer to the existence of two sacred canals surrounding the Temple of Bastet, as was recently confirmed by geoarchaeological investigations (Lange-Athinodorou et al, 2019;Meister, Garbe, et al, 2021) While the landscape to the north and south of the Temple of Bastet has now been relatively well studied, there is no information about the former hydrogeographical situation in the area to its west, where the Temple of Pepi I is located.…”

“…These indicate the existence of sacred water landscapes at Buto (Gessler-Löhr, 1983) and Sais (Gessler-Löhr, 1983;Wilson, 2006Wilson, , 2019 in the western Nile Delta, at Busiris (Gessler-Löhr, 1983) in the central Nile Delta and at Tanis (Leclère, 2008;Montet, 1966), and Bubastis (Lange-Athinodorou et al, 2019) in the eastern Nile Delta (Figure 1a). To date, however, a truly comprehensive and more exact reconstruction of a sacred landscape in the Nile Delta has only been achieved for the archaeological site of Bubastis, using sedimentological and geophysical methods in the surroundings of the Temple of Bastet, where two sacred canals have been identified (Meister, Garbe, et al, 2021).…”

Comparing different machine‐learning techniques to date Nile Delta sediments based on portable X‐ray fluorescence data

“…Therefore, countless geoscientific studies focussed on deciphering the Nile Delta's landscape evolution. Furthermore, as key to every settlement, several studies on the Nile Delta's former landscape have concentrated on the reconstruction of defunct Nile branches that served as freshwater sources for the settlements, irrigation purposes, transport corridors, and drainage for wastewater (Butzer, 2002; Crépy & Boussac, 2021; Meister, Garbe, et al, 2021; Meister, Lange‐Athinodorou, et al, 2021; Marriner et al, 2012, 2013; Stanley, 2019; Stanley & Wedl, 2021; Wilson & Ghazala, 2021; Wilson, 2019).…”