Il tempio nell'oasi di El Bahrein: analisi iconografica ed architettonica

In 2003, a temple was unearthed by Paolo Gallo's Italian Archaeological Mission in Alexandria (CMAIA) in the El-Bahrein Oasis, 140 km southeast of Siwa in the Libyan Desert. The tripartite sanctuary was decorated with painted reliefs under Nectanebo I and some architectural parallels can be drawn with his mammisi at Dendera; the hypostyle hall was probably added by Ptolemy II Philadelphus. Religious and political connections with the Siwa Oasis are constituted by the presence of the god Paheramon, perhaps an oracular form of Amun, and by the local king Unamon, both represented in the temples of Aghurmi and Omm Obeyda. Unamon ruled over the region at the time of the 30th dynasty and wrote his names in cartouches at El-Bahrein, but not at Siwa. On the other side, religious links with the Bahariya Oasis are established by the identification of the god “Harsiesis the excellent heir of Onnophris”, whose image is carved also in the first chapel of ‘Ain Muftella and in the tomb of Banenentiu. Moreover, the fragmentary toponym DsDs, one of the Egyptian names of Bahariya attested in the temple and in the mammisi of Edfu, could be read on one of the blocks.