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Jean-Claude Golvin

RECONSTRUCTING THE SERABIT SANCTUARY. Although Serabit’s temple is today little more than a jumble of ruins, for nearly 800 years the site was continually maintained and expanded by the pharaohs of Egypt’s Middle and New Kingdoms. The site was surrounded by a large enclosure wall that was entered through a small gate. Upon entering the temple complex, worshipers walked along a processional way that was outfitted with numerous chapels, the walls and courtyards of which were adorned with the stelae and carvings of earlier generations. At the end of the processional way was an open courtyard that gave access to the temple’s inner sanctum, a small grotto hewn into the hillside dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Hathor, mistress of turquoise.