Word: mut
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Located at what was the ancient city of Thebes, the temple of Mut had been investigated sketchily by earlier archaeological expeditions. But the Brooklyn Museum, which was granted an exclusive concession to excavate the area in 1975, is the first institution to launch a systematic study of the temple grounds. The 25-acre site is surrounded by an ancient mud brick wall nearly four meters (twelve feet) high in places, and is connected to the larger temple of Amon by a sphinx-lined avenue believed to have been constructed by King Tutankhamen...
...centerpiece of the site is the ruined temple of Mut, surrounded on three sides by a horseshoe-shaped lake called Isheru. The lake is symbolic of the watery abyss in which-according to Theban legend-all life that is to be found on earth originated...
...statues of Mut-she is sometimes unflatteringly if elegantly depicted as a vulture -have yet been found in the temple that is dedicated to her or on the surrounding grounds. But the site abounds with statues of Sekhmet, the lion-headed goddess whose association with fire, war and pestilence made her one of the most powerful in the Egyptian pantheon...
...Brooklyn archaeologists, this suggests that Sekhmet, who was consort to Ptah, the major god of Egypt during an earlier period, became associated and later identified with Mut, mate of the new king of the gods, Amon. The identification got a boost during the reign of Tutankhamen, who revived the once-suppressed Theban religious cult. Manning speculates that Tut's linking of the temples of Mut and Amon may have been a move to bring harmony and prosperity to a weakened and disordered land. Says Manning: "He had to restore order to Egypt if he was going to rule effectively...
Manning hopes to find out more about the temples and Mut herself from the contents of 500 plastic shopping bags full of potsherds and other fragments that the team has already collected. The archaeologists are likely to need a lot more shopping bags before they are finished. Only a fraction of Mut's temple grounds have been explored thus far. Manning estimates that it will take another 25 years to dig up the rest...