The Temple of Hibis is the largest temple in the western oases of Egypt. It is of particular interest as it is one of very few surviving structures built during the first Persian occupation of Egypt – the Twenty-seventh Dynasty (c.525-404 BC). In ancient times the Kharga Oasis, supplied with drinking water by its springs, wells, and lake, was an important stopping point on the caravan routes across the Western Desert. The local town was called Hebet, the ‘Town of the Plough’, which became Hibis in Greek – the name of the temple we use today.
The temple was dedicated to a local form of Amun-Ra, the god Amun-Ra of Hibis, but offerings were also made to the Theban triad of Amun-Ra, Mut, and Khonsu, and to a bewilderingly large variety of other deities. The structure stood in the centre of Hibis town at the edge of the lake, although today the ancient town and lake have disappeared, and the temple stands in picturesque isolation surrounded by palm groves.
The earlier consensus was that the temple buildings were built by Darius I, although it is now recognised that construction may have begun in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, and was completed and decorated by the Persian king. It was probably built to replace an earlier temple on the same site. There are New Kingdom textual references to a Hibis temple, and several stone blocks used in the Late Period temple appear to have originally belonged to an earlier structure. Each block had been turned round 180°, so that the inscribed face became the back of the block (and so no longer visible), with a different scene inscribed on the newly visible face.
American advances