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Mammisi
Sign in to saveA mammisi (mamisi) is an ancient Egyptian small chapel attached to a larger temple (usually in front of the pylons), built from the Late Period, and associated with the nativity of a god. The word is derived from Coptic – the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language – meaning "birth place". Its usage is attributed to the French egyptologist Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832).
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Encyclopedic overview
5 sectionsContents
- Religious references
- Notable Mammisi
- Dendera
- References
- Further reading
A mammisi (mamisi) is an ancient Egyptian small chapel attached to a larger temple (usually in front of the pylons), built from the Late Period, and associated with the nativity of a god. The word is derived from Coptic – the last phase of the ancient Egyptian language – meaning "birth place". Its usage is attributed to the French egyptologist Jean-François Champollion (1790–1832).
== Religious references == Major temples inhabited by a divine triad could be completed by a peristyle-surrounded mammisi, in which the goddess of the triad would give birth to the son of the triad itself. The son, whose divine birth was celebrated annually, was associated with the Pharaoh (even in the hierogamy scenes on the walls).
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Mammisi” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.