THE TEMPLE OF APADEMAK AND THE ROMAN KIOSK..

Admire an Egyptian-inspired temple and a Roman-Roman amphitheatre with an arid savannah decor is not banal… This all the more so since neither the Egyptians nor the Greeks or the Romans built these buildings. It was the charm of the Méroïtique civilization that had been able to combine a large number of cultural influences.

The two buildings are behind barbed wire. The presence of many animals due to the close of the well may not be foreign.

The booth, whose utility remains discussed, is characterized by Egyptian lintels, interspersed with uraeus, corinthians capitals and Roman arches. Lions are visible on the top of the windows inside. Because the whole place is dedicated to the lion, the lion god Apademak. The temple behind the entrance tower shows a well-known scene of the egyptologists. The sovereign and his triumphant wife, about to decapitate a group of enemies at their mercy. It is King Natakamani and Queen Amanitore, observed by Horus, the eagle, and especially the god-creator Amun, to which their names refer (Aman-, -Amani). Lions devour prisoners at their feet… On the side of the tower, the asks master is represented with an emerging snake from a lotus. The bas-reliefs surrounding the temple are superb. On the west side, a strange Apademak with three heads and four arms surprise at the center of the scene. The inspiration seems frankly Indian… But how? By approaching, it is also noted that both hands of the sides of the underside are represented with the thumb and the related index, in the same way as those… from the Buddha. Inside the wall on the left, we end up breaking the Egyptian canons by representing a three-quarters deity, with a beard sealed! This is undoubtedly a Greek or Persian god…

But where one thinks of being in the middle of nowhere in Africa, what emotion to feel the presence etched in the stone of the culture of distant countries… This may already be the globalization old sauce!