Mammisi
A Mammisi is an ancient Egyptian small chapel attached to a larger temple, 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.
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., in an ancient photogravure
, Hathor and Emperor Trajan in the Roman mammisi of Dendera
at Armant, with a glimpse of the mammisi Cleopatra VII dedicated to her son
Taweret, Raet-Tawy and the Seven Hathors who presided over childbirth were particularly revered here, but it is equally common to find references to Bes, Khnum and Osiris himself as fertility deities. Mammisis thus formed an architectural translation of the myth of divine birth and its eternal repetition. From the end of the Late Period these buildings confirm the restoration of royal power that each dynasty will strive to assert in the very heart of the great sanctuaries of the country, including the Roman emperors.
| Temple complex | Dedication |
| Dendera | Birth of Harsiese, "Horus son of Isis" |
| Dendera | Birth of Ihy, son of Horus and Hathor |
| Philae | Birth of Harpocrates, "Horus the Child" |
| Kom Ombo | Birth of Panebtawy, "Horus Lord of the Two Lands, the Child" |
| Edfu | Birth of Harsomtus, "Horus Unifier of the Two Lands" |
| Esna | Birth of Heka, son of Khnum and Neith |
| Athribis | Birth of Kolanthes, son of Min and Repyt |
| Armant | Birth of Harpre, "Horus the sun" |
| Armant | Birth of Caesarion, son of Cleopatra VII and Julius Caesar |
| Kellis | Tutu |
| El Kab | Nekhbet as Hathor |
Dendera
The most important surviving examples in Dendera, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, El Kab, Athribis, Armant, the Dakhla Oasis etc. are from the Ptolemaic and Roman periods in Egypt; but the first one, in Dendera, dates back to the 30th dynasty Pharaoh Nectanebo I, one of the last native rulers of Egypt. Equipped with a hypostyle by Pharaoh Ptolemy VI Philometor and with a peristyle by Ptolemy X Alexander I, it was dedicated to Harsiese. This 30th dynasty project was then repeated, by the Græco-Roman rulers, for some of the major shrines in the country.The famous Roman mammisi – the less ancient one associated with the Dendera Temple complex – was built by Augustus immediately after his conquest of Egypt. The murals show Augustus' far successor Trajan at the sacrificial ceremony for Hathor and are among the most beautiful in Egypt. The mammisi was dedicated to Hathor and her child Ihy. On the abacus above the pillar capitals are representations of Bes as the patron god of birth.