The temple of Ancient Egypt, the star-architect-concept of the art historian and the bi-level image of architectural anthropology. This critical episode makes us aware that our modern understanding of architecture is conditioned, just as athletes are conditioned in sports. The historical view, trained on the sudden origins of monumental arrangements, celebrates its own projection and thus legitimates its own needs for grandeur. The Egyptian temple builder was, at best, a good engineer: nothing more. He petrified, and thus monumentalized for eternity, the pre-existent, non-durable forms in view of the increasing need of the pharaohs. Durable monumental buildings indicate the first steps of the first empires into history. There was also a clear reason for this. Durable sanctuaries could be used to supersede the perishable cultic demarcation systems of the villages. Theocratic cults functioned as territorial and social constitutions and were used for control. 
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