From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Coordinates: 26°8′30″N, 32°40′13″E

Entrance to the Dendera Temple Complex

Dendera Temple complex, (Ancient Egyptian: Iunet or Tantere). located about 2.5 km south-east of Dendera, Egypt. It is one of the best preserved complexes, in all Egypt. The area was used as the sixth Nome of Upper Egypt, south of Abydos.

The massive mudbrick compound walls seen from the temple roof.

The whole complex covers some 40,000 square meters and is surrounded by a hefty mud brick enclosed wall. Dendera was a site for chapels or shrines from the beginning of history of ancient Egypt. It seems that pharaoh Pepi I (ca. 2250 BC) built on this site and evidence exists of a temple in the eighteenth dynasty (ca 1500 BC). But the earliest extant building in the compound today is the Mammisi raised by Nectanebo II – last of the native pharaohs (360-343 BC). The features in the complex include

• Hathor temple (the main temple),
• Temple of the birth of Isis,
• Sacred Lake,
• Sanatorium,
• Mammisi of Nectanebo II,
• Christian Basilica,
• Roman Mammisi,
• a Bark shine,
• Gateways of Domitian & Trajan and
• the Roman Kiosk.

Temple of Hathor, Dendera

The all overshadowing building in the Complex is the main temple, namely Hathor temple (historically, called the Temple of Tentyra). The temple has been modified on the same site dating as far back as the Middle Kingdom, having modification done it up to the Roman emperor Trajan.^[1] The temple construction is estimated at the 1st century BC. The existing structure was built no later than the late Ptolemaic period. The temple is one of the best, preserved temple in all Egypt. The temple is dedicated to Hathor. Subsequent additions were added in Roman times.

Layout elements of the Temple

1. Large Hypostyle Hall
2. Small Hypostyle Hall
3. Laboratory
4. Storage Magazine
5. Offering Entry
6. Treasury
7. Exit to Well
8. Access to Stairwell
9. Offering Hall
10. Hall of the Ennead
11. Great Seat and Main Sanctuary
12. Shrine of the Nome of Dendera
13. Shrine of Isis
14. Shrine of Sokar
15. Shrine of Harsomtus
16. Shrine of Hathor's Sistrum
17. Shrine of gods of lower Egypt
18. Shrine of Hathor
19. Shrine of the Throne of Re
20. Shrine of Re
21. Shrine of Menat collar
22. Shrine of Ihy
23. The Pure Place
24. Court of the First Feast
25. Passage
26. Staircase to Roof

Depictions of Cleopatra VI which appear on temple walls are good examples Ptolemaic Egyptian art.^[2] One depicts Cleopatra and her Son, Caesarion.^[3] On the rear of the temple exterior is a carving of Cleopatra VII Philopator and her son, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, fathered by Julius Caesar.

The sculptured Dendera zodiac (or Denderah zodiac) is a widely known Egyptian artefact, containing images of Taurus (the bull) and the Libra (the balance). The relief, which was on the ceiling of the pronaos (or portico) of Hathor temple, has been conjectured to be the basis on which later astronomy systems were based.^[4] During the Napoleonic campaign in Egypt, Vivant Denon drew the circular zodiac, the more widely known one, and the rectangular zodiacs. In 1802, Denon distributed, after the Napoleonic expedition, pictures of the temple ceiling. There existed a controversy as to how old the zodiac was, ranging from tens of thousands to a thousand years to a few hundred, and if the zodiac was a planisphere or an astrological chart.^[5]

In 1820, Sébastien-Louis Saulnier commissioned Jean Baptiste Leloraine, a master mason, with the job to remove the circular zodiac with saws, jacks, and scissors constructed for the job. The zodiac ceiling was moved in 1821 to Restoration Paris and, by 1822, was installed by Louis XVIII in the Royal Library. In 1964, the zodiac moved from the Bibliotheque Nationale to the Louvre .

The controversy around the zodiac, called the "Dendera Affair", involved people of the likes of Joseph Fourier (who estimated that the age was 2500 BC^[6]), Thomas Young, Jean-François Champollion, and M. Biot.^[7] Johann Karl Burckhardt and Jean-Baptiste Coraboeuf held that, after analysis of the zodiac, the ancient Egyptians understood the precession of the equinoxes. Champollion, among others, believed that it was a religious zodiac. Champollion deciphered the names of Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, and Domitian on the ceiling of Dendera's temple and placed the zodiac in the era of Rome's rule over Egypt.^[8]

The Dendera necropolis are series of mastaba tombs. The necropolis dates from the Early Dynastic Period of the Old Kingdom to the First Intermediate Period of Egypt.^[9] The necropolis runs the eastern eadge of the western hill and over the northern plain. The subterranean Hathor temple tombs total 12 chambers. Some reliefs are dated to as late as Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos reign. The crypts reportedly were used for storing vessels and divine iconography. An opening in the "Flame Room" floor leads to a narrow chamber with representations on the walls of the objects which were kept in them. In the second chamber, a relief depicts Phiops of the Sixth Dynasty. He holds a statuette of the Ihi to four images of Hathor. In the crypt reached from the "Throne room", Ptolemy XII has jewelry and offerings for the gods.

Dendera light, showing the single representation on the left wall of the right wing in one of the crypts

Hathor Temple has a relief sometimes known as the Dendera light, for a controversial thesis about its nature. The Dendera light images comprises three stone reliefs (one single and a double representation) in the Hathor temple at the Dendera Temple complex located in Egypt. The view of Egyptologists is that the relief is a mythological depiction of a lotus flower, spawning a snake within, representing aspects of Egyptian mythology.^[10][11] It has been stated that,

[...the] splendid but enigmatic reliefs of the crypt are cosmogonical and depict the serpent (dualizing principle underlying all creation: In Genesis the separation of heaven and earth) borne aloft by the lotus, the symbol of creation as a manifestation of consciousness.^[12]

In contrast to this interpretation, there is an alternative theory that departs significantly from Egyptology theories in which researchers believe it is a representation of an Ancient Egyptian lightbulb.^[13][14][15]

The Dendera complex has long been one of the most tourist accessible ancient Egyptian places of Worship. It used to be possible to visit virtually every part of the complex, from the crypts to the roof. Unfortunately the highest part of the roof of Hathor temple has been closed since 2003. The second stage of the roof was closed in November 2004, after a tourist got too close to the edge and fell to her death on the bedrock below.

Hathor Temple		Hypostyle Hall	An inner room
An inner room
		Column capitol of Hathor, Dendera	Bes at the Temple of Hathor, Dendera

Denderah Zodiac

Crypt Ornamentation

Double representation on the right wall.

Double representation on the right wall.

• Esne temple (in Esne)
• Baghdad Battery
• Antikythera mechanism
• Egyptian mythology
• List of Ancient Egyptian sites