TEMPLE OF HATHOR (Dendera) Dendera is located on the west bank of the Nile, about 37 miles north of Luxor, near the embouchure of the Wadi Hammamat, a major link road between the Nile and the Red Sea. From the ancient Egyptians was called Iunet Neteret, Pillar of the goddess, from the Greeks was called Tentyris and was the capital of the sixth Nome of Upper Egypt, the Nome of the Crocodile. The main deity venerated in Dendera was the goddess Hathor of which we can admire here the beautiful temple. The existence of Dendera is attested since the Predynastic Period; a testimony of what we can see a necropolis here today. The Temple of Hathor has a typically Ptolemaic style although its first foundation goes back to the Old Kingdom. Enlargements have followed for centuries by many kings, starting with Cheops and continuing with Amenemhat I, Sesostris I, Tuthmosis IV, Amenhotep III, Ramses II. The final version of the temple, as it appears today, is dated to the Ptolemaic and Roman Period and it is, in relation to this period, the largest and best preserved temple. The entrance of the temple, flanked by six hathoric columns, three on each side, introduces into a hypostyle hall of 18 columns always in hathoric style. The ceiling is decorated with astronomical figures, vultures and winged sun disk and the walls depict Roman emperors which, in the guise of the Pharaohs, present offerings to Hathor. Again on the ceiling we see the goddess Nut, with her body decorated with a pattern that represents the energy of the primordial ocean, in the act of giving birth to the sun that, with its rays, illuminates the Temple of Dendera represented by the image of Hathor. In the south wall of the hypostyle hall opens a passage that leads to a second smaller room with six columns holding up the ceiling, called Hall of the Apparition. The statue of Hathor carried in procession used to depart from this room. On the side of this room are three small chambers on each side that had the function of warehouses or chapels dedicated to daily worship. Further on, it is possible to access to the offering rooms where the priests of Hathor held the daily offerings rituals to the goddess, whose statue was placed in the center in the Naos of the Sancta Sanctorum. A corridor, the Corridor of Mysteries, encircles the Sancta Sanctorum that provided access to 11 chapels dedicated to various deities. The Treasure of the temple was kept in six crypts, located beneath the floor. On the terrace, on the west-end side, we find the Cambers of Osiris where his Mysteries was celebrated. On the walls Isis, magically impregnated by Osiris, is depicts. On the eastern side of the terrace there are other chambers; on the ceiling of one of these you can admire the famous Zodiac of Dendera. It is a copy because the original is now at the Louvre Museum in Paris. On the northwest side of the terrace there is the Chapel of the Disc, a small kiosk with 12 hathoric columns. On the first day of the year the statue of Hathor was brought here in order to magically recharge itself with the solar energy needed to face the new year. The courtyard in front of the entrance of the temple is full of carved blocks and fragments of the temple still awaiting recovery. The temple is enclosed by an enclosure wall built during the XXV Dynasty by Shabaka. For further informations visit my website: my-egypt.it/upper-egypt/dandara/
Posted on: Mon, 03 Nov 2014 10:08:16 +0000
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