Dendera and the Temple of Hathor
by Mark Andrews
Dendera is located about 60 kilometers north of Luxor on the west bank of the Nile River opposite the provincial modern town of Qena.
Ancient Egyptian Iunet or Tantere, known to the Greeks as Tentyris, was the capital of the 6th nome of Upper Egypt and a town of some importance. Today, we know it as Dendera, though the population of the town has, since antiquity, moved to Qena across the Nile on the east bank. Now, the ancient temple lies isolated on the desert edge.
Suggested Layout of the Temple Proper
1. Large Hypostyle Hall 2. Second, 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 (central Shrine)/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 Heathor 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 |
The main temple area is fronted by several Roman Period kiosks. After those, the monumental gateway of Domitian and Trajan is set in a massive mud-brick enclosure wall that surrounded the complex, and leads to an open area. Although the site lacks a colonnade and the two pylons which ought to precede the inner temple, an unfinished inner enclosure wall of stone surrounds a courtyard with side entrances which open before the large hypostyle hall added in the 1st century AD by the emperor Tiberius.
The new sanctuary was well designed and followed Ptolemaic models. In order to match the level of the Hathor temple, the new building was erected on a high platform. A temporary access staircase led up at the side of the platform. The roofing slabs were not positioned, as usual, beneath the level of the cavetto molding around the buildings top, but would have probably been hidden by a parapet wall. The core building contains a sequence of three rooms. Two corridors that isolate the large sanctuary are notable. These passages are too narrow to be used and must have been added for symbolic and optical effect. The rear wall of the sanctuary is dominated by an enormous false door that is framed by a double cavetto molding on slender columns and topped by an uraeus frieze. A cult niche high up in the wall corresponds to the location of the statue niche in the sanctuary of the main temple.
The birth house was surrounded by an ambulatory. The composite capitals of the columns carry high pillars with Bes figures. The frontal ambulatory extended by the addition of three columns into a kind of kiosk, with the front corners formed by L-shaped pillars. The kiosk had a timbered roof that somehow must have connected to the stone structure of the birth house. This merging of the ambulatory with a kiosk is a novelty. At older birth houses, a court was attached as a separate structure.
Both birth houses are now accessible. They differ considerably in plan and decoration.
Between the new and old birth houses are the remains of a Christian basilica that can be dated to the 5th century AD. It is an excellent example representative of early Coptic church architecture.
High Relief of Bes in the forecourt of the temple at Dendera
South of the earlier birth house is a mud-brick "sanatorium.. This sanatorium is the only one of its type known in association with an ancient Egyptian temple. Here, visitors could bathe in the sacred waters or spend the night in order to have a healing dream of the goddess. It had benches around its sides where the sick rested while waiting for cures affected by the priests. An inscription on a statue base found in this location suggests that water was poured over magical texts on the statues, causing it to become holy and to cure all sorts of diseases and illnesses. Basins used to collect the holy water can still be seen at the western end.
The main temple at Dendera is the grandest and most elaborately decorated of its period. It is also one of the most important temple sites of Egypt, providing examples of a rich variety of later temple features. It is also one of the best preserved temples of this period, surviving despite the destruction of the temples of Hathor's consort Horus and their child Ihy or Harsomtus which originally stood close by.
The massive foundations probably contain many blocks from the earlier structure it replaced. Early texts refer to a temple at Dendera which was rebuilt during the Old Kingdom, and several New Kingdom monarchs, including Tuthmosis III, Amenhotep III and Ramesses II and III are known to have embellished the structure. However, while fragments of earlier periods have been found on the site, there have been no earlier buildings unearthed. Pepi I and Tuthmosis III in particular were recalled in the new temple's inscriptions.
The temple of Hathor was constructed over a period, we believe, of thirty-four years, between 54 and 20 BC. When Ptolemy XII died in 51 BC, the temple was, after four years of building activity, still in its early stages, although it did contain some underground crypts. It seems that the remainder of the temple was build during the twenty-one year reign of his successor, Queen Cleopatra VII. At the time of her death in 30 BC, the decoration work had just begun (on the outer rear wall).
The temple plan is classical Egyptian, completely enclosed by a 35 by 59 meter wall standing 12.5 meters high. However, unlike those of earlier temples, the facade of the hypostyle hall that fronts the main temple is constructed as a low screen with inter-columnar walls exposing the hall's ceiling and the Hathor style sistrum capitals of its 24 columns. According to a dedication inscription on the cornice thickness above the entrance, this part of the temple was built under Tiberius between 34 and 35 AD. The structure measures 26.03 by 43 meters and is 17.2 meters high. It has an 8 meter long architrave that spans the central intercolumniation. Above, a towering cavetto, built from one course, and the massive volume of the corner tori cast heavy shadows and articulate the edges of the facade.
Hathor capitals in the first Hypostyle Hall
A sistrum is an ancient Egyptian musical instrument closely associated with Hathor. Each column bears a four-sided capital, which occupies about one third of the column height, carved with the face of the cow-eared goddess, though every one of the faces was vandalized in antiquity (probably during the early Christian Period. The shafts are profusely decorated with scenes, and their straight bases stand on flat plinths. The paint, which was still preserved in the 19th century, was dominated by the blue of Hathor's wig.
Since tradition rule that the processional approach should gradually descend from the inside to the outside, the builders had to lower the floor of the central nave of the hypostyle hall to obtain the required progression of floor levels.
A doorway aligned to the central axis of the temple leads from the large hypostyle hall into an inner hall with six Hathor columns that is known as the hall of appearances. It was here that the statue of the goddess "appeared" from her sanctuary for religious ceremonies and processions. The front wall of this hall was actually the facade of the original temple. Lighting within the hall is provided through small, square apertures. The chamber has columns in two rows of three. They also have Hathor heads. The bases and the lower parts of the drums are made of granite, while the upper parts are of sandstone. Scenes on the walls of this hall depict the king participating in the foundation ceremonies for the construction of the temple, and on either side doors open into three chambers which were used as preparation areas for various aspects of the daily ritual. For example, one room was probably used as a laboratory for preparation of ointments. An opening through the outer eastern wall allowed offering goods to be brought into this area, and a parallel passage from one of the western chambers led to a well.
These are followed by a 5.7 by 11.22 meter barque shrine which once enclosed the four barques of Hathor, Horus of Edfu, Harsomtus and Isis, which apparently were not enclosed by wooden shrines.
About the central sanctuary on its sides and rear are located eleven chapels dedicated to the other deities who were associated with Hathor's chief attributes, the sacred sistrum and the menat necklace.
Within the temple the most distinctive parts are the fourteen crypts, of which eleven were decorated. They far surpass those of other temples. The inclusion of secretly accessed crypts in temples can be traced back to the 18th Dynasty. By the Late Period crypts were included in the architectural design of most temples.
These are suites of rooms on three (and sometimes even four) stories, set in the thickness of the outside wall, and beneath the floors of the chambers in the rear part of the temple. The elongated, narrow chambers and passages are arranged one above the other, with the lowermost laid deep within the temple foundations. Access was gained through trapdoors in the pavement and behind hidden sliding wall blocks. Unlike other crypts, those at Dendera are decorated in relief. The decorations in these chambers conforms to the temple's axis. The most important reliefs, among which sistra are prominent, were on the axis itself. Apparently, these rooms were decorated before the roof blocks were set.
Depiction within the crypts
"In the last room, one sees, carefully carved on the Southern wall, a falcon with detailed feathers, preceded by a snake emerging from a lotus blossom within a boat. Whereas the whole of the temple is constructed of sandstone, to facilitate a relief of fine quality there was placed in the wall, at the level of the figures, a block of limestone suitable for very detailed work, and of this the artist took full and perfect advantage. These reliefs are cosmological representations. The snake that comes out of the lotus is equated with the shining deity Harsamtawy (Ihy) as he appears for the first time out of the primordial sea. He is again represented near the bottom of the crypt in the form of two snakes also coming forth, but this time wrapped in lotuses like protective envelopes. Sometimes those that were on the Mesktet-barque collaborated with Horus; other times the Mandjet-barque with its crew helped to reveal the god: Djed raises his body, a supreme manner of worship, attendant of the god's prestigious ka. The statuettes appear to have been used for the New Year celebration and the festival of Harsamtawy. It is likely that on these solemn occasions these objects were transported to the vault [i.e. the room above the crypt]."
Also within the wall thickness are the staircases, which lead up to and return from the roof which, because of the unequal ceiling heights of the rooms below, was built into terraces. The huge roofing slabs must at one time have been covered with thinner paving stones. Their surface was slightly inclined and had channels to guide rainwater from the roof.
The ba of Hathor would have been taken from its hiding place to the roof of the temple for the significant New year's festival celebrated where it would have spent the night prior to beholding the rising sun in a symbolic union with the solar disc.
François Daumas tells us that:
"But most prestigious of the statues was that of the ba of Hathor. According to the texts written on the walls, we know that the kiosk consisted of a gold base surmounted by a gold roof supported by four gold posts, covered on all four sides by linen curtains hung from copper rods. Inside was placed the gold statuette representing a bird with a human head capped with a horned disc. This was Hathor, Lady of Dendara, residing in her house... It was certainly this statuette that was carried in the kiosk on the evening of the New Year."
Chapel of the New Year
The staircase to the west of the offering hall, which was used by the priests to ascend to the roof, has ascending figures of the king and various priests with the shrine of the goddess carved on its right hand wall. These representations depict various aspects of the New Year's festival. The stairway to the east has corresponding scenes of descending figures, and was used for the procession's return.
There is also a pair of parallel shrines on the roof's eastern and western sides dedicated to Osiris. They are concealed in a kind of mezzanine floor. Both of these sanctuaries have open courts, surrounded by a cavetto. From the rear wall of the court, three doors lead into two succeeding chambers.
In the inner of the two rooms, Isis and Nephthys are shown mourning the death of Osiris, who lies on his funerary bier waiting to be resurrected by magical rituals. Isis is also depicted, magically impregnated with the seed of her son Horus as the myth unfolds.
Dendera was considered one of Osiris' many tombs, and the shrines, which have no link with Hathor, were used to celebrate his death and resurrection. His death may have been re-enacted at the sacred lake to the west of the temple.
The roof of the hypostyle hall was reached by another flight of steps with various gods carved along its wall, and this highest area of the temple was used in antiquity by pious pilgrims who awaited signs and miracles from the goddess. There remain gaming boards carved into the stone blocks that helped these faithful pass the time during their vigils.
Plan of the Isis Birth House at Dendera
Further to the south, at the temple's southwest corner, lies the compound's sacred lake which provided water for the priests' ablutions. With flights of stairs descending from each corner, this stone-lined ceremonial basin is the best preserved of its type in any Egyptian temple. Today, it is empty of water and tall trees grow within its walls. Next to the lake is a well with rock-cut steps leading down to give access to water for daily use in the temple.
Roman Gate East of the Hathor Complex
El templo de Déndera es de época ptolomaica, eso está clarísimo. Como está clarísimo que no fueron los ptolomeos quienes lo levantaron por primera vez en ese emplazamiento. Ellos sólo lo reconstruyeron, aunque, eso sí, en su práctica totalidad. Pero ese templo ya estaba allí desde muchos miles de años antes. Ha sido reconstruído, reformado, restaurado y vuelto a construir unas cuantas veces. Tenemos constancia que una multitud de faraones (probadamente, como mínimo, desde Keops) y casi todos los emperadores romanos desde Julio César hasta Nerón, acometieron algún tipo de actuación en este templo. Por supuesto, el templo y su emplazamiento es predinástico. Así que ptolomaico, de acuerdo, pero de antiguedad desconocida por remota. Esto que queda bien claro por si alguien cree que debe hacer alguna observación al respecto. Por otra parte, he dado algunas referencias en este foro a su antiguedad y al hecho de que fuese muy probable que se reconstruyese una y otra vez siguiendo los planos de aquellos que originalmente lo proyectaron.
El Zodíaco de Déndera Pesa dieciséis. Lo que no sé es si este peso se refiere al trozo principal, (la zona circular siempre representada) o al conjunto que incluye también las dos franjas de líneas quebradas y la diosa Nut.
te fijas en el círculo rojo que he realizado sobre el zodíaco, verás en su interior la imagen de una minúscula Isis encima de una circunferencia, pues muy bien, ese círculo y esa Diosa, representan un eclipse solar, Isis, como diosa protectora, intenta evitar que el babuino, la luna, oculte al sol.¿Un eclipse solar representado en el techo astronómico de Dándara?,
Hay otro encima "eclipse ' '''' ''???? encima de la balanza. Ya sería raro que se produjesen dos eclipses simultáneos si eso es una carta estelar, como espontáneamente apuntó Fimosis, como afirma Slosman, como dice West y muchos más, es razonable pensar que podría estar indicando el momento de su levantamiento u otro anterior (si posterior ¿cuál, en qué fecha y se me diga qué clase de matemáticas se manejaban en le predinástico) y el tema de los eclipses sería totalmente secundario. Flipo con el rendimiento que Sahure le está sacando a Cartes du Ciel, cualquier día nos sorprende. El programa calcula correctamente, lo comprobé con la posición de Thuban en 2.000 a.C y con la de Vega en 9.000 d.C.
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