The Trip That Keeps Growing

Day 8 14 October 2021 Temple of Hathor at Dendera and Luxor Temple

This morning we had a very early wake-up for our visit to the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, located in the town of Qena, about 40 miles north of Luxor. We arrived at the Temple at 7:00 AM! It is considered one of the best-preserved temple complexes in Egypt. This temple, dedicated to Hathor, the goddess of maternal and family love, was built by the Romans and Greeks during the Ptolemaic era (circa AD 14-37) and also contains depictions and carvings of Cleopatra VII and her son (fathered by Julius Caesar). Cleopatra is shown as a goddess of Isis to immortalize herself with Isis and proclaim her identity as a divine ruler. The propylon or ornamental gate also includes carvings of Domitian and Trajan, Roman emperors who also ruled over Egypt after the death of Cleopatra. Hathor is sometimes shown as a cow, but her most common depiction is of a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk.

The temple complex contains birth houses (which honored the birth of a god or goddess), a Coptic church, the Hathor Temple, the Hypostyle Hall, and a sacred lake. The outer walls of the hall were constructed with 24 columns each containing the face of Hathor on its four sides. But, perhaps, the most striking feature of the Hall is its ceiling – an astronomical ceiling decorated with vultures, winged disks, the union between Hathor and Horus, and a symbolic chart of the two halves of the sky with both northern and southern constellations, the hours of day and night, the sun and the moon, and the symbols of the zodiac (known as Zodiac of Dendera) . It was the Romans that introduced to Egyptians to the zodiac. The slab containing the Zodiac of Dendera is only a copy – the original lies in the Louvre in Paris.

After touring the complex, we returned to the ship for lunch. In the afternoon the ship cruised back to Luxor. We enjoyed the passing scenery of the every-day life along the Nile, including the farmers in their fields and women doing the laundry on the banks of the river.

We arrived back in Luxor in the late afternoon and left for another highlight of our trip – a night visit to the Temple of Luxor, a large ancient Egyptian temple complex located on the east bank of the Nile River, adjacent to the town that bears its name. Unlike most ancient temples, Luxor is not dedicated to god or a deified version of a deceased pharaoh. It was built as a rejuvenation of kingship, and it is believed that this was where many of the Egyptian pharaohs were crowned. Even Alexander the Great claimed he was crowned here, but there is no evidence he ever traveled south of Memphis which is 388 miles north of Luxor. The temple was built by Amenhotep III (1390-52 BCE) but added to by Tutankhamun (1336-27 BCE) and Ramses II. Even Alexander the Great is thought to have added to the Temple. During the Roman era, the temple was not only a fortress, but the home of the Roman government in this area.

Guarding both sides of the Temple’s entrance are the two seated figures of Ramses II. Made of pink granite and measuring 46 feet in height, it portrays Ramses wearing a traditional royal headdress. Inside the hypostyle hall are 32 large carved columns, symbolically holding up the heavens. On the floor around the base of the columns are carved phases of the moon. The southernmost row is the new moon as there is nothing carved there while the next row shows the crescent moon and succeeding rows show the fuller phases of the moon. Unfortunately, the last row showing the full moon has been covered over with paving blocks. Also inside the temple are the seated figures of King Tut and his wife. Within the temple are smaller chapels built by Amenhotep III and Alexander the Great.

After Christianity replaced the pagan worship, a church and monastery were built, and later, with the arrival of Islam, the 13^th century Mosque of Abu el-Haggag was constructed and continues to be in use today.

The Temples of Luxor and Karnak served as a backdrop for one of Ancient Egypt’s most important festivals – the festival of Opet which honored the god Amun by conducting a religious procession along the Nile from Karnak to Luxor (as explained in my earlier blog on Karnak). Tonight, we were able to get a closer view of the Avenue of the Sphinxes, although it is not yet open to the public.

It was amazing to see the temple all lit up at night. There was still a lot of activity around the temple as they are getting ready to celebrate the grand re-opening of the Avenue.

Today the Temple is surrounded by a busy modern city. In the city is the early 20^th century Winter Palace Hotel. It was here that Howard Carter announced the discovery of King Tut’s tomb and Agatha Christie wrote “Death on the Nile.”

After our return to the ship and dinner we were entertained with a belly dancer. While we think of Turkey and the Middle East as the origin of this type of dance, it was actually the Egyptians in the 18^th century that created this art form. The performers, known as ghawazee (traveling dancers) used flowy costumes, clinking castanets, and deliberate movements to wow their viewers. The twirling Egyptian (as I called him) kept taking another round bowl until he was holding 6 and still dizzily twirling around for about 5 minutes! Now when you see the pictures of our belly dancer, you may thinking (as I was) – how long will it be before she pops out of her top. We do not know the certain, but we think she did a quick turn around to fix her top during the dance! On that note, I will end this blog.