Dendera

“ For Badjoura is in lat. 26° 3′, and Dendera is in 26° 10′.
It is a great pity, that he who had a taste for this very remarkable kind of architecture, should have passed it, both in going up and coming down; as it is, beyond comparison, a place that would have given more satisfaction than all Upper Egypt.
While we were striking our tent, a great mob came down, but without the cadi. As I ordered all my people to take their arms in their hands, they kept at a very considerable distance ”

“ The zodiacs of the temple of Dendera gave rise to a considerable literature before their late origin was established by Champollion in 1822: one of them, from a chamber on the roof, was removed in 1820 to the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. Figures of the celebrated Cleopatra VI. occur amongst the sculptures on the exterior of the temple, but they are purely conventional, without a trace of portraiture. Horus of Edfu, the enemy of the crocodiles and hippopotami of Set, appears sometimes as the consort of Hathor of Dendera. ”

“ I could discover no vestiges of common houses in Dendera more than in any other of the great towns in Egypt. I suppose the common houses of the ancients, in these warm countries, were constructed of very slight materials, after they left their caves in the mountains. There was indeed no need for any other. Not knowing the regularity of the Nile’s inundation, they never could be perfectly secure in their own minds against the deluge; and this slight structure of private buildings seems to be the reason so few ruins are found in the many cities once built in Egypt. ”

“ This court opens toward the pylon into another of similar dimensions, but buried almost to the capitals of its columns in heaps of rubbish. The character of the temple is totally different from that of every other in Egypt. Its hight is small in proportion to its great extent, and it therefore loses the airy lightness of the Memnonium and the impressive grandeur of Dendera. ”

“ On arriving at Dendera, within a day’s sail of Thebes, we visited the ruins of the temple, &c., which stands about a mile and a half from the river, on the side of the desert, and occupies an area of three and a half miles in circumference. It is the first temple one sees on coming up the Nile, and is decidedly the best preserved one in Egypt. ”

“ Both Edfu and Denderah are rich in inscriptions; but as the extent of wall-space is greater at Edfu, so is the literary wealth of this temple greater than the literary wealth of Denderah. It also seemed to me that the surface was more closely filled in at Edfu than at Denderah. Every wall, every ceiling, every pillar, every architrave, every passage and side-chamber, however dark, every staircase, every doorway, the outer wall of the temple, the inner side of the great wall of circuit, the huge pylons from top to bottom, are not only covered, but crowded, with figures and hieroglyphs. ”

“ The population of the city of a hundred gates now consists of a few Arab families, who form four villages of mud huts, clustered round those gigantic columns and those mighty obelisks, a single one of which is sought for by the greatest sovereigns of Europe for their palaces and museums. Often, indeed, have I seen a whole Arab village rising from the roof of a single Egyptian temple. Dendera is an instance. The population of Gornou, numbering between three and four hundred, resides solely in the tombs. ”

“ It is also on the western side of the river, as Diospolis was, and at a proper distance from Dendera, the ancient Tentyra, a mark which cannot be mistaken.
The Nile makes a kind of loop here; is very broad, and the current strong. We passed it with a wind at north; but the waves ran high as in the ocean. All the country, on both sides of the Nile, to Girgé, is but one continued grove of palm-trees, in which are several villages a small distance from each other, Doulani, Consaed, Deirout, and Berdis, on the west side ”

“ And one drifts, too; one can but drift, happily, sleepily, forgetting every care. From Abydos to Denderah one drifts, and from Denderah to Karnak, to Luxor, to all the marvels on the western shore; and on to Edfu, to Kom Ombos, to Assuan, and perhaps even into Nubia, to Abu-Simbel, and to Wadi-Halfa. Life on the Nile is a long dream, golden and sweet as honey of Hymettus. ”

“ Kom Ombo is a magnificent torso. It was as large once as Denderah—perhaps larger; for, being on the same grand scale, it was a double temple and dedicated to two gods, Horus and Sebek; [175] the hawk and the crocodile. Now there remain only a few giant columns, buried to within eight or ten feet of their gorgeous capitals; a superb fragment of architrave; one broken wave of sculptured cornice and some fallen blocks graven with the names of Ptolemies and Cleopatras. ”

“ It is the kingdom of the sparrows, who have built their nests in thousands in this temple of the complaisant goddess. They twitter now all together and with all their might out of very joy of living. It is an esplanade, this roof—a solitude paved with gigantic flagstones. From it we see, beyond the heaps of ruins, those happy plains, which are spread out with such a perfect serenity on the very ground where once stood the town of Denderah, beloved of Hathor and one of the most famous of Upper Egypt. Exquisitely green are these plains with the new growth of wheat and lucerne and bean ”

“ Rich sulphur beds were till recently worked at a place farther north near the headland of Ras-el-Gimsah, which faces the Ras Mohammed at the southern extremity of the peninsula of Sinai. Denderah. On the left bank of the Nile over against Keneh the verdant plains of Denderah^ the TentyrtH of the Greeks, afford a pleasant relief to the heaps of yellow refuse and the triple enclosure of the triple temple still marking the site of this ancient city. The inhabitants of this place were famous in former times for their skill in capturing and charming the crocodiles, which they used as mounts. ”

“ Unlike most cosmic deities, she was worshipped in many localities, chief among which was Dendera, where her magnificent temple, of Ptolemaic date, still stands. “The seven Hathors” is a name given to certain fairies, who appeared shortly after the birth of an infant, and predicted his future.
Khnum or Khnoum, a ram-headed god, whose principal place of worship was the island of Elephantine (there associated with Satis and Anukis) , but also revered elsewhere, e.g. together with Nebtu in Esna. He enjoyed great repute as a creator, and was supposed to use the potter’s wheel for the purpose. ”

“ LUXOR, FROM OPPOSITE BANK OF THE NILE
Egypt is a country of impressive temples and monuments, the interest of which has not been exhausted by a library of books on the subject. A trip through Egypt is not complete without a visit to the Ramesseum and that unique monument, the Temple of Denderah. The latter is a building set apart in architectural and in historic interest. It is not imposing; but it has an appeal that the other temples have not. It was a place of mystery. Its inner chamber, the sanctuary of Denderah, was sacred to Pharaoh himself. ”

“ At Thebes the divine triad was formed by Amen-Ra, Mut-Hathor and Chonsu; at Edfu and Denderah we find Osiris, Isis-Sothis-Hathor and Horus. On the other hand, a curious inscription in the temple at Denderah, translated by Brugsch (ii, p. 512) , actually describes Amen-Ra as “the great god in Denderah, who periodically rejuvenates himself and becomes a beautiful boy, who is the concealed or hidden god, whose name is hidden; who is the Horus with colored wings, coming forth in the upper hemisphere of Edfu, the lord of the double heaven.” ”

“ The Hathor-headed capital, with faces on all four sides, and surmounted with a miniature shrine, is found at Dendera, Philae and other temples of the Ptolemaic or Roman periods; one of the earliest examples, but without the shrine, dates back to Tethmosis III. (1503–1449 B.C.) . As a distinct type of pier decoration, the Osirid figures at Medinet Abū, at Karnak, Gerf Husen, Abū Simbel and other temples, constitute important features: the figure is carved in front of the pier and does not serve any constructive function. ”

“ I thought with awe of the mysterious knowledge that vanished people had of these stars, and of the Sun’s huge journey through the Zodiac....
And, with astonishing suddenness as of dream, there rose a pictured image against that starlit sky. Lifted into the air, between heaven and earth, I saw float swiftly past a panorama of the stately temples, led by Denderah, Edfu, Abou Simbel. It paused, it hovered, it disappeared. ”

“ From this point of view, the sistrum becomes typical of the triumph of good over evil. Mariette, in his analysis of the decorations and inscriptions of this temple, points out how the builders were influenced by the prevailing philosophy of the age, and how they veiled the Platonism of Alexandria beneath the symbolism of the ancient religion. The Hat-hor of Denderah was in fact worshiped in a sense unknown to the Egyptians of pre-Ptolemaic times. ”

“ Youth is, perhaps, the most divine of all the gifts of the gods, as those who wore the lotus-blossom amulet believed thousands of years ago, and Denderah, appropriately, is a very young Egyptian temple, probably, indeed, the youngest of all the temples on the Nile. ”

“ There had been trouble there, and tourists had complained of insults. It was the Hadji's business to find out whether natives or Europeans had been more to blame, and whether there were wrongs to right, misunderstandings to adjust. But to the rest of us, Denderah meant the sacred temple of Hathor, Goddess of Love, in some ways one of the most beautiful of all the Nile temples; though, being not much over two thousand years old (it was built upon ruins more ancient than King Menes) archeologists like Neill Sheridan class it as "late Ptolemaic," uninterestingly modern. ”

“ In Benihassan we stayed the longest time—sixteen days; through this, the season is far advanced, and it must not be lost in our journey southward. At the next places, therefore, only notes were taken, and the most important forms in paper, so also at El Amarna, Siut, at the reverend Abydos, and in the younger, but not less magnificent, almost intactly preserved, temple of Dendera. At Siut, we visited the governor of Upper Egypt, Selim Pasha, who is working an ancient alabaster quarry between Bersheh and Gauâta, discovered by the Bedouins some months ago. ”

“ The naos was generally a kind of hypostyle hall, with a flat roof123 raised in the middle. The pillars and columns had a variety of capitals, but these were generally of one pattern throughout the temple. The quadrilateral Isis-headed capital, as at Denderah, was often used. The monuments of the ‘hundred-gated’ Thebes are the best school for the study of genuine Egyptian art. The temples on the eastern side of the river are symbolical of the dawn of life; on the western side we find tombs, catacombs, and Memnoniums. ”

“ People round us were going to Sakkhâra and the Pyramids, to see the Sphinx by moonlight, to dream at Edfu and at Denderah. Others described their journeys to Assouan, Khartoum and Abou Simbel, and gave details of their encampments in the desert. Wind, wind, wind! The winds of Egypt blew and sang and sighed. From the White Nile came the travellers, and from the Blue Nile, from the Fayum, and from nameless excavations without end. ”

“ The amplitude of the temple at Denderah dedicated to 213 Hathor is 711⁄2° N. of E. (59° N. declination) . That of the temple dedicated to Mut at Karnak is 721⁄2° N. of E. (583⁄4° N. declination) , which, assuming for a moment the same star to have been used, corresponds to a date (according to the height of the horizon) of circ. 3000 to 3500 B.C. This is therefore later than the original foundation of the Hathor temple of Denderah, but not far from the date of its restoration by Pepi.
It is fundamental to the orientation theory that the cult shall follow the star. ”

“ It really is a set of verses, and the figures give the number of letters in each line. They probably were meant to guide the mason in his work, but he has carved it all up on the temple wall. On the temple wall at Denderah there is a long inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphics with portraits of the deities who are mentioned in the text. At the portrait of Isis the hieroglyphics say “wood: gold: eyes of precious stone: two cubits high,” at the portrait of Heqit (the frog goddess) they say “silver overlaid with gold: five spans high,” and so on—it is engraved in Mariette’s Denderah, vol. ”

“ These sculptures, which at first sight looked no less perfect than the towers, prove to be as laboriously mutilated as those of Denderah. The hawk-head of Horus and the cow-head of Hathor have here and there escaped destruction; but the human-faced deities are literally “sans eyes, sans nose, sans ears, sans everything.”
We enter the inner court—an irregular quadrangle inclosed on the east by an open colonnade, on the west by a chapel fronted with Hathor-headed columns, and on the north and south sides by the second and first propylons. ”

“ On approaching Tentyris Denon ventured, he says, to propose that the army should halt there. Desaix, though no less sensible than himself of the charms of these antique ruins, had his mind filled with other [Pg 351] cares, and met the proposal with anger. Passion, however, could possess but a momentary influence over that beautiful mind; shortly afterward he sought out the enthusiastic traveller, in whose company he visited Denderah, and admired the sublimity of its ponderous architecture. ”