Dendera

IN DENDERA

Between 7–8 January, the von Hallwyls and their party visit Dendera. Lady's companion Ida Uhse writes the following in her diary:

“Dendera, 7th of Jan. There are temple ruins here, which we shall visit. We rode for 30 minutes before arriving at the Temple of Hathor, the first Egyptian temple we saw on our way to Upper Egypt. It contains one large and one small hypostyle hall, two antechambers, in the inner sanctum, all surrounded by corridors as well as smaller and larger rooms. To the right and left in the smaller hypostyle hall, there are sculptural reliefs depicting the king’s participation in the foundation of the temple. Along the corridor surrounding the inner sanctum, there are 11 small rooms that have been used as storage; there are reliefs and a chapel with the image of Hathor in the first room. Beneath the temple there are 14 crypts. You must bring your own light to go down and visit them. We visited crypts no. 4 and no. 7, where we saw reliefs depicting the kings Pepi and Ptolemaios presenting precious offerings to the gods. We went up to the temple's roof terrace, where you must be careful of the holes that allow daylight to enter the rooms below.

The eastern side of the terrace has three rooms, the middle one of which has ceiling paintings depicting the famous ‘Dendera Zodiac’ (now housed in the National Library in Paris), the only circular representation of the zodiac found in Egypt. Walking around the temple was a rewarding experience as the walls are covered with inscriptions and reliefs. There are lion’s heads on the outside of the temple, which were likely used to drain rain water. To the right of the entrance to the Temple of Hathor is a building known as the Birth House, which was devoted to the sons of the temple's deities, with reliefs on the walls.
Behind the Temple of Hathor is a temple devoted to Isis, however, this is not very interesting.
We then had a packed breakfast, as the coffee houses were closed due to the fasting month of Ramadan.

8th of Jan. The temple ruins of Dendera were magnificent, I found the hypostyle halls very beautiful.”