The Art of Ancient Egypt | Publications for Educators | Explore & Learn

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Temple of Dendur
Nubia, ca. 15 B.C.
Sandstone, l. (from gate to rear of temple) 82 ft.
Given to the United States by Egypt in 1965, awarded to The Metropolitan
Museum of Art in 1967, and installed in The Sackler Wing in 1978
68.154

Egyptian temples were not simply houses for a cult image but also represented in their design and decoration a variety of religious and mythological concepts. One important symbolic aspect was based on the understanding of the temple as an image of the natural world as the Egyptians knew it. Lining the temple base are carvings of papyrus and lotus plants that seem to grow from water, symbolized by figures of the Nile god, Hapy. The two columns on the porch rise toward the sky like tall bundles of papyrus stalks with lily flowers bound up with them. Above the gate and temple entrance are images of the sun disk flanked by the outspread wings of Horus, the sky god. The sky is also represented by the vultures, wings outspread, that appear on the ceiling of the entrance porch.

On the outer walls--between earth and sky--are carved scenes of the king making offerings to deities, who hold scepters and the symbol of life. The figures are carved in sunk relief. In the brilliant Egyptian sunlight shadows cast along the figures' edges would have emphasized the outlines of their forms. Isis, her husband and brother Osiris, their son Horus, and the other deities are identified by their headdresses. These scenes are repeated again and again in two horizontal registers. The king is identified by his crowns and by his names, which appear close to his head in elongated oval shapes called cartouches, but many cartouches simply read "pharaoh." This king was actually Emperor Augustus of Rome, who, as recent master of Egypt, wisely had himself depicted in the traditional regalia of the pharaoh. Augustus had many temples erected in Egyptian style, honoring Egyptian deities. This small temple, built about 15 B.C., honored the goddess Isis and, beside her, two deified sons of a local Nubian chieftain, Pedesi and Pihor.

In the first room of the temple reliefs again show the "pharaoh" praying and offering to the gods, but the relief here is raised from the background so that the figures can easily be seen in the more indirect light. From this room one can look into the temple past the middle room used for offering ceremonies and into the sanctuary of the goddess Isis. The only carvings in these two rooms are around the door frame leading into the sanctuary and on the back wall of the sanctuary, where a relief of offerings being made to Isis appears. Originally all the carving was painted in red, blue, green, yellow, and black--traces remained even less than a hundred years ago--but after the erection of a low dam at Aswan early in the twentieth century, backed-up waters of the Nile washed the last traces of colors away.

The temple, with its gate facing the Nile, was built into a hillside in Upper Nubia where the river valley is very narrow. Originally the gate was set in a high wall of mud bricks that surrounded the temple, but gradually recurrent high water destroyed the wall.

Notice: the rectangular shape of the temple, the doorways, and the gate; the carving over the gate

Discuss: symbolism, types of relief carving, colors

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