Temple of Hathor

The Temple of Hathor at Dendara is among the best-preserved ancient Egyptian temples anywhere, and its near-complete state makes it uniquely valuable for understanding how a working temple complex actually functioned. Most Egyptian temples survive as roofless ruins; this one still has its ceilings intact, its crypts accessible, and its rooftop chapels in place — you can walk through the entire spatial sequence from outer hypostyle hall through sanctuary rooms to the roof as priests did two thousand years ago.

The outer hypostyle hall has 24 columns with Hathor-head capitals, and its ceiling is painted with a detailed astronomical chart including the famous circular Dendera zodiac (the original is now in the Louvre; a plaster cast remains in position). The inner rooms grow progressively darker and more intimate as they approach the sanctuary. The rooftop chapels dedicated to Osiris contain some of the finest relief carving on the site, relatively undamaged by the Christian image-smashing that affected the lower halls. The temple faces north rather than the usual east orientation, because the site's geography required it.

things to do sight
A story
On the outside rear wall of the temple, a large relief depicts Cleopatra VII — the famous last queen of Egypt — standing beside her son Ptolemy XV Caesarion, fathered by Julius Caesar. It is one of the few surviving contemporary images of Cleopatra, and it shows her not in the Western conception of a seductive beauty but in the formal Egyptian style: large, imposing, wearing the double crown. The boy king beside her was killed on Octavian's orders after the Battle of Actium, aged about seventeen.