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Hathor Temple




Hathor Temple is the main temple in the Dendera Temple Complex .

The temple construction date is suggeted as around the 1st Century BC . The temple was rebuilt from another temple on the same site dating from the Middle Kingdom . The existing structure was built no later than the late Ptolemaic Period . The temple is one of the best, if not the best, preserved temple in all Egypt. The temple is dedicated to Hathor . Subsequent additions were added in the Roman times.

Hathor Temple has a controversial stone relief known as the Dendera Light . The image is thought to be, by traditional egytoplogists, of a Mythological Religious Nature . These scholars state that this is a Lotus flower, spawning a snake within. Other egytoplogists believe that it is an electric lamp. Engineers have constructed a working model based on the relief and some authors (such as Peter Krassa and Reinhard Habeck ) have produced a basic theory of the device's operation .

On the rear of the temple exterior, it's possible to see a carving of Cleopatra VII Philopator and her son, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar ('' Caesarion ''), fathered by Julius Caesar .


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FURTHER READING


  • Mariette, A , "''Dendérah''" , Bookshop A. Franck, Paris, 1875.

  • Fischer, H.G., "''Dendera in the third millennium B.C. down to the theban domination of upper Egypt''", J.J. Augustin publisher, New York, 1968.



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