Le Temple a Hathor a Dendara: Releves et etude architecturale.

• Author: Leprohon, Ronald J.
• Position: Book review

Le Temple a Hathor a Dendara: Releves et etude architecturale. By PIERRE ZIGNANI. Bibliotheque d'Etude, vol. 146/1. Cairo: INSTITUT FRANCAIS D'ARCHEOLOGIE ORIENTALE, 2010. Pp. xii + 425, 39 plates.

The Institut francais d'archeologie orientale (IFAO) has had a long and distinguished history of publishing the ancient Egyptian temple of Dendera. Following Emile Chassinat's work in the early twentieth century and the more recent publications of Francois Daumas and Sylvie Cauville, we are now treated to a full and highly detailed architectural study of the temple by Pierre Zignani. Casting his architect's eye over every room, column, and light shaft, indeed every nook and cranny of the temple, he presents his results in clearly defined chapters in an exhaustive and lavish production, to which this review can hardly do justice.

The site of Dendera had long been important. The capital city of the sixth Upper Egyptian nome, it was close to the prehistoric site of Nagada and the desert roads that led westward toward the oases of the western desert, and in the vicinity of Coptos, the departure point to the mines and quarries of the Eastern Desert and the gateway to the Red Sea. Although there are a number of traces of earlier builders, the imposing structure that still stands today mostly dates to the very end of ancient Egyptian history. The earliest surviving building, the Birth House, or mammisi, to the northwest of the main temple area, dates to the reign of King Nectanebo I (380-362 B.C.E.) of the Thirtieth Dynasty. One of the noteworthy aspects of the temple of Dendera is its orientation. The great eastward bend of the Nile means that the river does not flow in its usual north-south direction at this point, but rather east-west. Given that Egyptian temples often face toward the river for easy access by water, the temple of Dendera symbolically points to "local east," with its front actually facing north. As explained in an early section (2.1.2), this slight deviation from true north is due to the position of the star Sirius on the horizon at the dawn of the 16th of July, 54 B.C.E., the day of the official founding of the temple.

Section 2.2.1 situates the temple within its overall surroundings, about two kilometers away from the river; although there are only scant traces of such a feature, the author argues that there must have been a canal connecting the site to the river in ancient times. The next section (2.2.2) briefly describes the...