The Temple of Dendur
Completed by about 10 BC
A whole Egyptian temple stands in a hall of glass beside a pool of still water, with Central Park visible through the sloping wall behind it. The Temple of Dendur was built on the west bank of the Nile in Lower Nubia by the Roman emperor Augustus, who had just conquered Egypt and chose to present himself there as a pharaoh. A stone gateway leads to a small building with a columned porch and two inner rooms, and the reliefs on its walls show Augustus in Egyptian dress making offerings to Isis, Osiris and two deified local brothers who had drowned in the river.
Walk up to the walls and look at the carving. The figures are in the sunk relief typical of Egyptian temples, with the outlines cut into the surface so that raking light gives them depth. At the base of the walls, lotus and papyrus plants rise from the Nile. On the porch you will find graffiti scratched by nineteenth century travellers, including one who signed himself Leonardo in 1820. The pool in front represents the river and the sloping glass wall stands for the cliff that once rose behind the temple.
In the 1960s the Aswan High Dam threatened to drown dozens of Nubian monuments. An international rescue campaign moved the largest, and Egypt gave Dendur to the United States in thanks for American help. President Johnson awarded it to the Met in 1967, and its six hundred and forty two blocks, weighing more than eight hundred tonnes, were shipped across the Atlantic and reassembled in this purpose built wing, which opened in 1978. It is the only complete Egyptian temple in the Western hemisphere.
Did You Know? The temple is oriented so that visitors approach from the west, just as worshippers did on the banks of the Nile.
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