Dendera Temple

Dendera is approximately 80.5 km (50 miles) north of Luxor, on the Nile West bank. The Temple of Hathor has recently undergone restoration to reveal clearly the beauty and colour of the art. Nine stone terraces were built to the left of the entrance gate to display statues and artifacts. The site covers approximately 40,000 square meters (430,556 square feet). The ceiling decoration is one of the best preserved of the surviving ancient Egyptian monuments, showing how vibrant colors were used.

There is evidence that the Old Kingdom pharaoh Pepi I built religious structures here. There are remnants of a temple constructed during the eighteenth dynasty (New Kingdom). The later additions to the site date to the Late Period. The Temple of Hathor dates to the first century BC and was continually developed through the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. It refers to both Egyptian rulers and Roman emperors. The site also includes birth houses, a chapel dedicated to Isis, the gateways of Domitian and Trajan, and a Coptic Christian basilica, circa 5th century AD.

The famous Dendera zodiac bas-relief was removed from the temple in 1820 by the French and replaced with a reproduction. The original is now in the Louvre Museum in Paris. On the temple exterior is a carving of Cleopatra VII Philopator (the most widely known of the rulers called Cleopatra) and her son, Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar (known as Caesarion), whose father was Julius Caesar.

Esna           not included on the old website, but should be?  What about Bisaw and other stops on DNS, they should be included because we include DNS tours also on this website?

Esna is part of the Luxor governorate. Esna is about an hour drive (60 km / 37 miles) from Luxor. It is an unassuming town with surprises, as its rich history across the centuries is increasingly being recognized with restoration and development.

The Greco-Roman Temple and a previous temple built here by Tuthmosis III were dedicated to the ram headed god Khnum. The Temple of Khnum owes its unique situation to Nile floods which buried it; modern Esna was built over it. Excavation from the 1860s revealed the hall, built during the reign of the Roman emperor Claudius (AD 41-54).

The temple sitting 10 meters (33 feet) below street level gives you a feeling of what it must have been like for those who excavated other semi-buried monuments elsewhere in Egypt.

Esna was known by the ancient Greeks as Latopolis because the Nile perch (lates in Greek) was worshiped here; in 1902, thousands of mummified Nile perch from the Greco-Roman period were discovered.

Previously most visitors came to Esna specifically to see the temple. Esna has become increasingly worthwhile to visit with the restoration and reopening in 2021 of the Wekalet Al-Geddawi, a caravanserai built in 1792 to store goods and as lodging for traveling merchants. You will also see 19th Century homes and the redeveloped old Ottoman market of Al-Qissariya adjacent to the temple, and some of Esna’s heritage of craft traditions.

There are two dams, one from the colonial period and a new dam that has two locks. This is why on Dahabiya Nile Sailing tours we prefer starting dahabiya tours from Esna – we can avoid going through the locks. Exceptions are dahabiya tours that run in the other direction, from Aswan. There are also some dahabiya tours that start in Luxor and cross the lock, however these take six or seven nights.

For more insights to Esna https://www.instagram.com/discoveresna