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Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut, also known as Djeser-Djeseru (“Holy of Holies”), is an Ancient Egyptian mortuary temple in Upper Egypt. Built for the 18th dynasty pharaoh Hatshepsut, it is located beneath the cliffs of Deir el-Bahari, on the west bank of the Nile, near the Valley of the Kings. This mortuary temple dedicated to Amun and Hatshepsut stands next to the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, which served as both an inspiration and later a quarry. It is considered one of the “most outstanding monuments of ancient Egypt”.hatshepsut_temple

Overview

Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut was designed by The Chancellor of Hatshepsut, the Royal architect Sennenmut, who supervised the construction of the temple. he was also a tutor of Neferu-Ra and perhaps the Hatshepsut lover. 

Sennenmut has carefully shaped his project on that of Mentuhotep II but took all aspects of the old building and made it larger, longer, and more complex. It is a three-level structure that reaches 29.5 meters (97 feet) in height. Each floor is joined by a double colonnade of square columns, except for the northwest corner of the central floor, where the chapel uses circular Doric columns

Middle Terrace

On the right (northeast) side of the ramp leading to the third level was the Divine Birth Colonnade and, on the left, (southwest) the Punt Colonnade (inspect). The ramp to the third level, perfectly centered between the colonnades of the Birth and the Colonnade of Punt, took the visitor to another colonnade, flanked by Osiris statues, and to the three main structures: the Chapel of the Royal Cult, the Chapel of the Cult of the Sun and the Sanctuary of Amon.The-central-ramp-leading-up-to-the-third-terrace

Birth-Colonnade

The Birth Colonnade told the story of Hatshepsut’s divine creation with Amun as her true father. Hatshepsut had the night of her conception inscribed (read) on the walls relating how the god came to mate with her mother. As the daughter of the most powerful and popular god in Egypt at the time, Hatshepsut was claiming for herself special privilege of ruling the country as a man would.

Chapel of Anubis

The Chapel of Anubis is located on the north side of the second level of Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple. Anubis was the god of embalming and burial. He was often depicted with the body of a man and the head of a jackal, as he is depicted here. Anubis sits on a throne, which in turn rests on a small pedestal. He stands in front of a pile of offerings that reaches eight levels, from the bottom to the top of the inscribed register. Although much of the color is now gone, you can imagine the vibrancy of the original painting. The Egyptians used mineral pigments; the colors are therefore not as faded as in the case of plant pigments.Chapel-dedicated-to-Anubis

Chapel of Hathor

Since Hathor was the guardian of the Deir El-Bahari area, it is appropriate to find a chapel dedicated to Goddess Hathor in the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (south side of the second level). The columns that the court fills of this chapel are columns of Hathor, each one is similar to a sistrum, a percussion tool associated with the goddess of love and music. The capitals of the columns are garnished with the female head with cow ears with a crown, and the curved sides end up in spirals, perhaps suggestive of cow horns. The central part of the crown is a sanctuary in which two Uraei (breeding cobra with widespread caps) are surmounted by Suns discs. A cable frame is at the top of the whole.Shrine-of-Hathor

Upper Terrace 

The upper terrace of Hatshepsut’s temple has a main entrance pillar with two rows of columns: the outer row consists of square pillars decorated with colossal Osiride statues of the queen, although only a few remain. The inner row is made up of octagonal columns. These Osiris figures depict the delicate features of the female pharaoh Queen Hatshepsut, wearing the Egyptian double crown and a false curled beard (signs of divinity).

Upper Court

Entering the third, highest courtyard, the first thing that strikes you is that it seems empty, even though it once had two rows of columns, only a few of which have been restored. At the rear section of the courtyard is the very heart of the temple: a sanctuary dedicated to the god Amon, carved directly into the mountain. On either side of the entrance to the sanctuary, there are nine niches; small cult chapels alternate with niches containing Osiride statues of the queen.

Inner Sanctuary 

A very important ceremony dedicated to the Sun God took place here: the installation of the celestial solar boat of Amun-Ra, which arrived on the shoulders of the priests of the Karnak temple on the Nile’s Eastern Bank. Images of the procession and the relief of the Solar Boat appear on the walls of the vestibule, where one can see a preserved image of the royal family in Hatshepsut’s temple.The-inner-sanctuary

Sun Cult Complex 

The Sun Cult Sanctuary Complex is a group of rooms on the north side of the upper floor of Queen Hatshepsut’s funerary complex at Deir el-Bahari. The temple was first excavated in 1893 by the Egyptian Exploration Foundation team under the direction of Édouard Naville, who published some of the texts and images in a large version of the entire temple.

Similarities with the Temple of Mentuhotep II 

The nearby, earlier mortuary temple of Mentuhotep Neb-hepet-re served as a model, but the two structures are nevertheless very different in many respects: Hatshepsut’s mortuary temple has a long, colonnaded terrace, which differs from the centralized structure of Mentuhotep’s model, but this may be due to the decentralized arrangement of her burial chambers. The temple of Mentuhotep II had a large stone ramp running from the first courtyard to the second level; Hatshepsut’s second level was reached by a much longer and even more complex ramp, accessed through lush gardens and an elaborate entrance pylon flanked by large obelisks.

Restorations

The Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw is responsible for the research and restoration of three levels of the temple. By early 1995, the first two levels were almost complete, with the upper level still under restoration.

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