The Dendera Temple complex

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The Dendera Temple complex built around 53 BCE is located near Qena, Egypt, is one of the best-preserved ancient Egyptian sites, covering 40,000 square meters. Its main structure, the Temple of Hathor, is famous for its striking Ptolemaic-era architecture, vibrant ceiling reliefs, and the iconic Dendera Zodiac. The site, which was a significant center for the goddess of music and joy, was active from the Old Kingdom through the Roman period.

All comments welcome

# 1
Dendera Temple, the sun was in the wrong place but you will have that on a tour like this
Looks more like a bank to me



# 2
BUT the inside tells a different story. Somewhere between 40 and 50 feet tall



# 3 Such fine details and colors.



# 4
So Allen should be able elaborate on these vertical markings. But as I understand it, when Pilgrims came to visit the temples, they would scratch these notches in the stores with tools and keep the dust to have a part of the temple to take home for good luck.

(I so wanted to do this too, but did not) I just took small rocks from the ground in a few places.

PS, we saw these marks all over Egypt!




# 5

Temple of Hathor: Built primarily during the late Ptolemaic period (around 54 BCE) and finalized under Roman rule, it features 24 massive Hathor-headed columns in its Hypostyle Hall.



# 6

My favorite, we entered this room just in time to see the sun shining through this upper wintow which had bars on it making the lines in the light stream.
If you can suggest a processing trick to not have the window so over exposed, let me know. I tried several things but just didn't have the skill needed to improve it



# 7 Another place we were told where Kings and Temple Priests walked
If walls could talk. These pathways encircled the main chamber.. This one is walking down, look closely and you can see the steps



# 8 Doorways to the past!



# 9
Pathways to rooms which all tell a story



# 10
Outside the temple
THe sky was sooo blue it looks fake to me. No CPR was used here



# 11 Last one.
Rear gate. Moving on to more exciting things to see

Neat set - looks like a fun place to visit. The interiors look quite amazing compared to the outside. I like your comparison to a bank. I have never seen the vertical abrasions before - that is a new one to me. I never got to travel all that far in Egypt since my visit back in the 1970's was oriented toward the survey work we did in the eastern Nile Delta area and we didn't have much time off.

It looks amazing. I hope you can share some of your Egypt travel tips and experiences too.

This is an interesting set Ed.

#2 for some reason it feels like you are up high looking down. An optical illusion, but it felt kind of cool. Maybe it's just me on that one, but I thought it was neat.

#6, I like that beam of light. As to a trick to preserve the blown out area, you just use a layer mask, so not really a trick, it's just using a layer mask which would blend in the none overexposed area of the sky back in. But, it actually looks better like this, because there is a beam of light, the mind will expect that opening to be bright anyway. So just leave it.

#7 and 9 are my next favorites.