Temple of Dendera (Egypt)

It was a fluke that I knew about the Dendera Temple. After staying near the Luxor Temple for three days, I decided to live on the west bank of the Nile. In the past, Hexi was a place where the dead lived. Now, more and more residents are moving from Hedong to Hexi. Of course, most of these people are descendants of Arabs and have nothing to do with ancient Egyptian culture. Even if they are descendants of ancient Egyptians, their civilization has been tragically broken, so they probably don't care. As for me, I am just a tourist at most. It doesn’t matter where I live for three to five days. Moreover, if I live in Hexi, it will be more convenient to go to the Valley of the Kings.

When I came back from the Valley of the Queen that day, more than five hours of exposure and walking made me exhausted and tired. After returning to my residence, I washed away the dust and went to the rooftop platform. The blue Nile River is not far away, and more and more houses are being built along the river. I lay comfortably on the sofa, ate fruit and drank tea, and entered a state of half-asleep and half-awake.

Suddenly, a burst of barking dogs shattered my daydream. Following the sound, a blond woman was holding a handbag and trying to drive away a big dog that was barking at her. She doesn't look like a local, she's probably a tourist living in the surrounding folk customs. The dog also bullied the weak and kept chasing her, and the woman's barking became more and more hysterical. Finally, a young man ran over and helped her beat the dog away. The surroundings became quiet again, and I realized that my body was extremely itchy. It turned out that there were many small mosquitoes. They don't have the bravado of dogs, but they speak blood. I couldn't stay here, so I fled back to my room.

Watching documentaries online, several Taiwanese people talked about traveling in Egypt. One of the big names said that there is a niche travel destination, the Dendera Temple, which is quite well preserved and has particularly special murals. I would like to go there again... Is there such a place? I immediately searched online and found that this temple really existed, and it was less than a hundred kilometers away from Luxor. The next day, I went to two car companies to inquire. They both said that there were no buses taking this route, so I had to take a taxi.

It would be nice if you stay one night near the Dendera Temple and take your time. I prefer slow travel more and more, if possible. Guests searched for Dandela and Kina, but found no hotels available for booking. Searching on Airbnb, there is no folklore. I am puzzled. Is there even a hotel here? Traveling there on business, where do the Egyptians live? After searching for a long time, still to no avail. I suddenly realized that Egypt is like China? The hotel is divided into foreign guests and domestic guests. There should be no hotels open to foreign guests, right?

In recent years, Egypt's political situation has been turbulent and public security has been tense. As a tourist country, it would be unwise to give up this piece of cake. Important tourist cities - Luxor, Aswan, Cairo, etc. are all fully open, but security management is very strict. The Dendera Temple is also open, but it can only be visited by chartered car. We took a ferry from the west bank of the river to the east bank, and negotiated a taxi. I can't remember exactly how many hundreds of Egyptian pounds there were for the round trip. On the way to Dendera, we encountered many checkpoints manned by armed soldiers. Whenever I see those sparse soldiers, I will immediately think of the several wars they fought with Israel. I have also personally seen Israeli soldiers whose mental state is completely different, and their victory or defeat is easy to understand. The taxi has been traveling in the oasis of the Nile Valley, with fertile farmland on both sides, dense tree shades on the road, and seas of brilliant bougainvillea flowers, making it hard for you to imagine that the Sahara Desert is not far away.

It took about two hours to arrive at the Dendera Temple, and there were indeed few tourists. Looking from a distance, the Dendera Temple does not seem so high-end and classy. When I walked through the square and walked into the main hall, I was immediately shocked by the exquisite hall. It is said that the entire temple has 2,004 sacred pillars, 15 meters high, and the pillars are covered with exquisite sculptures of the goddess Hathor. The ceiling murals in the multi-column hall at the entrance are the best preserved and the most exquisite. The blue tone has countless lifelike images on it, just like the heaven seen through the blue sky. It is so beautiful and wonderful that it is indescribable. At this time, I completely understood what the Taiwanese celebrity said, "I want to go again after going there."

Dendera Temple was built in the Ptolemaic era, more than 2,000 years ago. It is the youngest temple in ancient Egypt. It was mentioned in the movie "Champollion". After the end of the Ptolemaic Pharaoh era of the Macedonians, the temple of Dendera suffered many pagan attacks.

It feels particularly pity every time I see those exquisite sculptures being artificially eradicated, leaving only mottled remnants that still reveal their beauty and mystery. If it had not been destroyed, how good it would be if it were passed down to this day.

The fifteen-meter-high ceiling relief is naturally not easy to be injured, so the bad guys came up with a clumsy method - smoke it with fireworks. Today's archaeologists are so amazing that they used chemical reagents to erase the smoke stains on the surface. The murals that were more than 2,000 years old were basically restored to their original appearance, and the smoke color also played a great protective role. For this reason, the cultural relics protection unit specially left an unwiped area (black square) for comparison (see next picture).

Ancient Egyptian mythology is very fascinating. As the supreme god in mythology, the sun god first created the air god "Shu" and the rain god "Tefnut". The two (brother and sister) combined to give birth to the earth god Geb and the sky god Nut. Geb and Nut (who were still brother and sister) were always entangled and inseparable, and they gave birth to a sky full of stars. Their father Shu (the god of air) couldn't stand it anymore and stretched the two apart with force. During their last five days together, the God of Sky and the God of Earth gave birth to four children: Osiris, Isis (a pair, brother and sister), Seth, and Nephthys (another pair, Still brother and sister). Osiris and Isis had a son, Horus, who was one of the protagonists of the Temple of Dendera.

The ceiling mural on the northernmost side of the multi-column hall of the Dendera Temple depicts the movement of the sky god Nut and the sun god. She supports the earth with her hands and feet, and in her arms are all natural things. In ancient Egyptian mythology, the sun god was delivered by Nut, the god of the sky, every morning and swallowed into his mouth in the evening, thus completing a process of rebirth and death - that is, the daily sunrise and sunset.

At this point, it’s time to launch the goddess Hathor. The sun god is naturally the king of gods, but Hathor is by no means an ordinary person. She is the most respected god in ancient Egypt. She is the goddess of love, beauty, abundance, dance, music, and she is omnipotent in the hearts of the people. She cares about the common people, is not afraid of rape, sympathizes with the dead, and is also the protector of mothers and children. She is like a cute little calf, which is really adorable. The Temple of Dendera is the main temple of the goddess Hathor.

It is said that she is the daughter of the Sun God and the eye of the Sun God, and is endowed with great energy and power. The sun god was once angry about the sins in the world and sent her to punish humans. She immediately transformed into the bloodthirsty lion god Sekhmet and went on a killing spree, and for a while the earth flowed into rivers of blood... The sun god was afraid and killed them all. Who would sacrifice and worship? But her eyes were red, she was obsessed, and she couldn't stop. The gods had no choice but to set up a scam (wine bureau), mixing pomegranate juice with beer and passing it off as human blood. She drank again and again until she was so drunk... When she woke up, she returned to her original state and became gentle and loving again. The goddess Hathor. This story illustrates two problems: first, the supreme sun god can also deceive; second, throughout the ages (at least four thousand years ago), wine has been regarded as jade liquid and fine wine. Nowadays, people drink alcohol and have sex, but in ancient Egyptian mythology, it was the other way around.

There are also story fragments, saying that the goddess Hathor was once an eye of the Sun God. When she was sent by the Sun God to punish humans, she came back only to find that the Sun God had grown a new eye. She collapsed instantly and became angry. In order to appease her, the Sun God had no choice but to put her on top of his head (the cobra on the head of the Sun God) and carry her with him wherever he went.

There is a legend that the goddess Hathor was the adoptive mother of Horus. Horus is the son of Osiris and Isis. Osiris, the god of the underworld, was once the first king of the world. He was later killed by his brother Seth and the throne was taken away. His wife Isis (sister) tried her best to resurrect him and gave birth to Horus. After the resurrection, Osiris was tired of life on earth, so he returned to the underworld and became the king of Hades. Set, the god of war, knew of the existence of his nephew Horus and wanted to eradicate it. For the safety of Horus, Isis turned to the powerful Hathor. Hathor took Horus to a secluded island to raise him, and helped him regain the throne from Set and become the king of the world.

There is also a legend that Horus married Hathor, but they could only meet once a year.

Many murals in the Temple of Dendera tell the story of Horus's annual visit to Hathor. He brought passionate love, flowers, wine, and various gifts to meet the lover he missed day and night. There is an inner hall in the temple, and the reliefs on one wall tell the story of their meeting, frame by frame, like a montage in a movie. Among them, the scene where Horus knocks on the door is very touching. Hathor hid behind the door, holding back her inner excitement as she waited reservedly for Horus to knock on the door. Horus holds the door handle with one hand and knocks on the door with the other, ready to open the door and jump into the arms of his lover at any time... However, they are both gods, and their emotions are very restrained, which makes them more contagious. However, these reliefs were still damaged, which is a pity. In ancient Egyptian sculptures, women only have one breast. What does this mean?

In the Blue Pillar Hall, the south wall depicts a festive scene of the gathering of Horus and Hathor (ancient Egyptian festival). People presented gifts to Hathor and Horus, the most indispensable of which were beer and pomegranate juice. The ancient Egyptians invented beer more than 5,000 years ago. Many wine jars were excavated in Tutankhamen's tomb, and they were labeled with the names of different types of wine and the brewing time.

Later in the evening, several groups of English-speaking tour groups arrived, and the temple felt a little lively. Met a Chinese father and daughter, coming from Dubai. The daughter works in Dubai, and the father helps her take care of the children. The daughter specially accompanied her father to Egypt for vacation. When traveling abroad, you can often meet compatriots from third countries, which also reflects our country’s open flow.

In a basement of the Dendera Temple, there is a set of reliefs - designed like light bulbs. What do these mysterious coincidences mean? Or did they begin to have modern civilization more than 2,000 years ago? The splendid civilization of ancient Egypt is so unbelievable that it often makes people imagine that there are aliens with a higher level of civilization.

Actually, for me, this temple is no more different from other temples, it just looks more beautiful and dreamy. The continuation of civilization is all because human beings love beauty, describe beauty, and hope that beauty can be passed on.

When I looked at the exquisite sculptures and murals, my soul was attracted by them and I was deeply intoxicated. Those various characters and animals, those twinkling stars in the blue sky, and those stories that have been passed down for a long time all tell us: the civilization of ancient Egypt is really amazing. More than two thousand years, three thousand years, four thousand years... Just like the blue starry sky, mysterious and shining.

Dendera Temple, in a hurry for a few hours, many people did not look carefully, many did not see it, and I really still haven’t finished it. The most fascinating thing about ancient Egyptian ruins is that there is endless information, and no matter how much time you spend, there is always something new to discover. If I have the chance to go to Egypt again, I will go to the Temple of Dendera again.