Pickup from your hotel and the drive to Qena through farmland and villages, about ninety minutes each way, with the river never far off.
Dendera - the Temple of Hathor
5
Hours
Overview
Dendera is an hour and a half north of Luxor, which is exactly why it stays quiet. It is also the reason it is one of the most complete temples in Egypt: late, Ptolemaic and Roman, built when the old religion was already being written down for the last time.
The ceiling is what people come for. Decades of soot from cooking fires were cleaned off, and underneath the astronomical ceiling came back in colour: the sky goddess Nut swallowing the sun each evening and giving birth to it each dawn, in blues and ochres that look freshly painted.
Then the crypts, the roof chapels where the new year ritual was held, and the Roman birth house outside. Half a day, and often you will have whole rooms to yourselves.
Slower, or differently: always possible. Tell us how you like to travel and we will rebuild the day around it.
Trip Highlights
Tour Itinerary
Twenty-four columns with the face of Hathor on all four sides, and the cleaned astronomical ceiling above them.
Narrow passages below, where the temple treasure was kept, and stairs up to the roof, where the goddess met the sun at new year.
The Roman mammisi outside the main enclosure, and the stone basin where the temple’s water once stood.
Return in the afternoon. Abydos can be added to make it a full day. Ask us.
Costs
The Cost Includes
The Cost Excludes
Enquiry
Dr. Sherif Azab-Els reads and answers these himself, usually within a day. An enquiry costs you nothing and commits you to nothing.
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German tour operator
Money protected
Twelve at most
A person, not a desk
