Dendara

On Sunday 17th we left at 8.35, heading north to the temple at Dendara. The sun came out enough to reflect the palm trees in the canal on our left alongside the highway. We were retracing our tracks. This is the road we came down to Luxor last Wednesday. There are bougainvillea bushes on both sides and the villages are off to the right, behind another, smaller canal. Two women in black were standing by the road, having a chat, with large baskets on their heads. Perfect posture - you cannot slump in this position.

The tour has been arranged as far as possible so that we have been to the Old Kingdom sites, then the Middle Kingdom, followed by the New Kingdom. There's a strong Graeco-Roman influence here. Just inside the gate there's a carving of a dwarf with the face of a lion. His tongue was hanging out so we thought he must have been doing a haka.

The temple was built in the time of Cleopatra VII. She's the Cleopatra we know about, who married Julius Caesar. She is portrayed on one side of the temple with her son Caesarion in front of her. This is the only portrait of her in Egypt. Because of the Graeco-Roman influence, the columns have capitals (lumps on the top) and instead of the lotus flowers we have seen in most places, there are female heads with cows' ears. There's a wonderful shrine; the pictures are etched onto the cream stone and every single one is perfect. Maybe because it's only about 2000 years old - much of what we have seen was created 3000 or 4000 years ago.

On one of the rooms, Nut (pronounced Nute as I noted earlier) spreads herself across the ceiling, giving birth to Ra, the sun. A very special thing here is a huge circle containing the signs of the Zodiac. Round the edge are four goddesses of protection plus 8 Horuses = 12 months. They all have their hands up, indicating 24 hours in the day. Each month consisted of 3 weeks of 10 days. This made a total of 360 days in the year. The other five were feast days, making 365 in total. Actually the original of this amazing creation is in Paris - this is a copy.

We were able to go up onto the roof, folowing a ramp with all the bas relief people on the walls facing uphill. The down ramp had the opposite. NB: to read hieroglyphics you look at the the way a person or bird is pointing and go on until you get one facing in the opposite direction. That is like a full stop. Hieroglyphics can go left, right or down, but NOT up.s

In our free time I went to a walled enclosure that was a sacred lake. Now only sand and palm trees. But one of the Museum and Antiquities policemen came over and led me down the steps into it. "Water" he said. He picked up some pebbles and tossed them into the dark hole under the steps. Sure enough, there was a splash. He gave me seven and indicated I must throw in one at a time. I assumed this was for good luck, so I did. Then he took a photo of me by the palm trees, indicating that I should take up a Cleopatra pose with hands up and out to the sides. I gave him five pounds for his trouble. Doesn't it sound a lot - but of course it's only NZ$1.25.

On the way home I fell asleep on the bus. (All this mental and physical exercise makes us very tired.) Woke just as we reached the hotel at 3 pm. Perfect timing.