{"id":64999,"date":"2022-05-06T20:19:53","date_gmt":"2022-05-06T20:19:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/?p=64999"},"modified":"2022-05-06T20:19:53","modified_gmt":"2022-05-06T20:19:53","slug":"temple-of-hatshepsut-and-the-beautiful-obelisks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/blog\/temple-of-hatshepsut-and-the-beautiful-obelisks\/","title":{"rendered":"Temple of Hatshepsut and the Beautiful Obelisks"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/vbtKr7EhE-A?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe>The temple of Hatshepsut is located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor. It was built by a Pharaoh who was considered a male at the time of her reign, but who has been identified as a woman in modern times. It was built to serve as both burial and mortuary temple for this female Pharaoh.<\/p>\n<p>The temple stands on a platform that is about 500 feet wide, which was reached by at least two ramps and has an outer court that once held statues of the goddesses Isis and Hathor, among others. The inner part of the temple complex has a hall to house festival boats, two courtyards with colonnades and other smaller halls.<\/p>\n<p>The most striking feature of the temple is its unusual obelisks that rise out of four corners of the roofline. There are three types of obelisks in Hatshepsut&#8217;s temple, which were carved from Aswan granite quarried in Egypt and transported over 2,000 miles up the Nile to be erected here. The first type is called an Osiride pillar which is an obelisk with a statue of Osiris on its upper part. This type is unique to Hatshepsut&#8217;s temple because it was erected in pairs flanking the entrance to the second<\/p>\n<p>The Temple of Hatshepsut is the most beautiful temple in all of Ancient Egypt. The temple was dedicated to the deified queen Hatshepsut and was constructed by Senenmut, the woman&#8217;s most trusted advisor and a powerful official at court. It was build during her reign, between 1479 BC and 1458 BC, as part of her mortuary complex on the west bank of the Nile at Thebes.<\/p>\n<p>The obelisks that stand in front of the temple were brought from quarries near Aswan in southern Egypt. Each one weighs about 170 tons. The temple itself is made from limestone quarried at nearby Tura. There are two pylons, or monumental gateways, that mark the entrance to the temple. Each pylon has two large statues of Hatshepsut standing in front (one with each hand raised to form an arch). Between them is a long dedicatory inscription which records several scenes from her life. Beyond these pylons are three courtyards leading up to the sanctuary where the altar would have been located. The walls of these courtyards were lined with beautiful limestone reliefs showing scenes from Hatshepsut&#8217;s life and her journey to become a god.*<\/p>\n<p>The Temple of Hatshepsut (originally named the White Chapel) is the best-preserved example of an Egyptian temple. While it was active, it would have been one of the most revered and visited sites in Egypt. The temple was built during the New Kingdom Period, but it wasn&#8217;t finished until long after Hatshepsut&#8217;s death.<\/p>\n<p>The temple had two obelisks, which were quarried specifically for this location. They were tall and wide, with ornate carvings on them (which are now mostly lost). They were set up in front of the temple. One fell over some time after it was erected; only its base remains. The other still stands today.<\/p>\n<p>In this post, I&#8217;ll talk about how obelisks were used in ancient Egyptian culture, and then I&#8217;ll discuss the Beautiful Obelisk.<\/p>\n<p>In ancient Egypt, obelisks represented solidarity between a king and his god(s). In fact, they were often called &#8220;glorious&#8221; or &#8220;majestic&#8221; obelisks (translations vary slightly depending on which text you&#8217;re reading). The word &#8220;obelisk&#8221; comes from a Greek word that means &#8220;little spit&#8221;; Egyptians believed that these stones came from the sky and were spit<\/p>\n<p>The Temple of Hatshepsut, built by the remarkable Queen of Ancient Egypt and dedicated to the ancient god Amun, is one of the most beautiful and mysterious monuments in all Egypt.<\/p>\n<p>The temple dominates the west bank of Thebes (modern Luxor) and was originally built in 1458 BC by Hatshepsut, who had usurped the throne from her stepson Tuthmosis III following his death from a blow to the head.<\/p>\n<p>She ruled for twenty years, longer than any other woman in history, before being succeeded by Tuthmosis III. In an act unique in Egyptian history she was then deified and her name and image were removed from all inscriptions referring to her reign, as though she had never existed. Her name was replaced with that of Tuthmosis III.<\/p>\n<p>The temple became known as &#8216;the Mansion of the Mer-en-Mut&#8217; or &#8216;the Mansion of Millions of Years&#8217;, although it was mostly referred to as &#8216;Hatshepsut&#8217;s Chapels&#8217;.<\/p>\n<p>The Temple of Hatshepsut is located on the west bank of the Nile River near the city Luxor in Egypt. According to the official website, it was built by Ramses II of the 19th dynasty and later renovated by other pharaohs.<\/p>\n<p>The temple was originally dedicated to Hapu, an early priest at Amun&#8217;s cult center at Karnak. However, during the reign of Hatshepsut, it was converted into a memorial for his daughter&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>The temple was built by Hatshepsut, an 18th dynasty pharaoh who was the third female ruler of Egypt (and the first female pharaoh to sit on the throne). She was also a successful military leader, who reestablished trade routes with the Land of Punt and sent an expedition to the mysterious land of Pwenet.<\/p>\n<p>Teeming with symbolic imagery, this temple has been virtually ignored by modern day Egyptologists. The color photographs here are the work of one person, Annie Gasse. She is a French Egyptologist who has worked at Karnak since 1991. Her photographs present a unique view of this structure that no one else has ever seen.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Temple of Hatshepsut (sometimes known as the Temple of Hathor) is an Ancient Egyptian temple built during the Eighteenth Dynasty. It is located in Egypt, near to El Deir el-Bahari.<\/p>\n<p>The site used to be a small chapel associated with a rock-cut sanctuary dedicated to the fertility goddess Hathor, served by priests of her cult. Then it was turned into a Ptolemaic temple dedicated to the cult of deified Queen Hatshepsut. Finally, it became a Christian and Muslim mosque before being abandoned.<iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wbCzZsF1jPo?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"420\" height=\"315\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LcGFihra0Sk?autoplay=1&#038;mute=1\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The temple of Hatshepsut is located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor. It was built by a Pharaoh who was considered a male at the time of her reign, but who has been identified as a woman in modern times. It was built to serve as both burial and mortuary temple for [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64999"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64999"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":65001,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64999\/revisions\/65001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artspainter.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}