Temple of Hatshepsut, Luxor

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People go to Deir Al-Bahri to see the focal point of the area which is the Temple of Hatshepsut. The 3 level temple is 97 feet tall and connected by long ramps. The temple is a reconstruction of the original using materials that is left of the original temple, and constructed to it's best to take it's original form.

The temple is located below a huge rock cliff or mountain.

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The mortuary temples of Mentuhotep II, Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut is located in a place called Deir Al-Bahri not very far from the Valley of the Kings, we drove like for 15 minutes from VOK to Deir Al-Bahri.

Entry fee is EGP30 + 2 for the small train transport to the site which is actually walkable but it's hot so save your energy and sweat.

The main sight on Al Deir Al-Bahri is the reconstructed temple of Hatshepsut.

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The temple was built around 1478 to 1458 BC.

It is a mortuary temple or tomb for Queen Hatshepsut, Egypt's most famous female pharaoh.

Partly curved into the spectacular limestone cliff backdrop, the three-tiered Temple of Hatshepsut marks one of the earliest and most breathtaking unions of nature and architecture.

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Other than the Ptolemaic Cleopatra, who came a thousand or so years later, Hetshepsut figures as the most well known woman ruler of Egypt. She was the popular daughter of Tuthmosis I, who was himself quite a popular and successful empire builder. Hatshepsut basically maintained the integrity of her father's empire, using her political court intrigue to maintain herself on the throne. Actually, her husband and half brother, whose mother was not queen, Tuthmosis II, became also her husband. Tuthmosis II was weak both in terms of political skills and health, and he died within three years of ascending to power. Hatsephsut had no children by him, but her husband had a bastard son named Tuthmosis III, whom Hatsephsut send abroad for 22 years. She ruled for some 20 years, constructing a large number of temples at Karnak and elsewhere, and commissioned a merchant expedition to Punt (modern day Somalia). She died on the throne, and Tuthmosis III returned to take the reigns of power. Tuthmosis III was himself a considerable ruler, who systematically defaced Hatshepsut's image wherever it was, but fortunately added to rather than destroyed the works that she had built. There remains some debate about the nature of her rule, relative to that of her stepson Tuthmosis III, which is discussed in the web link below. The temple, her most notable acheivement for tourists, is beautifully set back against cliffs, just over an outcrop of mountain from Valley of the Kings. The temple of Hathor, the sometime female, sometimes cow headed God is an important theme in a ruined portion of the complex. Reliefs of feasts and gifts suggests that Hatshepsut was not a woman without appreciation for fun, but rather a calculating woman. She did have children by another lover, apparently.

Hatshepsut was the most famous of the female pharaohs in Ancient Egypt. Her reign was the longest of all the female pharaohs, and her temple still stands as a tribute to her incredible rise to power. She was the the queen who became king.

The temple is located close to the Valley of the Kings. It is partly cut into the cliff face and partly free-standing.

It is quite a spectacular sight from from a distance, and well worth the walk from the car park, and the climb up the steps to the temple.

Once you get up to the temple there is also a great view looking back across the valley.

I have a few more photos from the temple in my Travelogue

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The focal point of the Deir el-Bahari complex is the Djeser-Djeseru meaning "the Holy of Holies", the Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut. It is a colonnaded structure, which was designed and implemented by Senemut, royal steward and architect of Hatshepsut (and believed by some to be her lover, to serve for her posthumous worship and to honor the glory of Amun.

Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of colonnaded terraces, reached by long ramps that once were graced with gardens. It is built into a cliff face that rises sharply above it, and is largely considered to be one of the "incomparable monuments of ancient Egypt" It is 97 feet (30 m) tall.

The unusual form of Hatshepsut's temple is explained by the choice of location, in the valley basin of Deir el-Bahari, surrounded by steep cliffs. It was here, in about 2050 BC, that

Deir el-Bahari ad-dayr al-baḥrî, literally meaning, "The Northern Monastery") is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt.

The first monument built at the site was the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh dynasty.

During the Eighteenth dynasty, Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut also built extensively at the site.

Mentuhotep II, the founder of the Middle Kingdom, laid out his sloping, terrace-shaped mortuary temple. The pillared galleries at either side of the central ramp of the Djeser Djeseru correspond to the pillar positions on two successive levels of the Temple of Mentuhotep.

Today the terraces of Deir el-Bahari only convey a faint impression of the original intentions of Senenmut. Most of the statue ornaments are missing - the statues of Osiris in front of the pillars of the upper colonnade, the sphinx avenues in front of the court, and the standing, sitting, and kneeling figures of Hatshepsut; these were destroyed in a posthumous condemnation of this pharaoh. The architecture of the temple has been considerably altered as a result of misguided reconstruction in the early twentieth century A.D.

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The most interesting thing is to look from distance. You will have a look of modernity, the building seeming a recent classical construction (maybe because it may have been recosntructed) .

It’s a good opportunity for you to imagine the opulence of all those palaces, when they were not ruins but living places.

Of course, when you approach the temple the centuries come out of the building to confirm it’s authenticity. Then it will have nothing very important to add to the others. But the history…Really a woman?

Or one of those natural sexual accidents that, nowadays, are gold for some media and must have been a drama to antiquity and history to deal with?

Tip on Tip: If you are lucky enough to see people or animals in the mountains behind the temple, use their size to get a exact idea of the proportions of the temple.

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Beautiful wall paintings just inside the collonade of columns. These were on the right of the temple. Can you see the captured Oryx in the middle of the picture? Its legs are tied up and it is lying on its back - waiting to be butchered.
We spent ages staring at this painting, the detail is marvellous and the subtle colours a real pleasure to behold.