At Dendoor, when the sun is setting and a delicious gloom is stealing up the valley, we visit a tiny Temple on the western bank. It stands out above the river surrounded by a wall of enclosure, and consists of a single pylon, a portico, two little chambers, and a sanctuary The whole thing is like an exquisite toy, so covered with sculptures, so smooth, so new-looking, so admirably built. Seeing them half by sunset, half by dusk, it matters not that these delicately-wrought bas-reliefs are of the Decadence school. The rosy half-light of an Egyptian afterglow covers a multitude of sins, and steeps the whole in an atmosphere of romance.
-Amelia Edwards
On April 28, 1967, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed a letter that officially awarded the Temple of Dendur to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. More than a decade later, on September 27, 1978, the Temple of Dendur opened to the public, allowing generations of museumgoers the opportunity to enjoy this monument in its new setting as an example of a small but traditional Egyptian temple.
Completed in 10 B.C., the Temple of Dendur was commissioned by Caesar Augustus shortly after he became emperor of Rome. He chose this location in Lower Nubia along the west bank of the Nile (south of modern-day Aswan) for his new temple because the site was already sacred to the local Nubians. Dendur housed a small hillside shrine that probably focused on the worship of two brothers, Pedesi and Pihor, sons of a local Nubian ruler.
During the period in which it was built (15–10 B.C.), Dendur was part of a region under the religious authority of the large temple to Isis at Philae. By building a temple at Dendur dedicated to both the great goddess Isis and these two brothers, Augustus encouraged the local Nubian population to view Roman rule favorably.
We have finally reached the point in our investigation in which the famous Temple of Dendur shall be examined and contextualized, where all the pieces of our occult drama shall begin to fit together.
But first, why is this Egyptian temple located in Central Park?
In order to better contain the annual flooding of the Nile that affected the region's crop production, the construction of the Aswan High Dam began in 1960, and by 1970 the formation of Lake Nasser was complete. This vast lake covers more than 2,000 square miles, including the ancient site of Dendur. If not for UNESCO's ambitious International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia, the Temple of Dendur would have been submerged forever beneath Lake Nasser. However, in the early 1960s, fifty countries around the world came together to contribute expertise, equipment, and funds—both governmental and private—to record settlements, cemeteries, fortresses, churches, and shrines, as well as to move and reinstall on safe ground twenty-two temples. In 1965, to recognize the United States' substantial contribution to this campaign, Egypt gifted Dendur's temple and gateway to the U.S.
A commission was appointed in 1967 by the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities to review applications from institutions and local governments interested in displaying the Temple of Dendur. Met Director Thomas Hoving and Curator of Egyptian Art Henry G. Fischer presented a proposal to the commission, making a strong case for The Met's readiness to care for the temple. The presentation was successful and Dendur was awarded to the Museum a few weeks later. As part of their presentation, Hoving and Fischer promised to make the temple available to visitors, display it in a manner that enhanced its architectural presence—in both daytime and nighttime settings—inside a gallery that protected the temple and housed it alongside one of the world's finest collections of Egyptian art.
From the banks of the Nile to the Met in Central Park.
(One quick note before jumping into it, due to a delicious synchronicity my friend MASSexpedition on Twitter has also been researching the temple, and he has a thoroughly researched collection of threads regarding it on Twitter. I urge you to check them out).
Let us first take a look at the location of the temple, to orient the building in relation to the entire complex.
As you can see, the Temple is housed in the northeast section of the Met, but feet from both the Obelisk we have spent the last two sections examining, and the reservoir in which all the drownings occurred.
Our mission today is to attempt to understand how this temple may form a symbolic constellation with the other spaces and objects we have examined, how the occult topography tangles and weaves. To accomplish such a task, we must understand the deities that traditionally inhabited the Temple of Dendur, and how such thematic types may have been utilized by the 20th-century occultists who lurk in the margins of our tale. Let me quote a section from the last article: