A Town on a temple.

Hi all, came along this nice depiction and wanted to share it:

The text on top:

"The Veʃtibule of a most superb temple at DINDARA, the ancient TENTARA, in Upper Egypt."

The text below:

"The maʃsy columns forty feet high halfburied in the sands and charged with hieroglyphic sculptures. On the extenʃive summit of the temple the ARABIANS have created a conʃiderable Town."

The stamp top right corner says in french: musee de l'homme ( museum of man )



It kind of looks like the Hathor temple , maybe the artist was working of a vocal description or are we missing a temple?

Hathor Temple:

a reply to: EartOccupant


From a common sense perspective, if such a huge temple existed and remained enough intact with enough space to build atop it's roof and if it was in the flood plain - rather than sand of the desert then this image would perhaps make more sense, people using an ancient half subsided temple ruin as dry ground safe from the unpredictable but essential Nile flood's and building there village atop it, but if so there is no trace of such a site as far as I know - which is not to say that at some point such a thing may not have happened as it very well could have.

Still a temple of such size would be stupendous even by today's standard's and invaders have often reused older site's for there own use or in some cases lain claim to older construction's for there own glory - even Egyptian king's may have done this on occasion re-branding older ruin's with there own cartouche.

Take the Parthenon in Athens.
Athens as a city had died and all that remained of the ancient metropolis was a village with the ruin's of a glorious past all around it mostly buried but enough stuck from the ground.
The Parthenon was so well built that it remained standing for over 2000 years almost intact and even it's roof survived long enough that the Turk's used it as a store for gunpowder which had to be kept dry.
aristotleguide.wordpress.com...

What you have to remember with images like this though is that when this was drawn many map makers were still drawing dragon's and sea monsters at the edges of there map's, depictions of strange imaginary beasts were also a feature and artists had more free licence to draw as they imagined which with no cultural base or knowledge other than there own interpretation of what other's spoke of to go by often led to some very strange depiction's indeed.

My gut feeling is that such a gigantic temple with a town on top in Egypt while possible never actually existed and the likely real story was of a village built atop and amidst the ruins' of a temple and not actually on it's roof but that this depiction is how the artists then interpreted what he was told.

Still it's a cool image and it stir's the imagination.

Those are about light.

a reply to: DEPAOR

You mean the dragon's and serpent's as well as the being's with head's in there stomach's and one foot, no they were about ignorance of what was there.
There are many kind's of light, light of the eye, light of the soul, wisdom, knowledge (which without wisdom is still darkness) and the light of reason - awakening - understanding.
Just as there are many kind's of learning, the blind learning of those that have great memory's but no true knowledge and the true learning of those that can not learn something until they Understand it and it becomes a part of them as they understand it and that part of there soul morphs to include this understanding within there very being.

a reply to: EartOccupant

I can't find any references to either Dindara or Tentara. There is a Dendera however. I also don't understand why the town would be described as having being erected by Arabians when it is in Egypt?

a reply to: Flavian

Yes, i could not find anything about Tentera either.

Dendera and Dindara could be similar because the writing and names in those days could diver per country, language or time period i guess.

TENTERA gives me a blank as well. Nice name though.

a reply to: LABTECH767

I kinda agree, it could be an artist impression of Hathor, ( that actually has a kiosk on it's roof! )

Or it could be a lost temple... : )

Tentera... You have to admit that it sounds like an adventure place.

a reply to: LABTECH767
assuming you were aware those monuments are about light and aren’t temples.

a reply to: DEPAOR

I thought you were referring to the mention of old map's with imaginary beasts on them.

Sorry I took you out of context.

During the reign of Akenaten the Egyptian worship of the sun reached it's highest level the cult of Aten the Sun God becoming the sole official religion of Egypt.

However worship of the sun has a very long tradition not only in Egypt but around the world and not all of it good, in south america for example priests would offer living victim's beating hearts to the sun.

Egypt was not only a civilization with a pantheon but a civilization with at least two pantheon's which merged and the chief god's of those two pantheon's Amun and Re were both associated with the sun and became seen eventually as one God - though originally there were probably two competing priesthood's, in fact it may have originally been many more different religions that eventually merged, the Egyptian's however despite this babel of belief's were an extremely religious and superstitious people, interestingly there version of the afterlife was in the underworld except for the Osirius legend which placed him in the Duat there version of heaven which was in the the constellation of Orion and the sword of Orion was seen by the Egyptian's as a ladder into the Duat.

When Osiris was murdered his sister/wife Isis (nothing to do with a bunch of blood thirsty Muhammadan lunatics) gathered his pieced which were scattered around in Egypt by Set and the Conspirators (there devil and his pantheon) and bandaged them up making the first mummy, she could not however find his penis which set had hidden so took a branch (perhaps a relative of Osiris if this was based on real people and not just celestial alignments) and became pregnant from this branch with a Son whom she named Horus, he eventually fought Set to a stand still and though drawn the other God's then decided that Horus was the legitimate heir of Osiris and gave him the throne of Egypt (which to the Egyptian's represented more than just the Nile Delta but the whole world with Egypt at it's center.

Osiris body after Isis had put it back together was placed in a tomb and then rose Osiris having been transformed into a shining being, the god's of heaven and earth joined hand's forming a ladder into the Duat (the three stars of Orion's belt) upon which he ascended in his new form.