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this journey will take us through Egypt's main archaeological sites and the remains of the Pharaohs culture following the course of the Great River Nile obviously the Great Pyramids will hold a special place the Sakara pyramid is a step pyramid it is a very ancient Monument part of a rich funerary complex [Music] foreign
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Temple was dedicated to hattor the goddess of love [Music] in Karnak the Sun God is venerated
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just down the Nile the ramazium is a testimony of the cult to the king Ramses II
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the Luxor Temple was paired with the Temple of Karnak they were connected by a path lined with sphinxes
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[Music] in edfu Horus the falcon-headed god ruled the city of edfu
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the Kam oboe Temple is highly original as it is dedicated to two deities Horus and sobic
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[Music] on the Philly Island the Godmother Isis is venerated she is the universal woman wife and mother
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the five thousand years of Egyptian civilization are usually cut up in several eras the old the middle and the New Kingdom interjected with intermediary periods it was in the third millennium BC that the first pharaohs of the ancient empire were born as his authority grows the King was further more deified it is the era of pyramids starting with the stepped versions at Sakara and culminating in Giza under the fourth Dynasty it will witness the birth of the basis
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for architecture painting and sculpting that will be used throughout the Middle Kingdom a thousand years later during the years 1500 to 1000 BC the New Kingdom was considered the most prosperous of Egypt's history it is a period of evolution and refinement with a cultural rebirth this period gave us some of the greatest architectural Feats such as Luxor this Temple is a rare example of a superbly preserved New Kingdom Divine Foundation
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this period's most famous Pharaoh is Ramses II who impressed history Ramses II reigned 66 years which is exceptional for the time he was renowned for his warring skills and for being a conqueror as soon as his Reign began he had already edified his funerary Temple the Temple of a million years [Music] the first Millennia BC is known as the late period it is characterized by constant power struggles and foreign sovereigns taking over Ethiopians Assyrians and libyans
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though from very different cultures these new sovereigns embrace the Egyptian model and its culture they asked to be proclaimed as pharaohs attempting to relive the glory of the old middle and new kingdoms the priests use these unpopular attitudes and took the power over the new foreign pharaohs despite a strong will to preserve the ramasied Heritage Egypt was economically weakened and could not keep hold on its vastness nor stem its decline afterwards Egypt even became a province
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firstly to the Persian Empire then the Greeks under the ptolemaic dynasty [Music] the country would finally fall to the Roman Empire at the dawn of our era evidence of this can be found in filet where the Latin conquerors left traces starting with a combination of gods and goddesses
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these sites abandoned and rediscovered in the 19th century thanks to the egyptologists tell the story of this great civilization
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foreign
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starts at Cairo and its surroundings at that time the south of the country is not visited much it was the 16th and 17th century that brought strangers to Upper Egypt the first to come were religious groups with Father Francois and slowly they will travel South
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one Anonymous Venetian traveler in particular will take interest in this city and cross it without actually knowing it was Thebes the 19th century starts bringing with it Bonaparte and his famous Egyptian Expedition team from 1798 to 1801. it will be a considerable asset for Egypt's ancient culture as it was a complete exploration covering many domains
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indeed Bonaparte came on his expedition with over 170 Scholars this group of Specialists will gather a considerable amount of data that will trigger the first true discovery of an ancient civilization
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the rediscovery of ancient Egypt is in a sense accredited to these Scholars this Expedition will have a great impact everywhere but mainly in France as it was organized in France an entire collection of documents were brought back and were used to create an important volume the famous description de legit the description of Egypt
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description the French were not able to bring all the Antiquities they had gathered during the Expedition back to France
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these antiques were blocked in Alexandria when the British Fleet destroyed the French Fleet this confrontation and the subsequent destruction of the French fleet was followed by the capitulation of Alexandria that forced the French to hand over the Antiquities they collected to Great Britain even today the British museum holds the famous Rosetta Stone the rubbings of which initiated Champion's great discovery of the hieroglyphs is
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after bonaparte's Great Expedition more scientific Endeavors will take place in Egypt dig further and further Gathering even more data one of the first great Expeditions was the one led by champagne accompanied by ebolito Rossellini this Franco Tuscan expedition was financed by King Charles the 10th of France and the Grand Duke of Tuscany the Expedition lasted several years and resulted in an important collection documenting the civilization of the Pharaohs
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they crossed Northern Egypt arriving in Nubia they made drawings and descriptive notes of All The Monuments visited by the scholars the documents made it possible to bring an entire catalog of descriptions of the Pharaohs and their Reigns this was an essential addition to the original description de legit or description of Egypt in the meantime champagne discovered the famous hieroglyphic language these Scholars not only describe the monuments architecturally but were also
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able to understand their function because champagne was able to examine them and read the hieroglyphic texts
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[Music] foreign [Music]
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's time it was a Prussian Expedition following champagne steps lepses visited the same sites and gathered more archaeological and epigraphic data
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he published the famous dinkmala in Germany which represent a considerable amount of data on the Egypt of the Pharaohs in parallel to the scientific Expeditions the events that led to creating our current great museums took place it's a peculiar time known as The War of the councils
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in the Years 1815 to 1816 France had Bernardino dravetti as its general counsel and a res salt as the British Council representing the British Empire
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this is when the Great European collections will become the richest and particularly the French and the English collections [Music]
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in 1816 a certain Belzoni came here as ordered by the consul salt with a specific aim of moving the bust of a statue in the second Courtyard of the temple that was known until then as the young memnan Belzoni began this operation in July 1816 and managed to transport this Colossus from the ramosium by boat all the way to Alexandria directions from there it went to England today one of the most visited pieces of the British museum is the same young memnan many major pieces were taken as time
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passed in a period where Antiquities were not protected by any legislation
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Travelers could cross Egypt and able to buy everything they wanted other objects were simply taken this is why there are so many pieces in the museums they were taken at a time when no real legislation operated the trade of Antiquities [Music] foreign [Music]
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he was the founder of the service of Egyptian Antiquities and the first who thought and designed an archaeological Museum in Cairo the famous bulac Museum in its first form
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conducted digs in many sites and has crossed the country from the Delta to Upper Egypt his considerable excavations have enabled the collection of beautiful monuments and objects that were in the first place recorded then brought to the first Egyptian museum
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the latter was later transferred at Marriott's death to the Giza Museum before being permanently relocated in the great museum of feronic Antiquities a recent creation dating back to 1902.
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Mariette was the founder of the service for Antiquities in 1858. from that moment he said an effective legislation that enabled to regulate all archaeological concessions they were gradually given to foreign excavators to ensure control over all archaeological sites the initial Adventure slowly structured itself and evolved so when Mariette left the scene Gaston maspero took over
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directed The Antiquity service for a number of years and was also the founder of Jose's the French School of Cairo France truly started implementing itself in the Egyptian egyptologist field this school still exists today under the name of Jose del archeology the French Institute of the Oriental archeology a great number of French egyptologists archaeologists and philologists attended the school in the decades following the French presence in Egyptian archeology Rose continuously as
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the Egyptian Antiquity service kept being directed by French experts for a long time video Until the revolution led by Gamal Abdel Nasser the services
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today's context is very different Egypt being the master of its Destiny since the nazarian revolution Egyptians have directed The Antiquity service nowadays some authorizations are given to foreign missions these official missions ensure the upkeep of digs restoration works and conservations in the complex of archaeological sites to make sure we continue exploring them
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these are short-term missions as the financing has greatly diminished and Egypt no longer manages financing of foreign missions foreign missions now have to finance themselves today the foreign Expeditions work one four or five months per year on a single site their goal is to deepen and broaden the excavations to make epigraphic iconographic for architectural surveys and to restore or preserve a monument
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egyptologist research includes many archaeological missions that mix different nationalities as there are French and British as well as Germans Italians Spanish Russians and Americans so we have a whole pallet of nationalities working to further egyptologist research in Egypt nationalities
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thank you
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another undeniable Jewel of the Nile this one constructed for the most part under the 18th and 19th dynasties in the 14th century BC the Temple of Luxor or Opeth in the south is an Egyptian Temple dedicated to the cult of Amon it is located on the side of the ancient city thieves the capital of the Empire which has also held the Karnak temple in the North dedicated to the Divine tribe of Thebes Amon moot his wife and konsu their son the Luxor temple functioned in
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partnership with that of Karnak to which it was linked with path lined with sphinxes a dromos over two kilometers long and boarded by 700 sphinxes with those close to Luxor in the image of the Pharaohs each year during the Festival of opet the god Amon would take this path to go to his Southern Harem in a grandiose procession Luxor Temple is in some ways the complement to the Great temple of Amon at Karnak as it was dedicated to the dynastic King's role as janitor under
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the guise of Amun mean the impregnator [Music] the oldest currently visible parts of the temple date back to amenotep III it was later Modified by Ramses II who notably added six Monumental statues and two obelisks one of which was offered to France in 1831 and has stood in the place de la Concord in Paris since then the great pylon entrance measures 65 meters wide and 24 meters high its two Mass seats were originally covered by a white primer decorated with precious metal plaques and sculpted
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decorations painted with Vivid colors of the six colossal statues of Ramses II carved out of blocks of pink and gray Granite two sitting and four standing there remains only three two sitting and one on foot these giant Effigies evoke the Divine aspect of the king executed in the most pure style of the 18th Dynasty Luxor Temple constitutes an example of the Divine foundation of the New Kingdom that is rare for having remained so well preserved foreign
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baboons and poses of adoration are carved onto the pedestal of the pink Granite Obelisk that remains in place this Obelisk stands about 26 meters high and weighs around 230 tons its pyramidal Summit was covered by a sheet of electrum an alloy of 80 gold and 20 silver which sparkled in the sunlight symbolizing the sun god Raw foreign
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faces three rows of vertical inscriptions repeat the name and titles of Ramses the Great the glorifier of Thebes favorite of the two goddesses and having established monuments in Luxor for his father Aman who placed him on the throne king of Upper and Lower Egypt Ra's Chosen One [Music] Luxor Temple was conceived according to a classical plan crossing the pylon through a narrow door the procession which came from Karnak with the solar boat of the god Ra would first cross
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this Courtyard before getting to the sanctuary with the statuette of the God was kept in the precious Mouse this first Courtyard built under Ramses II is surrounded by porticos including a double roll of 74 massive columns that recall those of Karnak
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[Music]
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with smooth bases enclosed papyrus-shaped capitals
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foreign this Majestic Courtyard has a width of 50 meters and a length of 57. and each surface is covered by ceremonial inscriptions
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[Music]
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[Music] to build this Courtyard Ramsey's architect took into account the existence of a triple Chapel repository to hachetsu constructed for the theban Triad it would be restored by Ramses II on the occasion of the construction of the pylon the chapel is preceded by fine columns in the form of Papyrus bouquets of the 18th Dynasty
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[Music]
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the south end of Courtyard is also ornamented by colossal statues that alternate with The Columns 11 giant statues on foot and two colossal statues sitting the majority of them were sculpted in Granite and they all carried the name Ramses II the Colossal statue materializes two facets of the king the human and the divine the role of the Colossal statue is the cult the elevation of the king to divinity Ramses II was a great theologian he adopted for himself the initiative of
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the monotheistic Cult of the sun begun by Akhenaten but he also preserved the traditional religions while working to develop a religion Without Borders based on his own person he continued to favor the temples of the great gods of the Empire Amun ra TA or Osiris in order to bring the people together he bestowed a splendor without equal to temples and Cults to Gods all over two more sitting colossal statues in the form of Ramses the Great precede the entrance of the great processional Colonnade
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[Music] thank you
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the ba relief that ornaments the Southern Wall reveals the initial appearance of the pylon with the two obelisks and six colossal statues to us this work shows the first 17 Royal princes conducted by Ramses II himself who leads the inaugural procession and directs it towards the pylon for the occasion of this solemn procession large decorated Bulls were brought to be sacrificed the space between their horns was sometimes garnished with feathers was sometimes the mask of a Nubian or the mask of a
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Semite their sacrifice was a substitute for that of the Nubian or Asian populations that according to ancient tradition each King had to put to death to ensure his Triumph foreign
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[Music]
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[Music] under the watch of the two colossal statues of the Pharaoh we cross the second pylon of a menotep III and enter the processional Colonnade its columns are more than 20 meters high and mark the proper entrance to the temple the structures of amenotep III began with this pylon and The Colonnade of 14 Papyrus shipped columns with open capitals the highest of all the remaining edifices conserved in the temple this Hall is made up of two rows of seven bell-shaped smooth columns on top
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of which heavy architraves are placed [Music] the processional Colonnade constitutes the solemn entrance to the Temple of a menotep III and measures some 52 meters because Thebes was the seed of divine and royal power the simple local God Amon was merged with the universal Sun God Ra in this way Aman ra acquired a dominant place above the other Egyptian gods and upon which the power of the new pharaohs of the New Kingdom was founded
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the release on the lateral walls of the pathway date back to Tutankhamun and hormab in the 14th century BC they show the official Festival of opet this celebration took place during the second month of the flood season in a ceremonial boat pulled by A procession from the Nile River during its growth the theban tribe of Amon his wife Moot and their son konsu would travel from Karnak Temple to Luxor Temple surrounded by soldiers musicians and dancers [Music] there the god Amman taking on his
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fertile form amen mean the phallic rediscovered his Vigor and then at the end of the celebrations that would last 11 days he would return to Karnak This Time by way of the great dromos still in the company of his Divine family built around the sanctuary of Amen mean Luxor Temple was consecrated to the mystery of life that the god Amun in the form of the beneficent Nile River renewed each year the colonide leads to the second hypo style Courtyard [Music] a great Square Courtyard 52 meters long
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and 46 meters wide the solar court is bordered on three sides by a double row of 64 Papyrus Capital columns with fluted polygonal bodies [Music] the numerous architraves on which the name of menotep III is engraved still hold an unchanged freshness to this day and let you guess how impressive the courtyard must have been before
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[Music] thank you
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the solar boats crossed the courtyard during the Festival of opet to take their place in small chapels arranged for this purpose openings in the walls of the porticos [Music]
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the sanctuary itself or rather amon's residence as well as the rooms that preceded have conserved a good part of this lab coverings the first room of this covered area the hypo style Hall hold 32 Papyrus Columns of the same type as those of the courtyard arranged in four rows it was illuminated by daylight creating an intermediary space between the bright Sun of the courtyard and the Darkness of the small rooms of the Temple
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[Music] when the Romans transformed Luxor into a military camp in the 3rd Century A.D the second type of style Hall called the vestibule was transformed into a Chapel of the Imperial religion after that the walls were newly redecorated with a stucco primer and figures painted in a purely Greco-Roman Style they would later turn away from the religion at the chapel in the honor of the great Emperor Augustus would even be erected [Music]
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thank you but let's go back to ancient times and another room with representations of the Gods located nearby at the end of the Temple this small room with four columns held the table of offerings here during the 15 days of the Festival of opet priests followed each other in leaving the diverse fresh victuals that were necessary for the festivities of the Gods
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[Music]
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the decorations show amenotep III paying tribute to God and receiving the crown of Egypt from the hands of his Divine father among
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thank you [Music] Luxor is one of the most ancient holy places in the world indeed the religious use of the site has continued more or less uninterrupted from more than 3 500 years even if it was entirely reworked during the new Empire
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thank you [Music] the Persistence of a religious location whose Splendor hasn't seized despite the somersaults of History [Music]
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oh
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after having reached the door of the offering room we enter into the holy of holies the sanctuary room of the holy boat of the godamon the room was supported by four ground columns the bases of which appear on the tiling [Music] among the adjoining rooms including storerooms we notice in particular the repository chapels dedicated to the theban Triad on the walls the king's senses and offers Libations and bouquets of flowers to Amman the offerings including the decorated
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Bulls are brought here by the king's butchers [Music]
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[Music]
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oh
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the rooms leading up to the naus recommemorate the myth of the king's Supernatural origin in graven images Amon will once again marry moot who will again give birth to consoo a ritual where the Pharaoh will also be reborn from his father Amon thus each new Reign favored the beginning of a new cycle furthermore this allowed a celebration of the permanence of the royal function periodically renewed by Amman this was in fact the major function of such a temple
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paired with Karnak and Thebes the ancient capital of the country Luxor was certainly the most important religious site in Egypt during the New Kingdom [Music]
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thank you foreign
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Egypt on the banks of the Nile River around 65 kilometers to the north of Luxor begun under the reign of the last Ptolemy the Temple of dundera was finished during the Roman empire under the emperor Nero around the year 60 A.D this site is extraordinarily well preserved with its very deep Crypts dug into the width of the walls and covered in strongly colored religious bow relief its main Temple dedicated to the goddess hathon is the largest covering some forty thousand square meters it is also
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one of the most well-preserved temples of the site if not the best in all of Egypt it is also one of the most well decorated of the ptolemaic era in Egyptian mythology hathor is the goddess of love beauty music motherhood and joy she is venerated at Indira and associated with the god Horus her husband of the temple at edfu she is represented in the form of a woman carrying the solar disc between her horns or as a cow the first king to whom we attribute the
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construction of the temple at dendara is Ptolemy XII it was surrounded by a thick brick wall the remains of which still exist today and demonstrate if it is still necessary all the architectural know-how of the ancient Egyptians
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[Music] thank you [Music] the adobe brick wall that surrounds the complex of monuments at dundera includes the Gateway of the Roman Emperor's domission and trajan constructed during the final period of the temple at the end of the first century
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vestiges of chapels even Roman ones can be found at the entrance
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the ancient Greeks identify hathor as the goddess Aphrodite and the Romans as Venus in Egypt the goddess of the power of femininity was Isis but though the two goddesses were initially in competition they were merged in the later periods and we see representations of Isis with a haircut of hathor appear hathor is generally represented as a goddess cow with horns between which the solar disk and ureas appear [Music] to the east another part of the city stretches out with a Coptic Basilica in
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the center it was probably constructed in the 5th Century which shows the adaptation and appropriation of ancestral cultural sites by the Christian religion elsewhere the necropolis of the city contains very ancient tombs from the pre-dynastic era and the end of the ancient empire according to the inscriptions relating to the founding of the temple its layout was inspired by very old documents dating back to Khufu and even Mythic times but currently the oldest Monument
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still visible is a mummy Sea dating from the air of nectanebo the first [Music] foreign
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[Music]
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Temple is different from other Greco-Roman temples because it possesses neither Monumental pylons nor a porticoat courtyard four columns with capitals ornament the facade and one access is the temple by entering directly into the hypo style Hall the four heads of haththor ornamenting the capitals of each column proclaimed the Universal Character of the goddess [Music] the scenes show the Triad of hathor Horus and their son harsantis who has offered the Lotus which is linked to the Rising Sun
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[Music] higher up we see the sacred Horus the king of kings the trapezoidal facade is topped by a cornice [Music] at certain hours of the day the light skimming the architrave allows one to better contemplate the diverse divinities making offerings who Advance towards the centrally located symbol of the goddess the winged solar disk
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the hypo style Hall was decorated at the beginning of our era under the Reigns of the Roman Emperor's Augustus and narrow 18 historic columns support the ceiling the capitals of which featured the face of the Goddess hathor on four sides wearing a heavy wig and capped by a Systrom her favorite musical instrument these plant-like columns evoke the night in which the moon hides they represent the primordial swamp from which all creation Springs the source of all life
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all of the columns and all of the inner walls are covered by magnificent hieroglyphs the colors of which are still preserved underneath the Dust [Music]
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[Music] the ceiling of the hyperstyle hall is divided by arshatraves into seven spans they are a base for astronomic representations the diurnal trajectory of the Sun the nocturnal trajectory of the Moon the 12 hours of the day and night and even eclipses
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[Music] astronomy is linked to The Cult of hathor and the priests closely followed the movements of the stars as a way of establishing a precise calendar of religious celebrations America
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another span shows the lunar calendar divided in 14 characters representing the phases of the Moon
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[Music] the Moon is represented by the eye
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foreign [Music] the ceiling of the hyperstyle Hall of the Temple of dandera is a nearly exhaustive inventory of the astronomic knowledge of the Egyptians during the ptolemaic era the interior walls of the hyperstyle hall are ornamented with reliefs above on the four registers the names of the Roman emperors who share the title of pharaoh appear Augustus Tiberius Caligula Claudius and Nero they all worship hathor and dedicate offerings to her on one wall we see the king and a priest
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as they sense the soul of the ruler [Music] foreign
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[Music] in the sanctuary they put the boats destined for the goddess as well as her statues the bar reliefs depict a succession of daily religious rights the king had to accomplish like breaking the seals of the door worshiping hathor or offering her incense of course the king himself could not accomplish all these rights on his own these are the priests who acted as his substitutes for the task [Music]
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small very narrow corridors built into the width of the walls are the foundations lead to small size decorated rooms the Crips hidden places exclusively reserved for priests these rooms arranged in several levels served to store Divine and sacred objects the Treasures of the temple religious materials and the archives [Music] to the right we enter into the open ceiling Courtyard it precedes the small kiosk of the new year on the ceiling of the kiosk we see representations of nut and of the birth
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of the sun which beams its Rays onto the temple
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foreign
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represented here by the head of hathor which we recognize by its cow-like ears sticking out of its hair it stands on a mountain between two trees
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[Music]
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[Music] halfway up the stairs the procession would stop in order for the priest to complete all the rituals celebrating the union of the goddess hathor to the solar disk the roof of the temple is topped by the kiosk of the disk laid out on a rectangle with its 12 columns pointing hathor's face to the four cardinal directions this is where the celebration of the new year was held each year with the Rising Sun as part of the ceremony called the Union to the disk they would transport
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the statue of hathor to the roof of the temple so that it could be regenerated by the solar rays of her father Raw
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[Music] in another kiosk the ceiling shows a famous map of the sky the constellations and the deccans which is known as the dundera zodiac [Music]
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the dandera zodiac is a map of the Stars projected on a plane it shows the 12 constellations of the zodiac the 36 deccans and the planets some of these are represented in the same forms as those of their familiar names for example those of Ares Taurus Scorpio Capricorn or Leo
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moving on we see a statue of the god bass on the ground in the courtyard he is a grotesque potbellied God but also the one who protected the birth of hathor's divine child other scattered Stones set the imagination free
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[Music]
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going around the perimeter of the temple on the rear face there is a representation of the queen Cleopatra accompanied by her son Caesarean who is fathered by Caesar foreign
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[Music] now it's time to leave hathor here and continue our trip along the Nile to go up River towards Aswan
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[Music]
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thank you [Music]
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foreign
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[Music]
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foreign
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[Applause]
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thank you
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foreign
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[Music]
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