The Temple is located about 4KM from the River Nile, on its west bank, roughly opposite the city of Qena, the capital of the province and governorate of Qena (population - 2,000,000), which is inhabited by both Coptic and Muslims. This town is very famous for the manufacture of water pots, called “gula” jars in Arabic. The holy Muslim Sheik, Abdel Raheeem El-Kenawi, who spent all of his life in this town and died in 1170 A.D, founded the modern city. The birthday of this saint is celebrated every year, and a great number of pilgrims come from all over Egypt for the festivities. The name of the city goes back to the time of the pharhos , and was taken from the ancient Egyptian word Qeny, which means, “to bend”; the River Nile has a huge (and famous) bend here.
The Temple of Hathor was built in the 1st century B.C and it is one of the best-preserved Temples in the whole of Egypt! Ptolemy VIII and Queen Cleopatra II built it, and then later, Roman Emperors continued to decorate it and honour the Goddess Hathor; the Goddess of maternity, love and music. The Greeks identified the Goddess Hathor as Aphrodite.

The first gateway, built by Roman Emperor Domitian in 80 A.D, leads to the great hall of the Temple, which is decorated with Hathoric columns (columns with the face of Hathor on them) and is in a very good condition. The upper, front edge of the cornice is decorated with the winged sun disc, while stone screens between the columns and the scene, which represent the Roman Emperor Tiberius and other Roman rulers who present votive offerings to the Goddess of the Temple, enclose the front portion. Hathor is chiefly represented with the horns of the sacred cow protruding from her head, supporting the solar disc of the sun, and in her hands she is holding an “Ankh”, the symbol of life, and a sceptre. Sometimes she is also represented with the head of a cow.

The interior walls of the great hall have remarkable scenes that mainly depict sacrifices being made to the Goddess of the Temple. The amazing ceiling, with its astronomical representations, is very interesting! The ceiling is divided into 7 divisions

The temple is very well preserved and as the roof remains intact, many of the hieroglyphics inside have been preserved.

Hathor is the goddess of joy, motherhood and love amongst other things. She can be seen in many forms, primarily as a beautiful lady or a cow. She often is easily recognised by the cow horns with the sun disc in the middle.

On the second level, we were walking on huge cut stones which fit together so perfectly that they have remained 1000's of years without any supports or pillars to hold them up! Architectural magnificence!

Unofficially the temple is also called the revolution temple as many of the cartouches do not contain names and many of the writings speak poorly about the Romans who occupied Egypt at the time but could not understand Egyptian Hieroglyphics.

There was originally a zodiac calendar on the ceiling of one of the rooms in the temple but it has been taken to the Louvre. A smaller smoke covered one remains.

Another temple which is well worth visiting.

good....................