Dendera Temple complex

The earliest extant (surviving) building in the compound today is the mammisi raised by Nectanebo II – last of the native pharaohs (360–343 BC).

The original temple structure underwent continuous modifications throughout the Middle Kingdom and up until the beginning of the reign of the Roman emperor Trajan.

[6] The existing temple's structure began construction in 54 B.C.E, the late Ptolemaic period, under the reign of Ptolemy Auletes.

There is controversy as to whether they were granted permission by Egypt's ruler, Muhammad Ali Pasha, to do so, or whether they stole it.

(It is also said that in 1822, an antiquities thief using the name "Claude Le Lorraine" [not to be confused with the French Baroque painter] removed the zodiac from Dendera, brought it back to France, and sold it to the King.)

An opening in the Flame Room floor leads to a narrow chamber with representations on the walls of the objects which were kept in them.

In the second chamber, a relief depicts Pepi I offering a statuette of the God Ihy to four images of Hathor.

In the crypt accessible from the Throne Room, Ptolemy XII has jewelry and offerings for the gods.

The Hathor Temple has stone reliefs that depict Harsomtus, in the form of a snake, emerging from a lotus flower.

In six reliefs he is positioned within an oval container called a hn, which might represent the womb of Nut.

[18] The Roman mammisi is a subsidiary building dating to the reigns of Trajan and Marcus Aurelius.

This sphinx is depicted with a slight grin and dimples and is thought to have been created in the image of the Roman emperor Claudius.