Open Collections

Abstract

The Temple of Dendur has functioned as a site of cultural negotiation since its construction in 10 BCE. Here, cultural negotiation refers to interactions between people, groups, and cultures, during which these parties sought to, in some way, assert their place in the world, particularly in relation to each other. Despite this significance, the monument is profoundly understudied, with the last major publication dedicated to the Temple of Dendur published in 1978. Here, I re-assert its significance by examining four periods of negotiation which occurred alongside major turning points in the temple's history. These include the construction of the temple, which saw the meeting of Rome, Egypt, and the Kushites, the "rediscovery" of the temple by 18th and 19th-century European travellers, representing colonial Denmark, Britain, and France, among others, the relocation of the temple to the United States, which was a political maneuvre by Egypt in which the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization and the Soviet Union also played a part, and the recent history of the temple, which has seen the Temple of Dendur integrated into pop culture, serve as a site of reckoning, and inspire dialogue with modern artists. Each of these periods have seen the temple act as a palimpsest, tangibly and intangibly inscribed with layers of meaning superimposed over the masonry of the temple itself. The methodology of this research is multi-faceted, involving art-historical analysis as well as historical and archival research. Through the application of these methods, it is apparent that the Temple of Dendur is representative of a number of broader issues in the field of cultural heritage, namely the alienation of Egyptian cultural heritage from Egypt and Egyptians as a result of European occupation and appropriation, and a startling lack of effective safeguards against cultural heritage loss in times of war or strife.