Thebes: the west bank · Middle Kingdom, New Kingdom
Deir el-Bahari
Ancient name: Djeser-djeseru, "Holy of Holies" (Hatshepsut's temple)
Hatshepsut's terraced temple under the cliffs, with the reliefs of the voyage to Punt.
Where
A bay in the cliffs of western Thebes, facing Karnak across the river
When
Mentuhotep II's temple c. 2000 BC; Hatshepsut's c. 1473–1458 BC
Built by
Mentuhotep II, then Hatshepsut (her steward Senenmut is credited with the work), then Thutmose III
Famous for
Three terraces of colonnades; the Punt reliefs; the royal mummy cache
Who built what
Mentuhotep II, who reunited Egypt and began the Middle Kingdom, built his temple and tomb in this bay of cliffs. Five centuries later Hatshepsut built hers beside it, borrowing its idea of terraces: three wide levels joined by ramps, each fronted by a colonnade, rising to a sanctuary cut into the rock. It was a memorial temple for her and a station for Amun's boat in the Beautiful Festival of the Valley.
The reliefs tell the story of her reign: her birth as the daughter of Amun, the moving of two great obelisks from Aswan to Karnak, and an expedition by sea to the land of Punt for incense trees, ebony and animals.
What survives
Late in the reign of Thutmose III, her stepson, many of Hatshepsut's images and names were cut out; why, and why so late, is still discussed. The temple was badly damaged by rockfalls and has been restored by a Polish-Egyptian mission since 1961.
In a tomb shaft just south of the temple (DB320), found in 1881, priests of the 21st Dynasty had hidden dozens of royal mummies, among them Seti I and Ramesses II, to save them from robbers.
The two builders of Deir el-Bahari, five centuries apart.
Inscriptions
3 short, well-known texts from Deir el-Bahari, each with its transliteration (the Egyptian sounds in Latin letters) and a translation. Tap Sign by sign to see what each sign is and how it is read. Royal names are drawn in their cartouches.
Maatkare, Hatshepsut's throne name
Transliteration
mꜣꜥt-kꜣ-rꜥ
Translation
“Maatkare ("Maat is the ka of Ra")”
Where: On the columns, doorways and reliefs of all three terraces, where it escaped the later erasures.
Hatshepsut is shown as a king, often with a king's beard, but the texts keep feminine word endings for her, such as zꜣt-rꜥ "daughter of Ra".
Sign by sign
Reading: The standard reading (Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar (3rd ed., 1957), Excursus A on the royal titulary); the Wikipedia article "Hatshepsut".
Punt
Transliteration
pwnt
Translation
“Punt”
Where: In the captions of the Punt reliefs on the south half of the middle colonnade.
Spelled p, w, n, t with the sign of hill country, which marks a foreign land. The reliefs show houses on stilts, incense trees carried to the ships in baskets, and the chief of Punt with his wife. Where Punt was is debated: most scholars place it on the African coast of the southern Red Sea.
Sign by sign
Reading: The standard spelling; the Wikipedia article "Land of Punt".
The temple's name, Djeser-djeseru
The sign ḏsr (an arm holding a flail, Gardiner D45) is not yet in the site's hieroglyph font, so the name is given in transliteration only.
Transliteration
ḏsr-ḏsrw
Translation
“Holy of Holies”
Where: In the building texts of Hatshepsut's temple.
"Holy of holies", or "the most sacred of sacred places". Egyptian temples had names, like ships and pyramids did.
Reading: The standard reading; the Wikipedia article "Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut".
J. H. Breasted, Ancient Records of Egypt, vol. II (1906): the Punt reliefs
Dates follow Shaw, ed., The Oxford History of Ancient Egypt (2000); before 664 BC they are approximate. Readings are the standard ones in the sources named under each inscription; translations are Teddy Rook Book's own. The hieroglyphs are drawn in the site's font, TRB Hieroglyphs, so their shapes are simplified; where an inscription's arrangement or signs can't be shown faithfully, the card says so.