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Fig. 21 Cross section of temple of Dendur (Aldred 1978, 42-43)
Fig. 22 Temple of Dendur on platform on original location (Aldred 1978, 40)
The gateway
Aldred describes the gateway to be “typically Egyptian”. It is built of massive blocks of stone with a
cavetto cornice and torus mouldings below. Above the lintel the gateway has a representation of a
winged disk. Aldred describes the winged disc to represent the god Horus of Edfu. Because of a
myth inscribed in the temple of Edfu, in which Horus flew up into the empyrean to reveal the
lurking enemies of the sun god, the winged sun disc was placed as a protection over all temple
doorways. Aldred describes the gateway to have been built of sandstone blocks. These originally
penetrated the mud-brick wall that enclosed the temple precincts. This wall had completely
disappeared by the beginning of the last century (Aldred 1978, 45; www.metmuseum.org,
accessed on 27-3-2019, Griffiths 1958, 78).
Traditional Egyptian pylon gateways had both a defensive and symbolic function. They defended
the gateway from intruders and symbolically repelled the forces of chaos and evil from the world
outside the temple gates. From the new kingdom onwards the most common decorative motif on
pylons is that of the king smiting his enemies. He uses a raised club or short khepesh sword in the
traditional “smiting scene”. There is no evidence of the traditional smiting scene to be found on
the pylon gate, however the winged disk could have served as a different kind of protection (Málek
and Baines 1981, 61; Wilkinson 2007, 60).