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Introduction to the case studies
Fig. 1 Location of the temples (maps.google.com)
In order to contribute to answer my research question I will be looking specifically at a three
Roman-Egyptian temples. The first case study is the Taffeh temple, which is currently located in the
museum of antiquities in Leiden, the Netherlands. It used to be located 50 km south of Aswan. The
reason it is no longer located in its original location, which is also the case for the temple of
Dendur, is due to the building of the Aswan dam in the 1950’s. Because of the dam a lake was
formed that flooded the areas in which both temples were located. The temple was built around
the year 0, during the reign of emperor Augustus, when Egypt had just become part of the Roman
empire. Around the fourth century AD the temple was reconstructed and graffiti was added to the
temple. In this period however the Romans were no longer in control of the area in which the
Taffeh temple is located. Therefore these changes to the temple will not be taken into account
(Aldred 1978, 30; Schneider 1979, 11; Raven 1999, 87-88).
The temple of Dendur is a Roman-Egyptian temple currently located in the Metropolitan museum
of art in New York, USA. It was moved there after the rescue operation at the Aswan dam in 1960
and has been exhibited in the museum since 1978. The place where the temple was originally
from, Dendur, was located about 80 km south of Aswan. The temple was built between 23 BC and
10 AD by Roman emperor Augustus (Aldred 1978, 30).
The temple of Shenhur started to be built during the reign of Augustus (27 BC – AD 14) and was
finished during the reign of Trajan (98 – 117 AD). The temple is located in Upper Egypt, about 20
km north of Luxor, near two major cult centers, Koptos and Thebes (Meyer and Minas-Nerpel
2012, 1).