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Taffeh temple
Introduction to the Taffeh temple
The Taffeh temple used to be located in Lower Nubia, near a Roman-Egyptian settlement called
Taphis, located 50 km south of Aswan in Nubia. The temple was built during the reign of emperor
Augustus who ruled from 31 BC to 14 AD. It is now located in the museum of antiquities in Leiden.
The reason that it is no longer located in Egypt is because of the building of the new high dam at
Aswan in the 1950’s. This dam would create a lake of 3000 squared miles, causing certain areas to
be flooded, including the region in which the Taffeh temple and the temple of Dendur were
originally located (Aldred 1978, 67; Schneider 1979, 11; 94).
The Taffeh temple was shipped to the Netherlands at the end of 1970 and arrived in the
Netherlands in January 1971. The reason the temple was gifted to the Netherlands, was because
of the provided support in rescuing important archaeological objects, such as the temples of Abu
Simbel and the temples of Philae (Schneider 1979, 11-16).
The Taffeh temple was not the only structure in its area. There was another temple located 90
meters south of it. This temple is therefore referred to as the southern temple. This temple was in
a bad condition and has therefore been demolished in the late 19
th
century. There is however a
ground-plan available of the southern temple, which I will be using in my research as well
(Schneider 1979, 92-93; Wilkinson 2007, 216).
Both the Taffeh temple and the southern temple were part of a sequence of temples and
fortresses built in Nubia as part of the Nubian construction-program. This was started during the
Greek period and finished by the Romans. The style and decorations on the capitals of the Taffeh
temple are similar to those of several other temples built for this Nubian construction-program
(Schneider 1979, 11; 94).