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The design is interpreted by Aldred as the design of the goddesses of Upper and Lower Egypt,
Nekhbet and Wadjit. They are depicted as flying vultures, each wearing their distinctive crowns.
According to Aldred the goddess of Upper Egypt, recognised by the white crown, has mistakenly
been given a cobra’s head. He does not mention the fact that the first depiction appears to have a
different head however and what this means. The goddesses are facing the doorway into the
second chamber. The remaining ceiling was once painted blue with yellow stars symbolising the
day and night skies according to Aldred, but this can no longer be seen in the temple. The
architraves and ceiling of ancient Egyptian temples did usually have reliefs depicted on them
representing the sky (Málek and Baines 1981, 64; Aldred 1978, 37).
When reviewing the ceiling myself I did not discover anything resembling the night sky. It is
however possible that this decoration was recognised before, but was washed away when the
temple of Dendur was drowned by the lake of Aswan. For almost 30 years after the final
heightening of the old Aswan dam in 1933, Dendur was flooded nine months of the year (Aldred
1978, 17).
In my opinion it would be strange to assume this is a mistake. It could have been a
miscommunication or misconception of some sorts and indeed a mistake by the Romans confusing
the two goddesses and their respective crowns. The change of symbolism could also have been on
purpose due to changes in the culture and symbolism. It is possible that the goddess on the ceiling
panel represented the different elements representing Upper and Lower Egypt and were mixed on
purpose, perhaps to indicate the unity between two regions, which could be symbolically
important in this particular case where two regions are united as well, as the lord this temple was
gifted to belonged to a cultural group known as the Blemmeys. This group was often in strife with
the Roman empire, so the loyalty of a Blemmey lord and Roman emperor would have been very
important (Schneider 1979, 12).
It is very hard to interpret the shapes however due to poor qualities of the image. This scene is
also not elaborately discussed or described by Aldred and he never explains why he thinks the
goddess has ‘mistakenly’ been given the cobra’s head or what he identifies the first head as.