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Dendur
Dendur was a gift from the Roman emperor to a local Blemmey lord as a way to honour his sons
who had drowned in the Nile. It was therefore probably not a public temple like the Taffeh temple,
but more reserved to the priests and perhaps relatives of the brothers. This is supported by the
fact that the false door in this temple does not function similarly to those in Taffeh and Shenhur. It
is located in the sanctuary, where common people were not allowed. It was a way for the brothers
to be able to enter the temple to receive their offerings.
There is no place in the temple where the common people could have communed with the god
and the decoration seems mostly aimed at deifying and honouring the deceased brothers as well
as religiously legitimising the Roman emperor. The brothers were probably taken out of their
resting place and carried around in processions. It is possible the common people were allowed to
participate in this event or in other temple festivals, but it is also possible the common people
were in no way allowed on the temple grounds (Aldred 1978, 30-32).
The sanctuary of Dendur has a stela. This is where the biggest difference is shown between this
temple and the temple of Taffeh and Shenhur. The temple of Dendur was a mortuary temple while
the temple of Taffeh and Shenhur were divine temples. The mortuary temple was built for a
deceased individual. It was built in addition to a grave, located elsewhere. In a mortuary temple
the offerings could be made. The false door stela was meant to allow the deceased individual to
travel from his grave, located elsewhere, to his temple to receive the offerings (Aldred 1978, 57-
61).
Divine temples on the other hand were built to honour gods. Shenhur is an example of this. This
temple was built in honour of the god Min. While the temple of Taffeh was probably also a divine
temple, it is less of a traditional one than the temple of Shenhur. Taffeh has very little decoration
or other references to the god(dess) the temple was dedicated to. It is possible this decoration
dissapeared, especially from the southern temple which does not exist anymore. Therefore it is
difficult to tell how much decoration could initially be found here (Schneider 1979, 95-103; de
Meyer and Minas-Nerpel 2013, 150-155).