New Yorkers hoping to see an authentic Egyptian temple don’t have to travel across the globe to do so. In fact, they don’t even have to set foot off the island of Manhattan because tucked within the halls of the city’s fabled Metropolitan Museum of Art is the Temple of Dendur, an ancient pantheon that once stood along the shores of the Nile River in Nubia. Originally commissioned in 10 B.C. by Roman emperor Caesar Augustus, the shrine had an arduous journey from its initial location to its current Big Apple home, where it has since become a star of the silver screen, most memorably appearing in the beloved 1989 romcom “When Harry Met Sally . . . “
Fashioned out of sandstone, the Temple of Dendur was erected to not only pay homage to the goddess Isis and two deified brothers rumored to have drowned in the Nile but to curry political favor for the emperor, who had ruled the area since defeating Mark Antony and Cleopatra in 30 B.C. The Met’s official website explains, “During the period in which it was built (15–10 B.C.), Dendur was part of a region under the religious authority of the large temple to Isis at Philae. By building a temple at Dendur dedicated to both the great goddess Isis and these two brothers, Augustus encouraged the local Nubian population to view Roman rule favorably.”
The structure, which consists of two small buildings – a portico and a multi-room sanctuary flanking a courtyard – stood proudly on the shores of the Nile for the next 2,000 years, admired by travelers hailing from far and wide, including antiquarian Robert Hay, Egyptologist Aylward M. Blackman, journalist Arthur Weigall and English novelist Amelia Edwards. The latter, who visited the temple in 1874, had this to say, “The whole thing is like an exquisite toy, so covered with sculptures, so smooth, so new-looking, so admirably built.”
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Temple Dandour
Image Credit: Heritage Art/Heritage Images via Getty Images Although picturesque, the historic structure’s shoreline siting eventually proved hazardous, with the raising of an area dam in the 1920s rendering it fully submerged in the overflowing waters of the Nile for nine long months each year, the prolonged deluge regularly eroding its framework and stripping the paint that once decorated its many ornamental carvings. Plans to construct a new dam in 1960 threatened to further endanger the site, as well as many others in the area. A Metropolitan Museum of Art bulletin details, “The decision to build the High Dam to retain all the waters of the inundation in an immense artificial lake south of the First Cataract meant that Nubia, with its ancient sites and modern villages and cultivation, would disappear from the map of Africa, drowned under 200 feet of water.”
Enter the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), which established the International Campaign to Save the Monuments of Nubia that same year. In an incredible worldwide effort helmed by the agency, 50 countries, including the United States, banded together to contribute to the cause, resulting in the eventual successful relocation of 22 area temples and a thorough documentation of those that couldn’t be salvaged.
As a thank you, the Egyptian government offered the Temple of Dendur to the U.S.
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Image Credit: Roman SUZUKI, Wikipedia, CC BY 3.0 While museums across the country were champing at the bit to acquire the extraordinary shrine, then President Lyndon B. Johnson awarded it to The Met. In 1963, the Egyptian Department of Antiquities painstakingly dismantled the temple piece by piece and five years later, it made the long journey to New York, its sandstone blocks packed into 661 crates and safely stowed aboard the “S.S. Concordia Star.” According to the Tour Egypt website, the relocation cost $9.5 million to execute.
The Connecticut-based architecture firm of Roche-Dinkeloo was hired to design a wing to house the relic in 1974. Constructed on a grand scale, the group’s vision took four years to complete, with the two temple buildings gloriously rebuilt upon a massive stone platform surrounded by a large reflecting pool meant to mimic the Nile and backed by a rear wall made entirely of windows, allowing the room to be viewed from neighboring Central Park. Unveiled to the public in 1978, the site has been a museum must-see ever since. As The Met’s curator of Egyptian art Diana Craig Patch espoused in a 2022 featurette about the exhibit, “People come to Dendur all the time to enjoy not only the architecture but the space and the setting. So it’s not just an antiquity. This whole gallery has become part of New York.”
Thoroughly cinematic, the temple has also become part of Hollywood, regularly popping up on screens both big and small.
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Image Credit: Columbia Pictures It is there that Harry Burns (Billy Crystal) launches into a silly-accented bit about pecan pie to make Sally Albright (Meg Ryan) laugh in “When Harry Met Sally . . . “ As the actor revealed during an appearance on “The View” in 2014, the moment was not scripted but shot entirely off the cuff. He explained, “That scene was all improvised. I didn’t tell Meg I was gonna do this. I said to [director] Rob [Reiner] and [screenwriter] Nora Ephron, ‘I have an idea that he is starting to fall in love with her, but they don’t know it. When you start to get friendly with someone, you start doing a cute voice. So I had this idea for a guy who would talk like this to her. And Rob said, ‘Just go!’” The bit surprised Ryan. As Crystal furthered, “You saw her look off to the right? She looks at Rob to go, ‘What is going on?’”
A close examination of the scene does indeed show the actress glancing off to the side in seeming confusion at the 28-second mark. Thankfully, the segment still made it to the screen despite the brief break in character, resulting in a very endearing encounter between the two leads. Just as Harry is falling for Sally, audiences, in turn, can’t help but fall for the couple and their undeniable chemistry.
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Image Credit: Disney-ABC Television The contestants of “Project Runway” visit the Temple of Dendur in the season four episode titled “The Art of Fashion” as part of an assignment to design an article of clothing inspired by one of the museum’s works. As Chris March acutely states while walking through the exhibit, “It’s incredible! It’s almost like you’re looking at a movie set, but it’s real.” Indeed, the site seems tailor-made for the screen.
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Image Credit: United Artists Other productions to feature the location include Woody Allen’s 1979 drama “Manhattan,” which briefly showcases Dendur in the opening montage.
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Emily Bradford Taylor (Gwyneth Paltrow) attends a gala there along with her husband, Steven Taylor (Michael Douglas), and – rather awkwardly – her lover, David Shaw (Viggo Mortensen), as well, in the 1998 thriller “A Perfect Murder.” In a case of art imitating life, the temple is actually available to rent as a special event venue. The unique space can host up to 800 guests for “after-hours entertaining” and has been the site of countless fundraisers, fashion shows and recitals over the years.
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Image Credit: Sony Pictures Entertainment Group The exhibit is the site of a political benefit in the 2002 romcom “Maid in Manhattan,” with Beresford Hotel housekeeper Marisa Ventura (Jennifer Lopez) attempting to break things off with senatorial hopeful Christopher Marshall (Ralph Fiennes) at the base of the grand structure amongst a sea of dancing guests.
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Image Credit: Paramount Pictures Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) speaks at a funeral held at the exhibit at the beginning of the 2002 thriller “Changing Lanes.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures Robert Neville (Will Smith) fishes in the reflecting pool alongside his German Shepherd, Samantha, in the 2007 post-apocalyptic action thriller “I Am Legend.”
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Image Credit: Warner Bros. Pictures And most recently, the Temple of Dendur played a central role in the 2018 heist film “Oceans 8” as the site of the Met Gala dinner where Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock) and her cohorts steal the Cartier Toussaint necklace, valued at $150 million, off the neck of actress Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway). The shoot proved the biggest yet to occur on the premises, with the cast and crew taking over the exhibit hall for a full two weeks during The Met’s off hours. Director Gary Ross told Slate, “We were allowed to move our equipment into the museum every day at 5:30, which means we didn’t get a shot until about 8:30, when the sun went down. And then we really had to stop shooting about 3 to 3:30 so that we could get all of our equipment out of there by 7:00 so that they could reopen the museum. It was literally a ‘night at the museum’ every night for 10 days straight.”