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.”
