THE TEMPLE OF DEIR EL-BAHARY

• The mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut, known as Deir El-Bahary; is one of the most spectacularly situated in the world.
• Hatshepsut is one of the most puzzling figures of ancient Egyptian history. Much is known of her reign as King, yet so many questions remain unanswered.
• Questions such as why late in the reign of her successor Tutmosis III, 40 years after her death, did he suddenly seem to board on a battle to erase her name and recall from the lists of Kings!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Lying directly across the Nile from the Great Temple of  Amun at Karnak, the temple of Deir el-Bahri provides a natural central point of the west bank terrain and an inviting site for the temples of many rulers.
• It was built in the natural rock mount, a deep bay in the cliffs; which was a very significant religious and funerary site in the Theban area.
• The temple not only echoed the lines of the surrounding cliffs in its design, but it seems a natural extension of the rock faces!!!!!
• Her temple here was planned and located at the head of a valley overshadowed by the Peak of the Thebes; this peak is known as the "Lover of Silence" to the ancient Egyptians.
• A tree lined avenue of sphinxes led up to the temple, and ramps led from terrace to terrace.
• The temple is comprised of three elevated terraces, ascending one over the other in a unique design.
• Throughout the temple, statues and sphinxes of the Queen proliferated. Many of them have been reconstructed, with patience and skill, from the thousands of smashed fragments found; some are now in the Cairo Museum, and others the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
•  The area of Deir El-Bahary comprises many other monuments such as the temples of Nebhepetre Mentuhotep II, and Tutmosis III, as well as private tombs dating to those reigns and through to the Ptolemaic period can be found here.
• The most important private tombs at Deir el-Bahri are those of Meketra, which contain many painted wooden funerary models from the Middle Kingdom, and even the first recorded human-headed canopic jar, and the tomb of Senenmut, Hatshepsut’s adviser and tutor to her daughter.
• While the mainly extraordinary aspect there are the forty royal mummies!!!!! That was found in a cache there in one of the tombs.