TEMPLE OF DANDOUR, NUBIA.

 

 

THIS Temple, which stands just within the tropic, consists of a portico with two columns in front, two inner chambers, and the adytum, in which is a tablet with a figure, apparently of Isis. In front of the portico a pylon opens upon an area facing the river, and surrounded by a low wall. Behind the Temple a grotto is excavated in the sandstone rock; the entrance to it is built of stone, and there is an Egyptian cornice above the door. The sculptures of the Temple are of the time of Augustus, by whom it is supposed to have been founded: its chief deities were Osiris, Isis, and Horus, and the ancient town seems to have had the same name, or one like it, expressive of “the sacred abode.”

    It is one of the smallest temples in Nubia, and situated on the western bank of the Nile: a vast mole defends it from the encroachments of the river – a construction also Roman, and which forms a platform in front of the pylon; and in advance of the Temple, on the architrave of the portico, the winged globe is represented, and the walls of the pronaos are covered with figures of Isis and Osiris offering sacrifices.

    The cave beyond the adytum is separated from the Temple by a double wall, and was, Mr. Roberts conjectures, the residence of the priest  or superintendant of the Temple. The appearance of the walls indicates injury from fire, so often employed to destroy these temples that few are without this evidence of desecration.

 

        

                       Roberts’s Journal.