Temple of Mentuhotep II, New Valley, Egypt
The temple of Montuhotep II, Neb-Hepet-Re, was the first one built in Deir el-Bahari. It was called “Akh-set-Nebhepetre”: “Splendid are the places of Nebhepetre”. Because of its ruinous state, with very few reliefs, it is seldom photographed.
This temple is a transition between the Old Kingdom temple of the pyramid, and the New Kingdom House of Millions of Years. For the first time, the tomb of the king is united with its mortuary temple. The New Kingdom will later separate the tomb from the House of Millions of Years. It was the Howard Carter who discovered the burial shaft by chance, when his horse stumbled into its rubble-filled entrance in 1900.
The temple was discovered in the 1860’s and was excavated by Edouard Naville between 1903 and 1907, and then by Herbert Winlock between 1921 and 1930. The multileveled construction and the plan were entirely new, with no equivalent dating from the Old Kingdom.
Epic Egypt Culture & Adventure Route © Monika Newbound
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