Athena Review Image Archive ™
Dendera: Temple of Hathor (1858 photo)
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The Temple of Hathor at Dendera (photo: Frith 1862)
This early photograph of the Temple of Hathor at Dendera, an albumin print taken by Francis Frith in 1858, was published in a collection of his photos from Egypt and Gaza in 1862. The images are typically sharp, well-composed, and informative, making Frith a highly reliable photo-documentary source of Egyptian sites in this early period. Frith's images were taken 9-10 years after the pioneering photos of Du Camp and present much clearer views, due to improved photographic methods. Frith's images date only 12-15 years after the German expeditions of Lepsius and its initial publications of Denkmaler, where photography was not used; and 60 years after the 1798-9 French expeditions documented by drawings in Description de l'Egypte.
In this diagonal view of the temple portico, the multiple masks of the deity Hathor are clearly shown on the six columns, along with reliefs on the temple's exterior walls and many other architectural details.
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