Dier-el-Medineh - Temple

Frontal view of the temple of Hathor at Deir el-Medina with, on the left, the remains of a birth house. In the background are the remains of the brick wall that formed the temple enclosure and a mountainous landscape. The village of Deir el-Medina is a settlement on the west bank of the Nile, opposite Luxor, founded by Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) for the workmen who built the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings during the New Kingdom. The site also includes tombs of some of the workmen and their family and a main temple. The temple, originally built by Amenhotep III, was almost completely rebuilt during the reign of Ptolomey IV (221-205 BC), long after the worker’s village had been deserted (around the end of the XI century BC). The present complex is primarily dedicated to Hathor, but the three sanctuaries in the actual temple are dedicated respectively to Amun-Sokar-Osiris, Hathor-Maat and Amun-Re-Osiris. A birth-house, or mammisi, is a small temple used to celebrate the rituals of the marriage of the goddess (Isis or, such as in this case, Hathor) and the birth of the child-god (Horus, with whom the reigning pharaoh was identified).