Temple of Dendur: What Are You Hiding?
What is The Temple of Dendur?
The Temple of Dendur is perhaps the most recognized ‘work of art’ at what is inarguably one of the greatest museums of art and culture in the world, and yet what it ‘is’ and why it is a truly amazing cultural artifact are topics that are barely touched upon in any documentation of the Temple.
In this brief article I will be using my imagination alongside what I think are fairly discernable patterns to try to ‘excavate’ (wink wink) further truths about the Temple, not only in an effort to question it’s value but also question why this value is not forgrounded by The Met as an institution. Why do I have to work to dig this up when it should be on the damn placard for Isis’ sake!
The temple is described on the wiki site as: The Temple of Dendur (Dendoor in nineteenth century sources) is an Ancient Egyptian temple that was built by the Roman governor of Egypt, Petronius, around 15 BC, as one of many Egyptian temples commissioned by the emperor Augustus. It was dedicated to Isis and Osiris, as well as two deified sons of a local Nubian chieftain, Pediese (“he whom Isis has given”) and Pihor (“he who belongs to Horus”).[1]
(ps: I will be using wikipedia and other online sources here. I am not an expert per se in all I am discussing, so if you feel that some of these articles that I’m referencing do not reflect truth, I invite you to help me better understand the various topics in the form of civil discussion. Here’s a whole bunch of stuff on Isis).
Primary Descriptions of the Temple
For the most part, descriptions of the Temple in wikipedia and on The Met’s website focus on the tangible, descriptive aspects of the object. What is it, where is it from, how was it acquired, how is it representative of the Egyptian architecture and culture of the period. This is fairly typical of a museum in terms of it’s relationship to ‘objects’. Describe and let others use imagination to appreciate. But The Temple of Dendur is not just any object. This is not a fabrigé egg (which I happen to like quite a lot).
Beginning to Understand the Importance of the Temple
Take a look at the wikipedia article describing the Temple of Dendur and you will see that the first sentence describes a temple that, ‘was built by the Roman governor of Egypt, Petronius, around 15 BC, as one of many Egyptian temples commissioned by the emperor Augustus’. According to an article on The Met’s website, ‘In Egypt, the Roman emperor Augustus had many temples erected that adhered to native Egyptian architectural and religious traditions, rather than to Hellenistic or Roman culture. In the decoration of these Egyptian temples, Augustus is shown in Egyptian costume, as Egyptian pharaoh, and offering to Egyptian deities. This expressed his commitment to honor the local cults and helped confirm his legitimacy as ruler of the region.’
Herein lies the source of what makes The Temple of Dendur particularly interesting as an object beyond admiration of it’s well-preserved hieroglyphs and associated descriptive possibilities. This Temple was commissioned by Rome during the ‘occupation’ or rule or whatever you want to call it (wiki here). So this ‘small temple’ as described on The Met’s website was built during a period of occupation and depicted the Roman emperor Caesar Augustus in the role of Pharaoh of Egypt interacting in a traditional depiction and dialogue with the gods and goddesses of Egypt.
One of the first questions we might ask is ‘why did Caesar Augstus and Rome in general depict the story this way?’
Why is Caesar Augustus depicted as Pharaoh on The Temple of Dendur?
This is the first, most obvious question isn’t it? Why? So many questions arise from just this one rather odd design choice. Did Rome expect the Egyptians to accept that Caesar Augustus was a Pharaoh? Did that make it easier for them to feel aligned with an occupying force? If Rome was truly ‘honoring’ Egyptian culture, this was a bit of a strange choice. Also, since Isis had become a hugely popular figure of cult worship in Rome (and previously in Greece), is The Temple of Dendur meant also perhaps to be something built by a Roman emperor who worshiped or at least recognized the worshiping of Isis. Who are these Isis worshipers (and to get really scifi…are they still out here worshipping? Perhaps the Sacklers worship Isis!!! That and more still to come!)
What I would like to assert, as I proceed to address some of these questions with quite a bit of speculation and some evidence (until this becomes something larger this is the best way to proceed I think), is that within this object, The Temple of Dendur, lies the potential for discussing the strategies of the occupiers toward the occupied, the value of propaganda in asserting control and most importantly how this Temple can reflect the methods that have been used over and over throughout history where a dominant culture exerts subtle control.
This is why The Temple of Dendur is most interesting. It provides a way of understanding a phenomenon of human civilization that can be seen as a pattern and once a pattern is understood, the individual efforts, in this case of the methods of control through propaganda that an occupying force utilizes, do not need confuse us, do not need to be studied. They can be recognized as a tactic, method, etc that has examples throughout not only history, but references here in the present as well.
The Use of Propaganda to Express Dominance. Why Does It Work?
Imagine this…You are part of the ruling class in Egypt during the time of the Roman occupation. Similarly imagine this…you are part of the minority governing party in the United States Senate. In either case, you want to maintain your power and your status..you have worked to get there (or more likely been born into some form of privilege) and while things aren’t going your way, you’d like to continue to live above the lower classes. So, what do you do? You work with the ruling class, you assert yourself, you say, ‘I can help you prevent uprising. I can help you collect taxes (search ‘tax’ in the wiki). We may not agree on everything but we can work together.’
‘What shall we do?’ says Rome? ‘How about you build some temples? Ingratiate yourselves by showing respect to our culture. Please the religious leaders and they can come onboard and assist in placating the people.’ This telling of the story of Egypt through religious temple writing (what could be more powerful? there were no newspapers or tv news programs) in which the new ruling class is injected into the story could not be more interesting as a tool of control and dialogue. See: Cultural Hegemony: ‘The Marxist theory of cultural hegemony, associated particularly with Antonio Gramsci, is the idea that the ruling class can manipulate the value system and mores of a society, so that their view becomes the world view (Weltanschauung): in Terry Eagleton’s words, “Gramsci normally uses the word hegemony to mean the ways in which a governing power wins consent to its rule from those it subjugates”.[11] In contrast to authoritarian rule, cultural hegemony “is hegemonic only if those affected by it also consent to and struggle over its common sense”.[12]’
So, I believe it is quite clear that The Temple of Dendur is not simply a temple honoring Egyptian culture as described in the various documentation. The next question to ask, and another level of semi-speculation is, why is The Temple not understood and described for what it ‘means’ not just what it ‘is’. Consider every colonialist or occupying force and how, when forced to adapt beyond brutality, each seeks to find ways to utilize forms of persuasion to achieve goals. This could be boiled down to a kind of mobster protection racket that uses cultural, psychological, intellectual, etc methods to achieve the similar goal of simultaneously expressing ‘you need me’, ‘we’re all on the same team’, ‘go along or suffer’ but in ways that feel uncomfortable but acceptable. By shifting dialogue those who resist can be lumped into the categories of ‘malcontents’ or ‘rebels’ or ‘terrorists’. The masses are swayed enough to allow themselves to be controlled. Similarly, Fox News has managed to move the idea of ‘moderate’ further to the side of traditionally conservative viewpoints. There are many long term benefits from investments like the building of The Temple of Dendur.
Why is The Temple of Dendur Not Described as a potential example of Cultural Hegemony By The Met?
Is The Met turning a blind eye? Is The Met dedicated to only describing objects? Perhaps there are forces at The Met that are resistant to ‘politics’…but isn’t that really one of the biggest reasons why people are interested in the Met? Wouldn’t The Met benefit from expressing these possibilities? It’s all very confusing isn’t it? Or is it?
Search for ‘Augustus’ in this article on The Met’s website and you will find eleven examples. Each example shows Augustus as a Pharaoh representation communing with various gods and deities, which, according to the article describes Augustus and Rome’s ‘commitment to honor the local cults’. The word ‘honor’ is interesting here. In fact. In combing through the various ‘official’ documentation you will find similar words that, if taken literally provide a clarity that I do not think either exists or in fact needs to exist. Simply, ‘honor’ as a verb means: to regard or treat (someone) with admiration and respect. If honoring Egyptian culture is done by putting the leader of an occupying country into a dialogue where he is now the one that speaks to the Egyptian gods as written on a temple built by the occupying country, that’s an odd bit of honoring by my understanding of the word. Let’s try this on for size…’I would like to honor you and your traditions by retelling the story of your gods with me in the place of your previous leaders’. You know what? I don’t know…maybe the Egyptians liked it. Maybe they were sick of their pharaohs and were ready to be occupied by Rome. Even if that were true, the increasing taxation of the Egyptians by the Romans probably soured them on that particular narrative for the most part.
Here is the mission statement of The MET: The Metropolitan Museum of Art was founded on April 13, 1870, “to be located in the City of New York, for the purpose of establishing and maintaining in said city a Museum and library of art, of encouraging and developing the study of the fine arts, and the application of arts to manufacture and practical life, of advancing the general knowledge of kindred subjects, and, to that end, of furnishing popular instruction.”[1]
So, The Temple of Dendur does seem to be advancing general knowledge of kindred objects, but what exactly is ‘popular instruction’…not much it seems as an internet search doesn’t really return any results. Is this an antiquated turn of phrase or perhaps an attempt to keep it ‘light’ or ‘popular’. My guess is that was people saying we need a ‘mission statement’ and, truth be told, a mission statement for The Met isn’t a simple thing. Maybe some donors were not interested in having their object scrutinized, ‘politicized’ as it were…who knows.
What I do know is that this institution relies on the gifts and donations of many wealthy people and those wealthy people do not always agree on everything, so, perhaps a mission statement that has a vaguely non-committal feel, something that could not root itself down and cause problems later would be best to grow the institution. Perhaps also, that mission statement does not really allow the kind of intellectually rigorous or more broadly sweeping statements about human culture, power structures, reasoning and rationale for some particularly interesting objects like The Temple of Dendur.
You could say, ‘Any object has these kinds of potential’ but it is not the case. The Met has many objects, example of locality or cultural design, simple and beautiful objects that could easily be described for example as ‘cylindrical jar’. Sure, this object may have all kinds of potential in terms of the use of jars or the cylindrical shape in human cultural history, and maybe there were certain larger cultural trends represented in the making of cylindrical jars, but in comparison to the large scale and obviousness of The Temple of Dendur, it feels less likely that The Met’s collection on a whole will be dedicated to the exploration of big words like ‘Hegemony’ or terms like ‘Cultural Appropriation’.
So, again, I ask…why misrepresent the Temple when all it takes is a novice cultural anthropologist me, along with some primary source material to decipher what feels almost like a coverup. And why, especially knowing that in today’s world where people are very interested in and sensitive to history and culture, would The Met choose not to get out in front of this. If you go to the Met and visit the various galleries, Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, Rome, etc…you will see the kind of behavior represented in the reworking of the Egyptian story by the Romans in other cultural periods. This behavior is what we commonly now call a ‘throughline’ and it is not hard to see at all and in fact The Met holds and displays this throughline. I believe it should do so with pride, but that may not in fact be the mission.
Let’s imagine now, from start to finish, the history of The Temple of Dendur and how it arrived at the place it now sits.
The Story of The Temple of Dendur (as told by The Temple of Dendur)
‘Hello…I am the Temple of Dendur. I was built by the Romans during the period of their occupation of Egypt. Both Greeks and Romans always admired Egypt as Egypt was what we call an ‘Empire’. But, things weren’t as good in Egypt as they had been and Rome was on the way up and they took over. They built me, a ‘small’ temple and happened to put me in a place where, a couple thousand years later, I would be underwater if not moved. Egypt needed a dam more than a small temple. Egypt had plenty of small temples let’s be honest…and also, the Augustus thing felt weird.
Well, the UNESCO project wanted to save me and in fact a lot of different countries and institutions were really interested! Finally The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City won the day in 1967 and I was relocated..no small task as I’m made of eight hundred tons of stone..to Manhattan in 1978. They made a special special room for me funded by the Sackler. It’s really beautiful. I mean, it’s different from being by the Nile but I do feel special here. Unfortunately my room has become controversial as the family responsible for its name has been in trouble for producing deadly and addictive drugs and then marketing cures for them…blah blah. (feels like a sadder and lamer version of the Arc of the Covenant scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark).
So, now here I am, along with all the other treasures that from Egypt that live here. I wonder how they all arrived here! It’s cool. I provide context. It almost feel like America is the Rome of the past. No one here wants to talk much about Caesar Augustus and why he had me built. They like to talk about how I’m a ‘classic example’ of this style or that…but that’s the thing…I’m really more of a replica! Shhhh …Don’t get me in trouble..I get to host a lot of Fancy Schmancy events and such!
A Vast Conspiracy!!!
Well…maybe it is or maybe it isn’t but something is keeping The Met from talking about the obvious, the cultural throughlines that transcend ‘popular instruction’ and enter the realms of wisdom and greater understanding. The amazing thing is that The Met is a treasure of throughlines, so many that we could experience the collections through the exploration of ideas like ‘cultural collaboration’, ‘wealth and power’, ‘ritual and magic’, ‘worship and death’…so many ideas that connect us all as humans. And I’m not saying The Met is covering them up…the heading was meant to pique your interest with a kernel of truth, but what I am wondering is why they aren’t considered more highly because if the job of the museum is to promote better understanding, then it seems The Met (and don’t get me wrong..I love The Met!!!), could be doing a lot better job, as a museum and as the holder of what is now better understood to not only be amazing objects, but amazing examples of who were are as people throughout our entire histories!
In so many cases in our history as human beings, we have allowed things to be buried or covered over. We grapple with that now in dealing with something like the Confederate flag. Sure, it isn’t simple or pretty, but removing these things from our memories can also help remove these things from our understanding of who we are. I know people can argue either side and that’s why it’s complicated and why I will always argue that destroying evidence of our worst selves can only serve to misrepresent the complexity that we are and invite future powers to pretend that they are only ‘honoring’ us when they are ultimately here to rip us off yet again.
(ps: Who was Isis and why did she become the coolest goddess in the Greek and Roman empires?)
References:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egypt_(Roman_province)
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/548464
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Temple_of_Dendur
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/547802
https://www.britannica.com/topic/Isis-Egyptian-goddess
https://www.equip.org/article/the-cult-of-isis-and-osiris/
Coca Cola Commercial — I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing (In Perfect Harmony) — 1971
