After attending several exhibits on Africa and its culture I picked one that I found most interesting. Built around 15 B.C. the Temple of Dendur was built as a shrine to the goddess Isis. Facing flooding issues from the Nile River it was given to the United States and rebuilt at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Standing as it did back in Egypt to some reasonable scale, the site is one of grand status.
             Upon entering the exhibit the first thing to catch my eye was the wall of glass all along the right. The bright light of the sun shone in and lit the enormous area around the temple. As I got closer to the temple I noticed the hieroglyphics carved throughout the temple. Then I noticed names carved as well and dates. As if people who came across the temple wrote their own name onto it as graffiti. As if it was a sort of paper for them to deface it as they felt pleased. I walked into the temple as for in as the velvet rope allowed me to and the most obvious thing to catch my attention was written "J LIVINGSTON, JANURY 1, 1818". Written exactly as that, misspelling and all, it dawned on me that all these names written just a contemporary form of defacement but rather history of its own. The names seemed to come from nations wide. Names like Leonardo, which was written on the outer wall of the gateway facing the temple.
             The hieroglyphics depict the Egyptian culture and way of living. On the right hand side outer wall I noticed a carving of a table with objects on it, possibly an offering to Isis herself. To me the hieroglyphics are all just pictures but to a translator they tell stories about the two men, Pedesi and Pihor, sons of a chieftain, who are buried at the temple.
             With a river flowing around it, and the sun shining upon it, the Temple of Dendur is by far the best exhibit of all. If some sort of translation was made available to read and understand the hieroglyphics, then the visit would ...