Gallery 131 and the Temple of Dendur

Take in the space around the Temple of Dendur before concentrating on its carvings. The enclosing gallery, its light and the reflecting pool shape how you see the stone. You can read the temple’s size against the much larger museum room that now shelters it. The Sphinx of Hatshepsut is also associated with Gallery 131. It has its own story and its own object card. Comparing the two brings together a royal image made in Egypt and a temple later built under Roman rule. Hatshepsut ruled in the fifteenth century BCE. The temple was built much later, when Rome governed Egypt. Select either work to look more closely, or read How whole rooms and objects reached The Met for the story of changing settings.