25°17′02″N 32°34′59″E / 25.284°N 32.583°E / 25.284; 32.583 Contra Latopolis (sometime named Al Hilla or El-Hella) is an Egyptian temple.
During the reign of Cleopatra VII, a temple to Isis was built opposite Latopolis, or Esne as it is now known, on the other side of the Nile from this settlement. The Roman people having constructed this, named the building Contra Latopolis. Very little has survived into the current age of this construction, all but a "massive portico upheld by two rows of four columns each"
The temple built together with these mentioned structures includes, positioned on the overhanging eaves, a globe with wings outstretched to either side. The walls of the building were found covered with hieroglyphic writing. Of the names amongst them, the earliest of these showed Cleopatra Cocce (Cleopatra III), and her son Ptolemy Soter, the most recently written showed the name of Emperor Commodus, the decorations were made between the reign of Cleopatra III and Soter II.
The columns of a building in Contra Latopolis are said by Maspero to date from construction during the Ptolemic period, the columns of buildings from Contra Latopolis considered particularly distinct examples of a formal order of architecture where the god Hathor is placed as capitals upon the columns of temples.
See also
- List of ancient Egyptian sites, including sites of temples
References
- "Al Hillah". mapcarta.com. Retrieved 21 September 2011.
- Contra Latopolis (El-Hella). Retrieved 21 September 2011.
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- Egypt and the Sûdân: handbook for travellers, Baedeker, 1914 (458 pages). Retrieved 12 December 2011 - Abbott, Jacob (1803-1879) History of Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt (1851). Retrieved 21 September 2011
- Sharpe,Samuel, The History of Egypt: From the Earliest Times till the Conquest by the Arabs A.D. 640, in two volumes (6th ed., 1905). Retrieved 21 September 2011
- ^ Hölbl, Günther (2001). A History of the Ptolemaic Empire. Routledge, 2001. ISBN 0-415-20145-4. Retrieved 12 December 2011.
- Thomas Dudley Fosbroke, Encyclopedia of Antiquities, and Elements of Archaeology, Classical and Mediaeval (1843). Retrieved 21 September 2011
- Ashton, Sally-Ann, The Last Queens of Egypt, (177 pages) Pearson Education, 2003 ISBN 0-582-77210-9.
- Rappoport, S. History of Egypt. Retrieved 21 September 2011 Archived 23 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- Maspero, Gaston Camille Charles, Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt Archived 2022-01-17 at the Wayback Machine. (4th ed., 1895)Retrieved 22 September 2011
External links
- Al Hillah Map interactive is available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0. mapcarta.com
- The Notitia Dignitatum and the Geography of Egypt s.a. Notitia Dignitatum
- Gaston Camille Charles Maspero, Manual Of Egyptian Archaeology And Guide To The Study Of Antiquities In Egypt
- Engraving of "Remains of the Temple at Latopolis in Upper Egypt" (1806/1810) published in Cavendish Pelham, The world, or, The present state of the universe : being a general and complete collection of modern voyages and travels / selected, arranged and digested from the narratives of the latest and most authentic travellers and navigators.