Temple of Deir Al-Hager

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Deir al-Hagar (Deir el-Hagar) can be translated as "Monastery of Stone", and in ancient times this was a lone Roman Period temple located south of the cultivated area of the Dakhla Oasis about ten kilometers from el-Qasr in the desert. Its ancient name was Setweh, Place of Coming Home.

This is a sandstone temple erected during the reign of the Emperor Nero (54-67 AD), and decorated during the time of Vespasian (69-79 AD), Titus (79-81 AD) and Domitian (81-96 AD), who decorated him monumental gateway. Other Roman rulers made small contributions to the decorations, with the latest inscriptions dating to the 3rd century AD. The temple was mainly dedicated to the Theban triad, consisting of Amun-Re, Mut and Khonsu, though Seth, who was the principle god of the Oasis, was also honored here. Here, Seth is depicted with a falcon head and a blue anthropomorphic body.

There are cartouches of Roman emperors on the temple walls mixed among more recent additions, for almost every traveler who came to Dakhla in the nineteenth century etched their names, including Edmondstone, Houghton, Hyde and Cailliaud, as well as the entire Rohlf expedition. Edmondstone recorded the date of his visit as February 1819, at Aim Amur as evidence of his departure from the Dakhla Oasis. This demonstrates that he visited the Oasis prior to Drovetti. Drovetti, in his diary, maintained that he visited the temple "toward the end of 1818, which would have made him the first. He only recorded his name at Deir al-Hagar, but an ex-Napoleon solder who deserted in 1801 and remained in Egypt accompanied Drovetti on his journey to Dakhla. He recorded the date of the visit as 26 F. 1819. It was almost 100 years before another foreign traveler passed by, found the inscriptions at Deir al-Hagar and Ain Amur, and offered proof that Edmondstone had actually discovered Deir al-Hagar.

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