The Mortuary Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, the Djeser-Djeseru (“Holy of Holies”), is located beneath the cliffs at Deir el Bahari on the west bank of the Nile near the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. It is dedicated to the sun god Amun-Re.

Hatshepsut’s chancellor, royal architect, and possible lover Senemut oversaw construction and most likely designed the temple. Although the adjacent, earlier mortuary temple of Mentuhotep was used as a model, the two structures are nevertheless significantly different in many ways. Hatshepsut’s temple employs a lengthy, colonnaded terrace. There are three layered terraces reaching 97 feet tall. Each ’story’ is articulated by a double colonnade of square piers, with the exception of the northwest corner of the central terrace, which employs Proto Doric columns to house the chapel. These terraces are connected by long ramps which were once surrounded by gardens with foreign plants including frankincense and myrrh trees. The layering of Hatshepsut’s temple corresponds with the classical Theban form, employing pylons, courts, hypostyle hall, sun court, chapel and sanctuary.

The relief sculpture within Hatshepsut’s temple recites the tale of the divine birth of a female pharaoh – the first of its kind. The text and pictorial cycle also tell of an expedition to the Land of Punt, an exotic country on the Red Sea coast. While the statues and ornamentation have since been stolen or destroyed, the temple once was home to two statues of Osiris, a sphinx avenue as well as many sculptures of the female pharaoh in different attitudes – standing, sitting, or kneeling.

Directed by : Hisham Fathy D.O.P : Raouf Abd El Aziz Account Director : Sherine Mostafa Account Executive : Ahmed Ibrahim Producer : Hisham Soliman Editor : Wael Farag Smoke & VFX: Sherif Fat…

Egyptologist Dr. Kara Cooney visits “The Late, Late Show with Craig Ferguson” to discuss the Pharaoh Hatshepsut and the Discovery Channel special “Secrets of Egypt’s Lost Queen”.

A video animated reconstruction of the mummy of Hatshepsut.