Deir el-Bahri
From open-encyclopedia.com - the free encyclopedia.
Deir el-Bahri is a complex of mortuary temples designed and implemented by Senemut, royal stewart of Hatshepsut, to serve for her posthumous worship. It is located close to the entrance to the Valley of the Kings in Luxor, Egypt.
The focal point of this complex is the Djeser-Djeseru or "the Sublime of Sublimes", a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon. Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of terraces that once were graced with gardens and is built into a cliff face that rises sharply above it. Djeser-Djeseru and the other buildings of the Deir el-Bahri complex are considered to be among the great buildings of the ancient world.
1997 massacre
On 17 November, 1997, six Islamist militants killed 62 people at the entrance of the temple. The six men, claiming to be part of Gama'at al-Islamiyya ("The Islamic Group") and Jihad Talaat al-Fath ("Holy War of the Vanguard of the Conquest"), killed 58 tourists and four Egyptians using automatic weapons and knives. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak partly blamed Great Britain for the attacks after they granted political asylum to Egyptian militant leaders. After the event Mubarak replaced his Interior Minister, General Hassan al-Alfi, with Major General Habib al-Adly.
External links
- Egypt Index at Bluffton University
- The Cache at Deir el-Bahri – Archaeology at About.com
- Luxor attack – information about the 1997 attacks
