[EGYPT 29610] 'Ceiling of the Wabet in Dendera.'  	The Wabet in the Hathor Temple at Dendera is a kiosk located to the west of its central shrine. During the New Year's Festival the golden statue of the ba (soul) of Hathor was brought here from a crypt below the south wall of the temple, where it was stored during the rest of the year. In the Wabet the statue was anointed, clothed and otherwise prepared for its journey to the roof of the temple on the eve of the first day of the year, where it would be rejuvenated by the rays of the New Year sun. Here we see the ceiling of the Wabet, decorated with an image of the temple (a Hathor head within a square) which is placed on the hieroglyphic sign for horizon and which is flanked by two heavenly sycamore trees. The temple is touched by the rays of the rising sun on the first day of the New Year.	 The sun is appearing from the lap of the sky goddess Nut, after having finished the nightly travel through her body which stands arched over the world and a mass of stars. The wave pattern on Nut's dress symbolizes the cosmic river on which the sun has traveled after she swallowed it in the evening. A similar scene of the rising sun casting its rays on the temple can be found on the astronomical ceiling of the outer hypostyle hall (see picture 29528). This part of the Dendera Temple was built during the later Ptolemaic period (first century BC). Photo Mick Palarczyk.
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