Hatshepsut Temple

Hatshepsut's chancellor, the royal architect Senenmut, oversaw the construction of the temple.

Although the adjacent, earlier mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II was used as a model, the two structures are nevertheless significantly different in many ways. Hatshepsut's temple employs a lengthy, colonnaded terrace that deviates from the centralised structure of Mentuhotep’s model – an anomaly that may be caused by the decentralized location of her burial chamber.

    

There are three layered terraces reaching 29.5 metres 

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 temple incorporates pylons, courts, hypostyle, sun court, chapel and sanctuary.