Published: Naville, _Deir el Bahari_, ii, pls. xlvi-li (with
translation).
Translated: Breasted, _Ancient Records_, ii, 187-220.
The inscription, with the scenes illustrating it, are sculptured on
the walls of the temple of Deir el Bahari, on the north side of the
retaining wall of the upper platform.
The great building, known in modern times as the temple of Deir el
Bahari, was erected by Queen Hatshepsut of the xviiith dynasty, about
1500 B.C., for the double purpose of her own funerary cult, and of
the worship of the goddess Hathor. The chief events of the Queen's
reign are sculptured on the walls; the record of her divine descent
naturally holds a prominent place. The inscriptions in the temple
were wrecked and restored anciently, therefore much of the record is
lost. Fortunately, however, Amenhotep III, a king of the same
dynasty rather more than a century later than Hatshepsut, adorned his
temple of Luxor with similar scenes and inscriptions, relating to his
own divine descent, changing of course the names of the mother and
child and making a few immaterial alterations in the inscriptions.
By means of this later example the whole of the earlier record is
made clear.
The white colonnades of Hatshepsut's temple, set against a background
of dark cliffs, form one of the most striking scenes in the valley of
the Nile. The temple was used at one time as a Coptic village; hence
its modern name of Deir el Bahari, the Northern Convent.
It has recently been excavated and restored by Dr. Navillo for the
Egypt Exploration Fund.