Djeser-Djeseru – the focal point of the complex

Deir el-Bahri [Arabic دير البحري dayr al-baḥrī (lit., “The Northern Monastery”)] is a complex of mortuary temples and tombs located on the west bank of the Nile, opposite the city of Luxor, Egypt. The first monument built at the site was the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II of the Eleventh dynasty. During the Eighteenth dynasty, Amenhotep I and Hatshepsut also built extensively at the site.

The focal point of this complex is the Djeser-Djeseru or "the Sublime of Sublimes," a colonnaded structure designed and implemented by Senemut, royal stewart of Hatshepsut, to serve for her posthumous worship. 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.

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 military forces arrived soon afterwards, killing the militants in a gun battle. 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
• The Temple Djeser djeseru
• Luxor attack – information about the 1997 attacks