Sadenga

Sadenga

The Nubian Villages

A Nubian village further northward of Soleb with around 20 km, the prominent relics in this village are the queen Tiyi temple and the very rich Merritt cemetery, many built-in forms of small muddy pyramids, reflecting the wealth that brought to the town that time by trade with Egypt.

Temple of Tiyi in Sadenga was the first example of a temple dedicated to a pharaoh’s wife, remaining now only a unique column with a hathoric capital dominating a heap of sandstone blocks, the temple served from the new kingdom era to the Napatan era, when a massive flood seemed to have destroyed the temple as the same case with Soleb temple.

Both temples in Sadenga and Soleb had connections as were built within the same time, in one architectural program to play a complementary role. Amenhotep III at Soleb, Nebmaatre Lord of Nubia, was shown as a moon god, Tiyi was depicted as a sphinx and likened to the Solar eye of Re or Tefnut who, according to Egyptian

myths left Egypt in a rage to enter Nubia, queen Tiyi was also worshiped as a form of goddess Hathor, the pharaohs wife, and divine counterpart.