Dendera lies ca 60 kilometers north of Luxor. The temple is situated on the west bank of the Nile opposite the modern town of Qena. There is no modern inhabitants near the temple, it sits on the edge of the desert nowadays while in ancient times water reached all the way up to the temple as you can see of above image. In ancient Egyptian its name was Iunet or Tantere, or Tentyris, the Greek variety of the name. Iunet was the capital of the 6th nome of Upper Egypt and as such the town had quite some importance.

The city of Dendera/Iunet was also an important location for the worship of HetHert (Gr: Hathor). Already in the Old Kingdom, the temple here was rebuilt. Later, kings like Thutmose III, Amenhotep III and Ramesses II, made improvements to it. The temple which stands today is from the Greco-Roman period and is still in good condition thugh it was never totally completed. But it´s not the only monument from ancient times here, there is a necropolis with tombs from the Early Dynastic Period as well as from the Old Kingdom and the 1st Intermediate. There is also animal burials from the Late period. Dogs and birds and even burials of cows have been found. As one of HetHert´s aspects was a cow, these burials seems logical at her worship center.