In the fashion of the pharaohs, the masterpiece of Hatshepsut's building projects was her mortuary temple complex at Deir el-Bahri. It was designed and implemented by Senemut at a site on the West Bank of the Nile River near the entrance to what is now called the Valley of the Kings because of all the pharaohs who later chose to associate their complexes with the grandur of hers. Her buildings were the first grand ones planned for that location. The focal point was the Djeser-Djeseru or "the Sublime of Sublimes", a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon was built. Djeser-Djeseru sits atop a series of terraces that once were graced with lush gardens. Djeser-Djeseru is built into a cliff face that rises sharply above it. Djeser-Djeseru and the other buildings of Hatshepsut's Deir el-Bahri complex are considered to be among the great buildings of the ancient world.
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.
On November 17, 1997, sixty-two people, tourists visiting the site, were massacred by Al-Gama'a al-Islamiyya at this temple complex.
While Hatshepsut used Menuhotep’s temple as a model, the two structures are significantly different. Hatshepsut employed a lengthy colonnaded terrace that deviated from the centralized massing of Menuhotep’s model – an anomaly that may be caused by the decentralized location of her burial chamber.
There are three layered terraces reaching 97 feet in height. 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. The layering of Hatshepsut’s temple corresponds with the classical Theban form, employing Pylon, courts, hypostyle hall, sun court, chapel, and sanctuary.
The relief sculpture within Hatshepsut’s temple recites the tale of the divine birth of a pharaoh. The text and pictorial cycle also tell of an expedition to the Land of Punt, an exotic country on the Red Sea coast.
While the statues and ornamentation have since been stolen or destroyed, the temple once was home to two statues of Osiris, a sphinx avenue, as well as many sculptures of the pharaoh in different attitudes – standing, sitting, or kneeling.
Hatshepsut’s temple is considered the closest Egyptians came to the Classical Architecture. It marks a turning point in the architecture of Ancient Egypt, which forsook the megalithic geometry of the Old Kingdom for a temple which allowed for active worship, requiring the presence of participants to create its majesty. The linear axiality of Hatshepsut’s temple is mirrored in the later New Kingdom temples.
The temple was completely excavated in 1896 by Auguste Mariette, the founder of the National Museum. But there are still parts under restoration.
They were restored in 1906 to protect the celebrated reliefs depicting the transport of obelisks by barge to Karnak and the miraculous birth of Queen Hatshepsut.
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