The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Encyclopedic art museum spanning five thousand years, housing an authentic ancient Egyptian temple.
Location
About this audio guide
This guide to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York tells the story of the Temple of Dendur, an Egyptian sanctuary raised around 23 BCE for Emperor Augustus, and how it came to leave the Nile valley when Egypt began building the Aswan High Dam in 1960. It follows the international effort of fifty countries to save what they could from the dam's rising waters, and Egypt's gift of the temple to the American people in gratitude, plus the rivalry among American cities that followed. Look closely at the sandstone as you walk through it; it still carries graffiti carved by travelers across two thousand years.
This audio guide was created using AI.
Similar places
The Met Cloisters
Medieval art museum built from reassembled European cloisters, perched above the Hudson River.
Brooklyn Museum
Encyclopedic Beaux-Arts museum with ancient Egyptian, African, and contemporary American art.
Whitney Museum of American Art
Museum devoted exclusively to American art and living artists, from modernism to today.
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum
Spiral-ramp museum in Frank Lloyd Wright's concrete rotunda, with modern and contemporary art.
The Frick Collection
Art museum in a preserved Gilded Age mansion, with Old Masters by Rembrandt, Vermeer, and Titian.
The Museum of Modern Art
Modern art museum with masterworks from van Gogh to Warhol and a tranquil sculpture garden.