Egypt was ruled for 300 years by the Greek Ptolemaic dynasty. For the Land of the Two Kingdoms, foreign domination was not a new phenomenon. The secret to rule is on display at the Temple of Dendara lying a few miles to the west of the Nile riverside town of Qena. Letting locals keep running things for a large part – as long as taxes were sent to Alexandria – the Ptolemies also co-opted the indigenous gods, goddesses and myths with their own. By trying to impose a foreign culture upon Egypt, internal disorder was kept to a minimum. Dendara, Edfu and Philae (near Aswan) are all examples of Ptolemaic admiration for the local religious hierarchy.