Location: Luxor Governorate Map
Open: 6am- 5:30pm Oct- Apr
6am- 9pm May- Sep
Karnak Archaeological Site religious complex is situated in the
Luxor Governorate in Egypt. The size and complexity of Karnak
Temple with its countless courtyards, halls and colossi and huge
sacred lake is just mind-boggling. Karnak Archaeological Site
started with a modest building constructed by pharaoh Sesostris
I during the Middle Kingdom, but every subsequent Pharaoh attach
something of their own and reworked existing, trying to keep the
memory of himself in the main religious complex of the country.
Excavations in Karnak complex began only in the 19th century and
are currently still go on. The first thing that will probably
encounter is a long avenue of sphinxes with rams' heads. Behind
the first pylon is the chapel of the Seti II, dedicated to the
Theban triad - the gods Amun, Mut and Khonsu. In the right
corner is the Temple of Ramses III, and in the center - the
ruins of Pharaoh Taharqa pavilion.
The Colossus of
Ramses II, which is shown at the foot of one of his daughters,
standing in front of the hypostyle hall of the Great Seti I.
This hall, arches which support of 134 columns - the most famous
landmark of Karnak. All columns and walls are decorated with
bas-reliefs of the hall, telling about the life and exploits of
the pharaoh. Massive columns were constructed in a simple and
ingenious way. At first they would stack round slabs of stone.
Then they would fill up the space between with sand. Once they
reached the desired height and completed the roof, Egyptians
craftsmen would simply work from the top down, clearing the sand
between the columns until they would reach the bottom of the
temple.
Then you can go to the Temple of gaudy, built by Thutmose III. In the Early Medieval period it was converted to a Christian church. However the pillars keep traces of ancient frescoes. Another popular location is a Botanical Garden which is an open courtyard, whose walls are decorated with reliefs of exotic plants and animals. Between the third and fourth pylons courtyard of Amenhotep III is located. Unfortunately much of the former splendor was looted over the centuries. Only one obelisk remains today from the former four that once stood here. Next room is the Pantry, where it was discovered more than 10 thousand stone and bronze statues. Between the fourth and fifth pylon Queen Hatshepsut established a two obelisks of pink Aswan granite, but only one survived. The left of the southern extension is a sacred lake, whose waters washed the priests before proceeding with rituals. On its banks stands a giant stone scarab Khepri constructed here by Amenhotep III. Every evening at Karnak temple there is presentation of show of "The Sound and Light."
The first evidence of the existence of the cult of the god Amun-Ra in
ancient Egyptian Thebes dates back to the era of the Middle Kingdom.
This is an octagonal column created under the 11th dynasty pharaoh
Iniotef II and now located in the Luxor Museum. The oldest surviving
building of the temple complex was built during the XII Dynasty, under
Pharaoh Senusret I - this is the so-called White Chapel (temple-kiosk
made of white limestone), extracted from blocks in the masonry of the
III pylon.
Construction work reached a particular scale during
the era of the New Kingdom. The first large-scale work on the
construction of local temples was carried out by the pharaoh of the 18th
dynasty, Thutmose I, on whose orders they built three pylons (VI, V and
IV), a columned courtyard, a small hall and two obelisks made of red
Aswan granite, one of which has remained in its place to this day. day.
The old monuments were surrounded by a wall, and sandstone buildings
(pylons IV and V) were added to them at the gates. Under his successor
Thutmose II, another pylon appeared (VIII).
The temple was
significantly updated by the daughter of Thutmose I and the widow of
Thutmose II, the female pharaoh Hatshepsut. She erected the VIII pylon,
expanded the temple of the goddess Mut and added the Red Chapel to the
center of her father's complex - a sanctuary of the divine barque
Amon-Ra made of red and black granite with wall images of her
coronation. Subsequently, the sanctuary of Hatshepsut was destroyed,
used as building material by Amenhotep III and rebuilt in the
Hellenistic era (under Alexander the Great and Philip III Arrhidaeus),
but now recreated in the Open Air Temple Museum.
Hatshepsut
erected four giant obelisks at Karnak, two of which were placed between
the pylons of Thutmose I, including a solid block of red granite 30
meters high that has survived to this day. They were the tallest of all
previously built in Egypt until they were laid with stone masonry by
Thutmose III. Apparently, during her time the largest of all obelisks
was prepared for Karnak, which was never completed. Its height was
supposed to be 41.8 meters, and its weight was about 1200 tons, which is
one third greater than the largest obelisks ever erected in Egypt.
Hatshepsut's stepson Thutmose III, who sought to surpass his
predecessor and destroyed the memory of her (as in the case of
obelisks), added the VII pylon along a new transverse axis, which gave
the initially rectangular temple an elongated T-shape. To the east of
this pylon, during excavations in 1903, an impressive cache was
discovered, in which they found 17 thousand bronze and 779 stone
statues, as well as other artifacts collected over the centuries, dating
from the Fifth Dynasty (XXVI century BC) to the Ptolemies.
Other
additions to the ensemble under Thutmose III include a courtyard with
statues of the pharaoh, a large sacred lake with a nilomere, two
obelisks (including the "Obelisk of Theodosius" now in Istanbul), and
Ah-menu, a pillared festival hall for Heb-sed ceremonies, surrounded by
numerous chapels and reliefs depicting the jubilee offerings of the
pharaoh to his 61 ancestors. This "Karnak King List", once discovered by
archaeologists, played an important role in reconstructing the
chronology of ancient Egyptian history; it was first mentioned by the
English Egyptologist James Burton in 1825,[4] and in the 1840s, the
French Egyptologist Emile Prisse secretly dismantled the bas-reliefs
with the list and took them to the Louvre, bribing an Egyptian official.
The columns of the Ah-menu hall in the form of huge painted poles have
no analogues in Egyptian architecture.
Between the VI pylon and
the buildings of Hatshepsut there is the “Hall of the Annals”, on the
walls of which the “Annals of Thutmose III” were documented - the
military chronicle of the scribe Tanini, telling about the 17 victorious
campaigns of the pharaoh in Western Asia. Under Thutmose III, a small
temple of Ptah was also built in Karnak, north of the Amun-Ra complex,
which was completed in the Greco-Roman era.
This pharaoh's reign
at Karnak was also marked by images of the "Botanical Garden of Thutmose
III" - an artistically designed exhibition of the fauna and flora of the
ancient Egyptian power during its heyday, including the conquered lands
of Nubia, Canaan and Syria.
The most active construction took
place during the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (c. 1405–1367 BC). At
this time, Karnak consisted of three separate temple complexes,
surrounded by brick walls, in honor of Amun-Ra, his wife Mut (in the
south) and Montu (in the north). Not far from the temple of Amon-Ra
there was a small temple of the lunar deity Khonsu (in the southwest).
Inside and outside the temple of the goddess Mut there were more than
600 two-meter high statues of the lioness goddess Sekhmet seated on the
throne. Near the sacred lake, in honor of the rising sun Khepri, a
colossal granite statue of a scarab beetle was erected. Amenhotep III
ordered the addition of Pylon III, and his architect Amenhotep the
Younger installed the central colonnade of the main hypostyle hall.
To the east of the part dedicated to Amun-Ra, Pharaoh Akhenaten
(Amenhotep IV) erected a temple to the god of the solar disk Aten
(Gem-pa-Aten), whom he made the supreme deity (atonism) for the period
of his reign. Its dimensions were 120x200 m, which was larger than the
area of the Temple of Amun-Ra. At the direction of Akhenaten, all other
temples, except those belonging to Aten, were closed. After his death,
during the reign of Horemheb, the temples of the old gods were reopened,
and the sanctuary of Aten was completely demolished. The stone blocks
from which it was built were used to build other temples and structures.
Some of these blocks, connected to form a structure, can be seen in the
Luxor Museum.
Under Horemheb, pylons II, IX and X were added, as
well as the avenue of sphinxes. The kings of the 19th dynasty, Seti I
and Ramses II, completed the large hypostyle hall begun under Horemheb
in its current form - seven more rows of columns grew behind the
colonnade of Amenhotep III. In 1899, eleven columns fell in a chain
reaction due to the erosion of their foundations by groundwater. Georges
Legrain, who was then the chief archaeologist in those places,
supervised the restoration (completed in May 1902).
The reliefs
located on the walls of the hall were intended to depict the military
valor of the pharaohs in their wars with the Hittites. In front of the
II pylon, Ramses II installed two monumental statues of himself, and
laid out the road from the Nile to the entrance to the temple with an
alley of ram-headed sphinxes. The successor of Ramesses II, Pharaoh
Merneptah left on the walls of the temple complex the “Great Karnak
Inscription” about his battles against the “Sea Peoples”, considered the
longest continuous monumental text of Ancient Egypt. Seti II built a
pylon in front of the temple of Mut and a small sanctuary in honor of
the Theban triad.
During the 20th dynasty, Ramses III completed
two more temples and began the reconstruction of the temple of Khonsu,
completed by his successor (subsequently Herihor left his inscriptions
here in the outer courtyard, Ptolemy III Euergetes built the large gate
and wall that have survived to this day, and Nectanebo I erected a small
hypostyle hall - As a result, due to the large number of alterations of
the temple, you can see inappropriate and inverted decoration elements
in it).
Large construction projects in Karnak were resumed only
under the Nubian dynasty pharaoh Taharqa, who erected a large kiosk
temple in front of the II pylon, two Montu sanctuaries and one on the
territory of the Mut complex. The subsequent pharaohs of the XXVI-XXIX
dynasties were engaged in the restoration of temples and added their own
inscriptions to them.
Nectanebo I surrounded the complex with a
wall made of raw brick and installed the I pylon, which is now the
entrance. Nectanebo II, despite Persian oppression, managed to build a
pylon to the east of the ancient sanctuary, which, thus, ended up in the
very center of the buildings. The damage caused by the Persian king
Artaxerxes III, who conquered Egypt, was corrected after the Macedonian
conquest by the first Ptolemies. During the same Hellenistic dynasty,
the chapel of the goddess Ipet, the gates in front of the temple of
Khonsu, and the pylons in front of the temples of Montu, Mut and Ptah
appeared. However, under the late Ptolemies, the fall of the temple
began, which finally ended with the earthquake of 27 BC.
Construction work at Karnak continued under the pharaohs of subsequent
dynasties and into Greco-Roman times. The last ruler to build on its
territory was the Roman Emperor Domitian (81–96 AD).
With the
adoption of Christianity by the Roman Emperor Constantine I the Great
and the subsequent closure of pagan temples under Constantine II, the
remains of ancient Egyptian sanctuaries fell into disrepair. However, by
this time Karnak had already been practically abandoned, and its temple
complex became the site of Christian churches, the most famous example
of which was the reuse by Christians of the festival hall of Thutmose
III - Coptic inscriptions and images of saints appeared on its walls.
Outstanding among the ruins is the Temple of Amun-Re with its total
of ten pylons, the largest of which is approximately 113 meters wide and
approximately 15 meters thick and has a planned height of approximately
45 meters. The total area of the temple is approximately 30 hectares
(530, 515, 530 and 610 meters side length). In addition to the pylons,
the large hypostyle hall, begun by Horemheb and completed under Seti I
and Ramses II, is particularly impressive.
The temple complex
consists of three walled areas, the district of Amun (ancient Egyptian
Ipet-sut, "place of election"), the district of Month (150 × 156 meters,
total area 2.34 hectares) and the district of Mut (405 , 275, 295 and
250 meters side length, total area approx. 9.2 hectares). In addition to
these three large temple districts, there is also the Aton temple, the
Gem-pa-Aton, which Akhenaten had built in Karnak in the sixth year of
his reign. In ancient times, an avenue lined on both sides with 365
sphinxes connected the Amun Temple with the Luxor Temple, about 2.5 km
away. This road ended at the 10th pylon of the temple.
Purpose of
the temple complex
After Amun-Res of Thebes was elevated to local god
and later to imperial god, the rulers of the early Middle Kingdom began
building a temple, which was expanded over millennia to become the
current temple complex, where the Amun priesthood carried out daily
temple services. Temples were also built for Amun's wife, the goddess
Mut, and for their son Chons; together they formed the Triad of Thebes.
In addition to these three gods, a temple was also dedicated to the god
Month, who was still the main god of Thebes in the 11th Dynasty.
In the ancient Egyptian religious world there was the principle of
cosmological order; this principle is referred to as Maat. Since Maat is
not an immutable state and can be thrown out of balance by humans, it is
important to maintain this state to keep chaos and destruction away from
the world. An Egyptian temple represents a model of the world. One of
the king's primary duties was therefore to maintain the balance of Maat.
This happened in the most sacred area of the temple. In the temple,
sacred cult acts (sacrifices, prayers and songs) were carried out by the
king or the high priest who represented him.
The largest area of the complex is the district of Amun. It houses the large temple of Amun-Re, the temple of Chon, the boat sanctuary of Ramses III, a temple of Ipet, and a small sanctuary of Ptah as well as the temple of Amenhotep II.
The Temple of Amun-Re, also known as the Imperial Temple, is the
largest Egyptian temple with a total of ten pylons. It is not a temple
in the classic sense, but rather a collection of different sacred
buildings built together. Various parts of the temple were demolished
and their building materials were reused in other parts. Only the center
of the temple, from today's fourth pylon to the Ach-menu, remained
untouched as a particularly sacred area.
One of the most
important areas of the temple is the large pillared hall (hypostyl),
which Horemheb began to build between the second and third pylons and
which was later completed under Seti I and Ramesses II. On an area 103
meters long and 53 meters wide, there were once 134 papyrus columns that
supported the wooden roof of the hypostyle. In the central nave of the
hall, the columns were up to 22.5 meters high.
Also the Ach-menu or the festival temple of Thutmose III. It should
be mentioned that it has the ancient Egyptian name
Men-cheper-Ra-ach-menu: “Magnificent in monuments is Men-cheper-Ra”
(Thutmosis III.) or “Exalted is the memory of Men-cheper-Ra”. In
addition to these names, the name Million Year House can also be found,
which suggests that the temple was dedicated to the cult of the king in
his manifestation of Amun-Re.
The architecturally striking
festival hall is often referred to as a festival tent due to the
arrangement of its columns. The higher central room consists of two rows
of columns with ten columns each and is surrounded by lower side aisles
with a total of 32 columns. In the entrance to the Ach-menu there is the
so-called king list of Karnak with the names of a total of 61 kings. The
Ach-menu is located on the east-west axis of the temple area, although
the north-south axis is also taken into account in the structural
arrangement. In the back are the sanctuaries for the gods Sokar (south)
and Amun-Re (north). Next to the festival temple of Thutmose III. is the
Taharqa kiosk.
During the restoration of the third pylon of the
temple, built by Amenhotep III, building materials of the White Chapel,
the Red Chapel and the Alabaster Chapel were discovered. To the north of
the Amun Re Temple, the White Chapel of Sesostris I, the oldest
surviving structure in the complex, and the alabaster chapel were
reconstructed in the 20th century from recovered building material. At
the beginning of the 21st century, Hatshepsut's Red Chapel was rebuilt
here. The third pylon was originally around 98 meters long and around 14
meters wide. Since it is now badly damaged, only about a quarter of its
original height of about 35 meters remains.
The White Chapel (also Chapelle blanche) was built from white limestone by Sesostris I in the 12th Dynasty. It is the oldest surviving structure in the temple complex. On a 1.18 meter high base there is a 6.54 × 6.54 meter kiosk, the roof of which is supported by four by four pillars. The White Chapel was built as a barge sanctuary and thus served as a station chapel for the barge of the gods at various festivities. Like the Red Chapel and the Alabaster Chapel, the White Chapel stood in the area between the third and seventh pylons. The chapel was rebuilt in the Karnak Open Air Museum.
The Red Chapel was built by Queen Hatshepsut in the 18th Dynasty. The
chapel originally stood in the area between the third and seventh
pylons. Later, the chapel of Thutmose III, built as a barge sanctuary,
was built. tore off. Amenhotep III had the blocks used as filling
material for the third pylon. Restoration work revealed 319 blocks of
black granite and red quartzite from the chapel. The Red Chapel in the
open-air museum of the temple complex was rebuilt from this material.
The sculptures in the Red Chapel show the coronation of Hatshepsut,
sacrificial scenes and the Theban festivals such as the Opet festival.
The chapel also houses the oldest representation of this festival.
The Alabaster Chapel, built in the 18th Dynasty as a barge sanctuary of Thutmose IV, probably stood, like the Red and White Chapels, in the area between the third and seventh pylons.
In the courtyard behind the first pylon on the right is the Temple of Ramses III. Even today it is still almost completely preserved and in very good condition. Behind a pylon with two colossal figures in front of it is the festival courtyard, lined on each side with eight statue pillars. Following the courtyard is a small hall with four statue pillars. This is followed by the hypostyle with two by four columns. Behind the hypostyle there are three sanctuary, dedicated to the gods Amun-Re, Mut and Chons. The similarity to Temple C in the Mut district is striking.
The holy lake has a size of 120 × 77 meters and is located south of the central temple building. This lake has no supply lines, it is only fed by groundwater. Next to the lake there was a small covered goose enclosure that was connected to the lake via a walkway. The geese were the sacred animals of Amun. The priests also took water from the lake to wash the figures of gods.
The Temple of Opet was built during the Ptolemaic period by Ptolemy VIII. A staircase located in a kiosk with four columns takes you through the gate of the first pylon into the first courtyard. In the first courtyard there is another kiosk, also with four columns. The second courtyard is higher, which is probably how the original mound is supposed to be depicted. In the rear part of the temple there is an underground Osiris tomb and a crypt; this is where the metamorphosis of the god Amun-Re took place, who dies as Osiris, then enters the body of the Ipet-weret-Nut and is reborn as the god Khons.
The Temple of Chon is located on the southern edge in the district of Amun; it is approximately 80 meters long and 30 meters wide. The temple is exactly opposite the Luxor Temple. During the 20th Dynasty, the temple was built under Pharaoh Ramesses III. built and later by Ramses IV, Ramses XI. and Herihor completed. Behind the large entrance pylon there is a large hypostyle hall with 28 columns. This is followed by a hypostyle with eight large columns and finally the center, the so-called Hall of the Barge.
The Temple of Ptah is located on the north wall of the Amun district and was originally surrounded by a wall. With the construction of the great wall around the Amun district, the size of the forecourt to the temple was reduced. Ptolemy III built the small pylon of the temple, in which there are various interior rooms. There is a small kiosk in front of the pylon. The rest of the temple was built under Thutmose III. built. All parts of the temple made of stone have been completely preserved.
Behind the tenth pylon on the east side is the temple of Amenhotep II. A ramp leads to the entrance area, which is formed by an open pillared hall. Behind the pillar hall there is a square hypostyle. There are further small rooms to the north and south of the hypostyle. The latest research has shown that Amenhotep II did not have the temple built in its current form, but that Seti I had the temple built from building materials from a demolished building by Amenhotep II.
To the north, directly next to the large area of Amun-Re, there is a 151 × 155 m area with the temple district of the Month. The surrounding wall dates from the time of Nectanebo I. The actual temple was built by Amenhotep III. built. In addition to the Temple of Month there is a temple of Maat, a temple of Harpare, built by Taharqa and the treasury of Thutmosis I, which lies outside the surrounding wall. The Temple of the Month opens towards the Month cult site al-Madamud, approximately five kilometers away. From the temple entrance, an avenue of sphinxes with 30 human-headed sphinxes on each side leads to a quay that is no longer connected to the water.
About 350 m south of the Amun Re Temple lies an area of approximately 250 × 350 meters that includes the district of Mut. It was connected to the temple of Amun-Re by an avenue of sphinxes with 66 sphinxes. Next to the Temple of Mut, which is surrounded on three sides by a holy lake, there are still remains of a birthplace (Mammisi) of Ramses II for "Chonspachrod" (actually: Chonsu-pa-chered - "Chons, the child") , remains of a temple of Ramses III. and outside the wall of the Kamutet Temple. In 1840, most of the temples were demolished and used as building material for a factory.
The entrance pylon of the Mut Temple was built by Seti II. In front of the pylon there were two shade roofs supported by pillars, built by Taharqa. In the courtyard behind the first pylon, a colonnade is formed by four columns on both sides of its central axis. The gate in the second pylon led to the festival courtyard, where the portico is continued by five columns on both sides. Seated statues of the goddess Sekhmet once stood in both courtyards. Behind the festival courtyard was the hypostyle, whose ceiling was originally supported by eight columns. Behind the hypostyle is the bark sanctuary. The barge sanctuary was surrounded by several side rooms. Through the barge sanctuary you reached the pronaos, an anteroom to the sanctuary. The sanctuary of the temple consists of three cult niches. Ptolemy II built a counter-temple against the back wall of the temple. The temple was mostly demolished in 1840.
Temple A is located east of Mut Temple, to the right of the main gate just behind the surrounding wall. Temple A was built by Ramses II according to Dieter Arnold and by Thutmose IV according to Paul Barguet. The first of the three pylons was built from Nile mud bricks. Two statues there bear the name of Ramses II but were probably usurped. Stone blocks from the 18th to 22nd dynasties were reused in the second pylon. The third pylon can again be attributed to Ramses II, the decorations come from his time. There are also different views on the meaning of the temple. According to Daumas it is a barge sanctuary dedicated to Chonspachrod (Chons the Child), according to Arnold it is a birthplace for Chonspachrod. Unfortunately, the few surviving paintings and reliefs do not allow for a more precise identification.
To the west of the Holy Lake, also called Asheru or Ischeru, lies the so-called Temple of C. Ramses III. had the temple dedicated to Amun, Mut and Chons built in the 20th Dynasty. Two monumental statues of Ramses III. originally lined the entrance in the first pylon of the temple. In the festival courtyard behind the first pylon there were eight statues on the right and left sides. A ramp at the end of the festival hall led to a small pillared vestibule leading to the hypostyle, the ceiling of which was supported by four columns. There were three magazine rooms on each side of the hypostyle. The hypostyle led to an anteroom, which was followed by the three sanctuaries. The temple is badly damaged, Ramses III. but could be clearly identified as the builder based on the Harris I papyrus.
The Kamutef Temple, built by Hatshepsut, stands northeast immediately in front of the walled temple district of Mut, on the 330 meter long avenue of sphinxes with 66 sphinxes on both sides. The stone temple house is approximately 38.5 × 48.5 meters in size. The temple house was surrounded by a brick wall that opened into a pylon onto the Alley of Sphinxes. Thutmose III. later tried to destroy all evidence of the original builder, but the reliefs indicate that Hatshepsut was responsible for its installation.
To the east of the Amun district there was an Aten sanctuary (ancient Egyptian Gm-p3-Jtn, “the Aten is found”), which was probably built by Akhenaten in year 6 of his reign. The Aton Temple was approximately 130 × 200 meters in size, making it larger than the Temple of Amun at the time. Akhenaten ordered the closure of the other temples in Karnak and made the sun god Aten the sole god. After the original conditions were restored under Horemheb at the latest, the other temples in Karnak were reopened and the Gem-pa-Aton was completely demolished. Tens of thousands of the talatat blocks were reused as filler material in the buildings of Horemheb and his successors and have therefore been well or very well preserved. These blocks were mainly used for pylons 2, 9 and 10. Several hundred of these blocks have been restored and reassembled in the Luxor Museum.