The Trip That Keeps Growing

Day 6 12 October 2021 Luxor – The Temple of Karnak

The city of Luxor was the ancient city of Thebes, the ancient Egyptian capital during the New Kingdom (1570 BCE – 1069 BCE). Many believe that the New Kingdom monuments and temples found here both sides of the Nile and also in the Valley of the Kings are the greatest concentration of ancient structures on earth.

As the Temple of Karnak is the first of many temples we will see, I have provided a little description or architectural plan of how the temples were designed. Most of Egypt’s New Kingdom temples followed the same basic structure. The entrance to the Temple was called the Pylon, consisting of two large rectangular towers. It was through a lower gateway between the two towers that the god (actually it was just his statue) would emerge on festival days. Inside the towers were stairs that led to an upper gateway where that the pharaoh would appear on grand state occasions, appearing like the rising sun to his subjects standing below. The outer walls of the towers were decorated with carved reliefs dedicated to the pharaoh who built the temple. These carvings showed the pharaoh as the great warrior and the protector of Egypt. While most of these carvings were once decorated with bright paints, today most of the paint has disappeared.

Upon entering the temple, one would find himself in an open-air courtyard. This was the area that the common people were allowed to enter to bring offerings to their gods and where festivals dedicated to the gods were held. It was also the place where the purification rituals were conducted for those who were allowed to travel further into the temple.

This was followed by the hypostyle (columned) hall designed to represent the primeval forest, with columns holding up a flat roof. On the top of the sides were small windows that let in a little light. On either side of the hall were doors or niches which priests would use in their regular offerings of food and drink to the gods. The columns themselves were decorated with carvings or symbols relating to either the pharaoh who had the temple built or the god for whom the temple was built. Here only the priests and the pharaoh were allowed to enter.

And finally, there was the sanctuary, the most sacred place in the temple, where only the pharaoh and the high priest were allowed to enter. It was here that the image of the god was kept.

If you look at the temple from the Pylon entrance, you can see that the farther you go inside the temple the smaller the rooms become. Also, while the outer courtyard was open to the air and light, the hypostyle hall had only the light from the small windows, and the sanctuary had no light at all. And in many cases, there was a long processional way that was lined with monuments or sphinxes leading to the Pylon. In addition to the main temple, some temple complexes also included other minor temples and structures.

Upon our arrival we traveled to the Temple of Karnak, dedicated to Egypt’s state god Amun (later called Amun-Re), the sun and creator god. It is the largest temple in the world. Located on the East Bank of the Nile, Karnak’s huge complex of shrines is second only to the Pyramids of Giza as the most impressive sites in Egypt. The Ancient Egyptians called it “the most perfect of places” and it is considered to be the most awe-inspiring of the Egyptian monuments. Covering 250 acres, it is an outdoor museum of ruined temples, obelisks, and statues dating back some 2,000 years.

Before arriving at the temple, we stopped on a bridge to see the Avenue of the Sphinxes, a 1 ½ mile processional walkway lined with 1350 sphinxes (lions with human heads), used to connect the temples of Luxor and Karnack. It was only used once a year during the Opet festival when Egyptians would parade down the avenue carrying statues of Amun and Mut in a symbolic re-enactment of their marriage. Today fragments of about 850 of the sphinxes have been found along a section of the road that was built by Amenhotep III sometime between 1390-1352 BC. When we were there, they were putting the final touches on the Avenue’s renovation, and it is scheduled to be reopened with a grand ceremony in the next few weeks.

Construction of the Karnak Temple began in the 19^th century BCE under Senusret I. It took about 1300 years to build this complex with successive pharaohs and queens adding their own tributes and monuments to the sun god Amun-Re. Most of the structures were built during the New Kingdom. Its Hypostyle Hall, built by Seti I (1290 to 1279 BCE), is large enough to house the Cathedral of Notre Dame and considered one of the great architectural achievements. Over 50,000 square feet in size, it has 134 intricately carved columns arranged in 16 rows. Its outside walls are decorated with battle scenes of Seti and his successor (and son), Ramses II, defeating the Libyans and Syrian armies. The Hall, which stands in front of the innermost shrine complex of Amun-Re, represented the primeval swamp land that emerged at the creation. The temple exemplifies the importance the ancient Egyptians had to the afterlife and the necessity to provide a safe passage there after death.

The temple complex itself consists of three main temples, smaller enclosed temples, and several temples located about 1½ miles north of Karnack. The three main temples are dedicated to Amun, Mut (mother goddess and companion of Amun), and Montu (god of war). The Temple of Amun sits in the center of the complex, with the Temple of Montu to its north, and the Temple of Mut to the south.

Also found chiseled inside the Temple is a 365-day calendar that had 12 months each containing about 30 days. The ancient Egyptians were the first to establish such a calendar. Their first attempt was a lunar calendar – a calendar with 12 months with the new moons determining the length of each month. However, while they could pinpoint when a moon would appear, they were not so good at determining the length of each moon’s phases. The yearly calendar would be short by 10 -11 days. To compensate, they would add a 13^th month every few years.

As their knowledge grew, the Egyptians created a solar calendar, that again contained 12 months. They divided each month into 3 10-day units (much like our weeks) and at the end of the 12^th month (after 360 days), they added 5 days to celebrate the birthdays of Osiris, Horus, Seth, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus, they created the first 365-day calendar in history. While this worked for a while, it was missing the extra day every four years – leap day. As they were six hours short every year, the calendar eventually went off track. In 239 BC Ptolemy III tried to issue a new calendar to correct this shortage but failed. It wasn’t until the Julian calendar (with leap days added) and its replacement, the Gregorian calendar which fixed a math problem, that we have the current calendar of today. However, the Gregorian calendar kept the ancient Egyptians plan of 12 months and 365 days.

Also located here is the tallest obelisk in Egypt (almost 100 feet tall) that was built by Queen Hatshepsut to honor the god Amun. Built of pink granite from the Aswan region, it was said to be visible for 50 miles. This is the only remaining obelisk built by Queen Hatshepsut. The inscription on the obelisk reads, “O ye people who see this monument in years to come and speak of that which I have made, beware lest you say, ‘I know not why it was done.’ I did it because I wished to make a gift for my father Amun, and to gild them with electrum.” Although Thutmose III could have destroyed this obelisk as he did with all other reminders of her life, he elected instead to build a wall around the bottom 2/3’s of the structure. There were originally 3 obelisks in the Temple, but one of them was damaged when it was dropped during renovation and the top broke off. The other obelisk of Thutmose I, Queen Hatshepsut is still in the Temple.

Daily rituals were performed by the priests, but perhaps the most important was conducted by the high priest (called the first prophet). Each morning at dawn he would bathe in the sacred lake by the temple, and then enter the area where the statue stood, prostate himself before the god and kiss the ground. He would assure the god that nothing had been stolen from him by saying “Hail to you, Amun-Re, Lord of the thrones of the Two Lands. I have done nothing with your secretions, I have not removed your dignity; I have not shaped you skin for another God”. Then priests would carry in trays of food to Amun, and the first prophet would bless the food, dress the statue with garments, apply make-up and perfume, and place gold necklaces and bracelets on the statue. As the last to leave, the first prophet would walk backwards out of the room, sweeping the floor to erase any footprints, and reseal the entry door.

One of the more important rituals centered around the sacred festival of Opet which was a symbolic re-enactment of the marriage between Amun and Mut. During this festival, priests would transport the statues of the gods/goddesses (Amun, Mut, and their son Khonsu, god of the moon) within a portable shrine – a miniature boat called the sacred bark. These small boats were covered in gold foil and covered with precious gemstones. However, these barks did not sail on water, they were carried on platforms with several long carrying poles. Each god/goddess had his/her own bark and Amun’s bark had a ram’s head, while Mu’s had a woman’s head both fore and aft and each head was wearing the Double Crown, which signifies the union of upper and lower Egypt. Falcon heads with lunar crescents and disks adorned Khonsu’s bark. The procession would travel from the Temple of Karnak to the Temple of Luxor by way of the Avenue of the Sphinxes.

As the cult of Amun grew during the New Kingdom, so did the importance of the priests. After the death of Ramses II and his immediate successors, the succeeding pharaohs were weak and a power struggle emerged between the pharaohs and the priests who became more intertwined with the secular affairs of Egypt. With the death of the last New Kingdom pharaoh in 1075 BCE, Egypt entered into a 400-year period of instability (Third Intermediate Period). Although the seat of Egyptian rule was moved from Thebes to Tanis in the north, succeeding pharaohs still built new structures at Karnak. The last structure to be built was during the 25^th dynasty in the 7^th century BCE. However, the worship of Amun continued another 300 years until the Romans emperors ordered the closing of all Egyptian pagan temples.

One of the interesting statues that we saw by the Sacred Lake was of a scarab beetle. The scarab played an important role in Ancient Egyptian culture as it was linked to the sun god Jepri, which many Egyptians believed was a form of the sung god Re. They believed this as the beetle would lay its eggs in a pile of dung and then place the dung in a hole. When new beetles crawled out of the hole, Egyptians thought they were self-producing which was a trait of the Jepri who they believed was reborn every day as the sun. It is found almost everywhere – in hieroglyphs, statues, carvings, and jewelry. Early Egyptians wore it as an amulet to protect them from illness, but they also saw it as a symbol of resurrection. Therefore, during mummification, it the amulet was placed over the heart to insure that they could be resurrected and attain eternal life.

Today was incredible hot and we were all glad to be back on the airconditioned bus for our drive to the Nefertiti. We had several hours to unpack and freshen-up before meeting members of the crew, listening to a Port Talk which described what our next day would be, and enjoying a delicious Welcome Dinner. Our room is nice – two twin beds, a large closet area with shelves and drawers, a desk area, large outside windows and a door leading to our balcony which had two chairs and a small table with a floor covering of artificial grass.

Below is a layout of the Karnak Temple, although it does not show all of the temples, just mainly Amun’s temple.

Temple of Karnak