About Luxor:
The ancient Egyptians called the city Waset "the city of the scepter" capital of Egypt's IV nome. It was the Greeks, many centuries later, who called it Thebes, a name already used by Homer who speaks of "Thebes of the Hundred Gates" referring not so much to the city's "gates", but to the impressive pillars of Ipet-isut "the most privileged of seats", as the nearby temple of Karnak, Egypt's largest temple built to the glory of Amun "the Unknowable, the king of gods", was called. If Thebes, the city of the living built on the Nile's eastern bank, was the kingdom of Amun, whose earthly son was the pharaoh, on the opposite bank of the Nile, at the feet of the Theban mountain, the sacred mountain, where the sun sets, stretched the capital's huge royal and civilian necropolis: it was the kingdom of Osiris, "Lord of Afterlife", called by the Egyptians imentit en waset, "the West of Thebes", ta geser "the sacred land". The west bank did not, however, include only the tombs of the kings of Egypt, of their families and of the leading dignitaries, whose paintings are among the highest expressions of the art of all times. It was also the place where the worship of the deified living king, besides that of the dead kings, was conducted in the so-called temples "of the millions of years", masterpieces of ancient architecture. The royal necropolises, referred to as "Valley of the Kings" and "Valley of the Queens", the private necropolises, best known by the name of "tombs of the nobles", and the great memorial temples such as Deir el-Bahri, the Ramesseum or Medinet Habu, have nowadays become touristic attractions visited every year by millions of tourists wishing to admire the works of art enclosed in the ancient kingdom of Osiris.
The ancient Egyptians called the city Waset "the city of the scepter" capital of Egypt's IV nome. It was the Greeks, many centuries later, who called it Thebes, a name already used by Homer who speaks of "Thebes of the Hundred Gates" referring not so much to the city's "gates", but to the impressive pillars of Ipet-isut "the most privileged of seats", as the nearby temple of Karnak, Egypt's largest temple built to the glory of Amun "the Unknowable, the king of gods", was called. If Thebes, the city of the living built on the Nile's eastern bank, was the kingdom of Amun, whose earthly son was the pharaoh, on the opposite bank of the Nile, at the feet of the Theban mountain, the sacred mountain, where the sun sets, stretched the capital's huge royal and civilian necropolis: it was the kingdom of Osiris, "Lord of Afterlife", called by the Egyptians imentit en waset, "the West of Thebes", ta geser "the sacred land". The west bank did not, however, include only the tombs of the kings of Egypt, of their families and of the leading dignitaries, whose paintings are among the highest expressions of the art of all times. It was also the place where the worship of the deified living king, besides that of the dead kings, was conducted in the so-called temples "of the millions of years", masterpieces of ancient architecture. The royal necropolises, referred to as "Valley of the Kings" and "Valley of the Queens", the private necropolises, best known by the name of "tombs of the nobles", and the great memorial temples such as Deir el-Bahri, the Ramesseum or Medinet Habu, have nowadays become touristic attractions visited every year by millions of tourists wishing to admire the works of art enclosed in the ancient kingdom of Osiris.
Architecture and Decoration of the TombsThe plan of the royal tombs is complex and each one has a peculiar physiognomy of its own, even though there generally are constant elements such as the ladder, the descending corridor onto which halls open, and the burial chamber designed to contain the pharaoh's sarcophagus. An important architectural peculiarity distinguishes (even though some exceptions are known) the tombs of the Eighteenth Dynasty from those of the Nineteenth: in the first the descending corridor generally forms a 90° bend before penetrating into the sarcophagus hall, while in the second it proceeds in a straight line. This tendency to linear development along the major axis becomes ever more evident in the tombs of the Twentieth Dynasty and was probably related to a change in religious conceptions, according to which the tomb's structure itself had to reflect somehow the trajectory of the solar star.
As to the wall decorations, the scenes represented never dealt with aspects of everyday life, or with historical-biographical elements, but only and absolutely with after-life and the trip the pharaoh had to undertake overcoming numerous trials in order to reach the kingdom of Osiris. The style of the decorations varies from imitations of papyrus to elaborate and painted bas reliefs, but the subjects remain overall the same: the texts painted on the walls, taken from the great magical-religious anthologies of the time, such as the Book of the Dead, the Book ofAmduat, the Book of the Gates, the Book of the Caverns, the Book of Earth, and Litanies of Re, and generally illustrated with scenes related to them, assured the deceased of the requisite knowledge of the magic formulas needed to overcome the hardships he would face.
In fact, for the ancient Egyptians, the tomb had a totally different meaning than it has nowadays.
It had a "sacred architecture" and a sacred orientation of its own, which did not coincide at all with the geographical and terrestrial one: in it the deceased accomplishes a ritual journey. The deceased descends to the kingdom of the dead, symbolized by the tomb, overcomes the numerous obstacles standing in his way thanks to the appropriate use of the magic formulas prescribed in the Book of the Dead and is introduced by kindly divinities into the kingdom of Osiris, Lord of the Afterlife, symbolized by the hall of the sarcophagus. This hall, called by the Egyptians the "golden hall", referring to the gold that represents the incorruptible flesh of the gods, was the spot where was supposed to take place the pharaoh's transformation into a divine entity, whose soul "came out to the light", that is climbed to the sky to be reunited with the sun god Re, his godly father.
The pigments used in the tombs:
While the digging went on in the deepest parts of the tomb, the external parts were practically finished. This rational organization allowed work to proceed at an credible speed and, even though the tombs were dug with rather rudimentary tools, a royal tomb could be completed within a few months and, in the case of the larger and more complex tombs, a variable period of only six to ten years was required. The sons of the craftsmen were also employed in the work, being entrusted with simple and not very wearisome tasks. These boys used to work hoping to become in their turn "servants in the Seat of Truth", as Deir el-Medina craftsmen were referred to at the time. Side by side with all these persons were also the serfs, simple labourers provided to the craftsmen's community by the pharaoh and entrusted with the humblest and the more tiresome labours, yet necessary to the functioning of the groups of specialized workmen, such as, for instance, the carrying of water, the preparing of plaster, the preparing of torches for lighting. The torches were made of baked clay containers filled with oil of sesame and salt or with animal fat and salt, inside which floated a twisted linen taper. It seems that salt was used to prevent the combustion releasing smoke, which would have harmed the paintings.
Colossi of Memnon Two colossal seated statues of AMENHOTEP III (1390-1352BC) F carved from quartzite sandstone, which are located at the eastern end of the site of his much-plundered mortuary temple in western Thebes; each of the figures is flanked by a representation of TIY.
IN 27 BC an earthquake damaged the northern statue, and perhaps created some flaw in the stone, causing it to produce a whistling sound each morning.
This has been variously ascribed to the effect of the breeze or the expansion of the stone, although the precise reason remains uncertain. Ancient Greek visitors knew the statue the ’vocal Memnon’ suggesting that the figure was the Homeric character Memnon, singing to his mother Eos, the goddess of the dawn. The Greek writer STRABO at first Speculated, somewhat sceptically, that the sound might have been created by Egyptians standing nearby, although he claims to have been eventually convinced of its supernatural origins. In the third century the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (AD 193-211) repaired the damaged colossus, and in doing so seems to have rendered it dumb.
As a result of the identification of the colossi with Memnon, the area of western Thebes itself became known as Memnonia, and the RAMESSEUM as the Memnonium. The term Memnonium was even applied to the Osireion at ABYDOS. These names were still fashionable in the early nineteenth century, when Giovanni BELZONI applied the phrase 'young Memnon' to a colossal head of Rameses II, which he transported from the Ramesseum to the British Museum.
This has been variously ascribed to the effect of the breeze or the expansion of the stone, although the precise reason remains uncertain. Ancient Greek visitors knew the statue the ’vocal Memnon’ suggesting that the figure was the Homeric character Memnon, singing to his mother Eos, the goddess of the dawn. The Greek writer STRABO at first Speculated, somewhat sceptically, that the sound might have been created by Egyptians standing nearby, although he claims to have been eventually convinced of its supernatural origins. In the third century the Roman emperor Septimius Severus (AD 193-211) repaired the damaged colossus, and in doing so seems to have rendered it dumb.
As a result of the identification of the colossi with Memnon, the area of western Thebes itself became known as Memnonia, and the RAMESSEUM as the Memnonium. The term Memnonium was even applied to the Osireion at ABYDOS. These names were still fashionable in the early nineteenth century, when Giovanni BELZONI applied the phrase 'young Memnon' to a colossal head of Rameses II, which he transported from the Ramesseum to the British Museum.
Deir el-MedinaSettlement site on the west bank of the Nile opposite Luxor situated in a bay in the cliffs midway between the Ramesseum and Medinet Habu. The village of Deir el-Medina was inhabited by the workmen who built the royal tombs in the VALLEY OF THE KINGS between the early 18th Dynasty and the late Ramesside period (c. 1550-1069). The site also incorporated the tombs of the workmen as well as a temple dedicated to various gods, which was founded in the reign of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) and almost completely rebuilt in the reign of Ptolemy IV (221-205 BC). Deir el-Medina was excavated by Ernesto Schiaparelli from 1905 to 1909 and by Bernard Bruyere between 1917 and 1947-
The importance of the site to Egyptian archaeology as a whole lies in its unusual combination of extensive settlement remains with large numbers of OSTRACA (used for rough notes and records), providing important evidence of the socio-economic system of Egypt in the 18th to 20th Dynasties. Unfortunately this unrivalled opportunity to synthesize contemporaneous textual and archaeological data from a single site has not been fully realized, primarily because of inadequate standards of excavation.
The Temple of Deir el-Medina:
Directly to the north of the workers' village, there is a small Ptolemaic Temple dedicated to Hathor and Maat, to Amenophis, son of Hapu, and to Imhotep; it was transformed into a monastery in the Coptic period, from which the site's present name originated The Temple, built in the 3rd century BC at the time of Ptolemy IV Philopator and Ptolemy VI Philometor (3rd-2nd century BC), has been perfectly preserved, including a tall belt of walls made of unburnt brick, and the warehouses. Its architectural style, rather simple, includes a hypostyle hall with two columns and a vestibule decorated with scenes of Ptolemy VI worshipping various gods; in the left part, one can see the king burning incense in front of the goddess Hathor in the form of a cow. The bas-reliefs of the three chapels situated behind the vestibule, of which the central one has a door decorated with the seven heads of Hathor, and the sanctuary of the goddess, represent, in general, various scenes of sacrifices being offered to gods. In the left chapel, there is a representation of a trial by Osiris, a subject which, as a rule, never appears in the iconography of buildings dedicated to cults, but is represented in tombs or in funerary papyri. On the opposite wall of the same chapel, one can see Ptolemy VIII Euergetes II offering sacrifices to Anubis wearing an unusual mantle. The Temple also contained objects pertaining to the cult of the deified rulers Amenophis I, founder of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and his wife Ahmosis-Nefertari, who enjoyed particular popularity among the village inhabitants.
The Necropolis:
The artisans' tombs in Deir el-Medina were excavated on the mountain slopes, only a few dozen meters from the residential zone; their arrangement was one of the main occupations of the inhabitants during their leisure time. The structure of the tombs in the necropolis was rather uniform and included a small pylon, one or two courtyards in whose farthermost part there was a chapel with an entrance made of unburnt brick and surmounted by a small pyramid which, in certain cases, had a continuation of several rooms excavated in the rock. Inside, on the back wall, always oriented towards the east, there was a niche housing a statue of the deceased with a stele carrying the text of the hymn to the sun. The external chapel served as a place intended for practicing the cult of the dead who were buried together with a rich set of funerary objects in the burial chambers excavated deep into the mountain; these rooms were accessible by steep stairs that began from the exterior courtyard or, in the case of burial chambers excavated in the rock, from one of the internal rooms. The burial chambers had vaulted ceilings and, in contrast to the burial chambers of the civilian tombs of the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Dynasties which were almost never decorated, these were beautifully adorned with pictures on the walls where the deceased and his family were represented engaged in their everyday activities, or else the pictures reflected ritual motifs, such as the embalming of corpses or the rite of "Opening the Mouth", or religious rites.
Habu Temple One of the most impressive temples in Egypt, Medinet Habu is both a temple complex and a complex of temples, for the great estate encompasses the main temple of Ramesses III and several smaller structures from earlier and later periods. The main temple itself is the best preserved of all the mortuary temples of Thebes - containing more than 7,000 sq. m (75,350 sq. ft) of decorated surfaces across its walls and providing an excellent example of the developed New Kingdom temple form and plan..The temple is aligned approximately south east to northwest, but conventionally the southeast side facing the Nile is described as east.
The modern name of the site, Medinet Habu city of Habu', is often said to have originated from the temple of Amenophis son of Hapu, which stood a few hundred meters to the north; but this seem unlikely historically and the actual meaning of the nome is unsure. Anciently the site was called jamet by the Egyptians, and according to popular belief its holy ground was the place where Ogdoad, the first primeval gods, were buried. As such it was a particularly sacred site long before the construction of Ramesses' temple and remained so long after that great institution fell into disuse. During New Kingdom times, each year at the Ten Day festival the god Amun of Luxor - where the Ogdoad were supposed to have been born – crossed over from his temple to re-enact the funerary services for these primeval deities in order to renew them and thus creation itself.
During the reign of Ramesses III and even after the king’s cult had declined; Medinet Habu functioned as the administrative centre of western Thebes. It was here, for example, that the workmen who constructed the royal tombs in the Valley of the Kings came to demand payment when they went on strike; and it was in the great fortified complex that many of the area's inhabitants took refuge when Upper Egypt was engulfed in civil war after the close of the 20th dynasty and in other times of trouble. Eventually the great walls of the complex were breached in a sustained attack, and later, during the Christian era, the whole area was covered by the Coptic town of Djeme and even the great temple itself was filled with dwellings and one of its courts used as a church. Nevertheless, the administrative and defensive values of the site far outlived the cult of Ramesses’ monument, and it was able to avoid many of the predations to which other temples inevitably fell victim.
The High Gate:
In ancient times Medinet Habu was fronted by an impressive landing quay at which the boats that came to the site via the canals which linked the temple to the Nile could moor. This quay stood before the main, eastern entrance to the complex - a large gateway of distinctive design modeled after a western Asiatic migdol or fortress. Fronted by guard houses, the sides of this gateway are decorated with images of the king trampling the enemies of Egypt, and sculpted figures of the monarch standing atop the heads of captives project from the walls. A large relief representation of the god Ptah at this point also served an intermediary function, having the power to transmit the prayers of those unable to enter the temple to the great god Amun within.
The upper rooms of the gate house are of particular interest as they functioned as a kind of royal retreat or harem, and are replete with representations of the king relaxing with young women. It was probably here that the assassination attempt directed against Ramesses III by one of his minor queens was carried out; and although the plot was discovered and the perpetrators brought to justice, the king died during the course of the trial and it is not known whether this was the result of natural causes, or of the effects of the attempt on his life.
Chapels of the Divine Adoratrices:
Inside and to the left of the gateway are the remains of several mortuary chapels constructed during the 25th and 26th dynasties for the Divine Adoratrices of Amun who ruled Upper Egypt at that time, at least nominally, on behalf of the king. The first chapel, that of Amenerdis, is the best preserved and consists of a forecourt with offering table and an inner and mortuary chapel, beneath which the Adoratrice was buried in a hidden crypt. The relief carvings in this monument are well executed and, for the most part, in fairly good condition. On the lintels above the entrances to these chapels may still be seen the 'Appeal to the Living' which encouraged passers-by and visitors to pronounce the offering formula - the ancient prayer for afterlife sustenance - for the spirits of these Divine Adoratrices.
The Small Temple:
To the right of the entrance stands the so-called Small Temple' which was founded in the 18th dynasty and repeatedly expanded and usurped under later dynasties. Although the core of this monument was begun by Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, the queen's name was replaced by those of her predecessors, Tuthmosis I and II. The structure was incorporated into Ramesses' temple complex and its entrance later replaced by a pylon of the Nubian king Shabaka and then usurped by his nephew Taharqa. A small fronting gateway was built during the 26th dynasty and usurped during the 29th by Nectanebo I. During the Ptolemaic Period the inner colonnade was developed, along with a stone-faced pylon (containing many reused blocks from the Ramesseum) and a large gateway.
Finally, in the Roman Period, a columned portico and court were begun but left unfinished by Antonius Pius. This structure outgrew the encircling walls of the larger temple and in was later the only part of the massive complex still to function.
To the north of the Small Temple are the sacred lake, and the so-called 'Nilometer’ - actually a well constructed by Nectanebo I with a passage leading down to the groundwater level.
The main temple:
Called The Temple of User-Maat-Re Meriamun [the throne name of Ramesses III] United with Eternity in the Possession of Amun in Western Thebes', this great monument is uniquely impressive. The massive outer pylons are perhaps the most imposing of any temple in Egypt and are decorated with colossal images of the king destroying captured enemies before the gods. On the northern pylon the king wears the red crown of Lower (northern) Egypt and, on the southern tower the dual crown incorporating the white crown of the south, thus marking a theme of orientational dualism which appears quite frequently in the temple's decoration.
The temple's outer walls also depict historically important battle and victory scenes, showing Ramesses and his army triumphing against the Libyans and Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt during the king's reign. These themes are continued within the temple's first court with scenes of soldiers’ counting hands and phalli of the enemy dead, showing the grisly realities of war. This court was flanked on the northern side by large engaged statues of the divine king as Osiris and, on the south, a columned portico with the 'window of appearances' in which the king stood or sat during formal ceremonies and festivities.
The large Osiride statues of the second court were ruthlessly destroyed in the early Christian era
In ancient times Medinet Habu was fronted by an impressive landing quay at which the boats that came to the site via the canals which linked the temple to the Nile could moor. This quay stood before the main, eastern entrance to the complex - a large gateway of distinctive design modeled after a western Asiatic migdol or fortress. Fronted by guard houses, the sides of this gateway are decorated with images of the king trampling the enemies of Egypt, and sculpted figures of the monarch standing atop the heads of captives project from the walls. A large relief representation of the god Ptah at this point also served an intermediary function, having the power to transmit the prayers of those unable to enter the temple to the great god Amun within.
The upper rooms of the gate house are of particular interest as they functioned as a kind of royal retreat or harem, and are replete with representations of the king relaxing with young women. It was probably here that the assassination attempt directed against Ramesses III by one of his minor queens was carried out; and although the plot was discovered and the perpetrators brought to justice, the king died during the course of the trial and it is not known whether this was the result of natural causes, or of the effects of the attempt on his life.
Chapels of the Divine Adoratrices:
Inside and to the left of the gateway are the remains of several mortuary chapels constructed during the 25th and 26th dynasties for the Divine Adoratrices of Amun who ruled Upper Egypt at that time, at least nominally, on behalf of the king. The first chapel, that of Amenerdis, is the best preserved and consists of a forecourt with offering table and an inner and mortuary chapel, beneath which the Adoratrice was buried in a hidden crypt. The relief carvings in this monument are well executed and, for the most part, in fairly good condition. On the lintels above the entrances to these chapels may still be seen the 'Appeal to the Living' which encouraged passers-by and visitors to pronounce the offering formula - the ancient prayer for afterlife sustenance - for the spirits of these Divine Adoratrices.
The Small Temple:
To the right of the entrance stands the so-called Small Temple' which was founded in the 18th dynasty and repeatedly expanded and usurped under later dynasties. Although the core of this monument was begun by Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, the queen's name was replaced by those of her predecessors, Tuthmosis I and II. The structure was incorporated into Ramesses' temple complex and its entrance later replaced by a pylon of the Nubian king Shabaka and then usurped by his nephew Taharqa. A small fronting gateway was built during the 26th dynasty and usurped during the 29th by Nectanebo I. During the Ptolemaic Period the inner colonnade was developed, along with a stone-faced pylon (containing many reused blocks from the Ramesseum) and a large gateway.
Finally, in the Roman Period, a columned portico and court were begun but left unfinished by Antonius Pius. This structure outgrew the encircling walls of the larger temple and in was later the only part of the massive complex still to function.
To the north of the Small Temple are the sacred lake, and the so-called 'Nilometer’ - actually a well constructed by Nectanebo I with a passage leading down to the groundwater level.
The main temple:
Called The Temple of User-Maat-Re Meriamun [the throne name of Ramesses III] United with Eternity in the Possession of Amun in Western Thebes', this great monument is uniquely impressive. The massive outer pylons are perhaps the most imposing of any temple in Egypt and are decorated with colossal images of the king destroying captured enemies before the gods. On the northern pylon the king wears the red crown of Lower (northern) Egypt and, on the southern tower the dual crown incorporating the white crown of the south, thus marking a theme of orientational dualism which appears quite frequently in the temple's decoration.
The temple's outer walls also depict historically important battle and victory scenes, showing Ramesses and his army triumphing against the Libyans and Sea Peoples who attacked Egypt during the king's reign. These themes are continued within the temple's first court with scenes of soldiers’ counting hands and phalli of the enemy dead, showing the grisly realities of war. This court was flanked on the northern side by large engaged statues of the divine king as Osiris and, on the south, a columned portico with the 'window of appearances' in which the king stood or sat during formal ceremonies and festivities.
The large Osiride statues of the second court were ruthlessly destroyed in the early Christian era
by the Copts, who converted the area into a Christian church, though many of the original relief scenes that were painted over at this time have in fact survived in fairly good condition. These scenes depict various rituals connected with the ithyphallic fertility god Min and, on the rear wall of the portico, a procession of the king's numerous sons and daughters.
The hypostyle halls and areas beyond are largely destroyed, but a number of side rooms still stand dedicated to various gods (including the defied Ramesses II whose mortuary temple Ramesses III copied in many aspects) and to the needs of the temple administration. The chambers contain several well-preserved scenes; of particular interest are ones in the treasury on the southern side (Ramesses with Thoth weighing gold before Amun-Re), in the internal temple of Re-Horakhty on the north (the king and baboons worshipping the solar barque and the king offering before the ka and ba of Re), and in the suite or internal temple of Osiris on the southwest (including Thoth and Iunmutef before the deified king and the temple personified as a goddess).
The shrines of the three members of the Theban triad, Amun, Mut and Khonsu, at the rear of the temple are backed by a large false door through which the spirit of the king might enter and leave his monument, as well as a number of concealed rooms which were probably used to store the temple's most important treasures - as opposed to those kept openly in the treasury.
The royal palace:
The main temple is surrounded by the remains of many buildings: houses, magazines and storerooms, workshops, barracks, offices, etc; but the most important of these ancillary structures is the royal palace on the monument's southern side. Today, only the lowest courses and some repaired features of this palace can be seen, but the originally two-storey building was of considerable size and contained a number of rooms of different purposes. The palace seems, in fact, to have possibly functioned as both an actual dwelling for Ramesses when he visited the temple to officiate in its ceremonies, and also as a kind of spiritual abode for the king in the afterlife. Thus, like the temple itself, the palace contains a false door for the coming and going of the king's spirit. The structure was directly connected to the temple's first court by means of doorways and also by means of the 'window of appearances'.
The hypostyle halls and areas beyond are largely destroyed, but a number of side rooms still stand dedicated to various gods (including the defied Ramesses II whose mortuary temple Ramesses III copied in many aspects) and to the needs of the temple administration. The chambers contain several well-preserved scenes; of particular interest are ones in the treasury on the southern side (Ramesses with Thoth weighing gold before Amun-Re), in the internal temple of Re-Horakhty on the north (the king and baboons worshipping the solar barque and the king offering before the ka and ba of Re), and in the suite or internal temple of Osiris on the southwest (including Thoth and Iunmutef before the deified king and the temple personified as a goddess).
The shrines of the three members of the Theban triad, Amun, Mut and Khonsu, at the rear of the temple are backed by a large false door through which the spirit of the king might enter and leave his monument, as well as a number of concealed rooms which were probably used to store the temple's most important treasures - as opposed to those kept openly in the treasury.
The royal palace:
The main temple is surrounded by the remains of many buildings: houses, magazines and storerooms, workshops, barracks, offices, etc; but the most important of these ancillary structures is the royal palace on the monument's southern side. Today, only the lowest courses and some repaired features of this palace can be seen, but the originally two-storey building was of considerable size and contained a number of rooms of different purposes. The palace seems, in fact, to have possibly functioned as both an actual dwelling for Ramesses when he visited the temple to officiate in its ceremonies, and also as a kind of spiritual abode for the king in the afterlife. Thus, like the temple itself, the palace contains a false door for the coming and going of the king's spirit. The structure was directly connected to the temple's first court by means of doorways and also by means of the 'window of appearances'.
Karnak TempleAlthough badly ruined, no site in Egypt is more impressive than Karnak. The largest temple complex ever built by man, it represents the combined achievement of generations of ancient builders and covers a truly massive area. Approximately 3 km (1.75 miles) north of the modern city of Luxor, Karnak requires half a day just to walk around its many precincts and years to come to know it well.
The modern name of this great complex, covering over 100 ha (247 acres), is taken from the nearby village of el-Karnak, but its ancient name was Ipet-isut, The Most Select of Places', and it represented not only the seat of the great god Amun-Re but also contained or adjoined many chapels and temples dedicated to different deities. There are three main compounds. The main precinct, that of Amun, along with its subsidiary temples, lies in the centre; directly to the south is the precinct of Amun's consort Mut; and to the north is the precinct of Montu, the original falcon god of the Theban area who was displaced by Amun. The small temple of Khonsu, third member of Karnak's great triad (Amun, Mut and Khonsu), stands within the main Amun precinct, along with some 20 other temples and chapels built along two axes (east-west and north-south) this sprawling mass of ruined temple must be carefully studied in order to understand its original plan and subsequent growth. The original core of the temple was located near the centre of the east-west axis on a mound which was doubtless an ancient sacred site. From there the temple spread outwards, both towards the Nile in normal temple expansion and also on its other axis towards the outlying Mut temple to the south.
The modern entrance on the west is by way of the quay built by Ramesses II which gave access to the temple from a canal linked to the Nile in ancient times. To the right stands a small barque chapel of Hakoris (393-380 BC) used as a resting station on the gods' processional journeys to and from the river. A short processional avenue of cryosphinxes - their rams' heads symbolizing the god Amun and each holding a statue of the king between its lion's paws - runs from the quay to the temple's first pylon. This huge entrance structure - originally some 40 m (131 ft) high - is actually unfinished, as may be seen by the unequal height of its upper surface, the uncut blocks which project from its undecorated surfaces and the remains of the mud-brick construction ramp still present on its inner side. The structure may have been built as late as the 30th dynasty by Nectanebo I who raised the temenos walls to which the pylon is attached, but this is uncertain and it is possible that an earlier pylon may have stood on this same spot High on the thickness of the gate an inscription left by Napoleons Expedition is still visible.
The first court encloses an area originally outside the temple proper and so contains a number of i cryosphinxes displaced from their positions along the processional route as well as several once-isolated buildings. To the left is the granite and sandstone triple barque chapel of Sethos II with three chambers for the barques of Mut (left), Amun (centre) and Khonsu (right). Niches within the structure's walls once held royal statues positioned in watchful attendance on the resting gods. Opposite the triple shrine is a small sphinx with the familiar features of Tutankhamun. In the centre of the court are the remains of the gigantic kiosk of Taharqa - later usurped by Psammetichus II and restored under the Ptolemies. Originally consisting of ten huge papyrus columns linked by a low screening wall and open at its eastern and western ends, the building now retains only one great column and a large altar-like block of calcite. Although the function of this building is often presumed to be simply that of a barque shrine, the fact that it was open to the sky suggests that it may in fact have had a special purpose in one i the ritual activities associated with the temple -possibly a type of 'uniting with the sun' ceremony s was practiced in later times at Dendera and elsewhere.
To the right is the entrance to the small temple of Ramesses III. In reality it was an elaborate barque
Shrine designed as a miniature version of that king's mortuary temple at Medinet Habu. The structure in first court is thus lined with Osiride statues of the king, and the walls are decorated with various festival scenes and texts. Beyond are a portico and small hypostyle hall and the darkened area of the barque shrines for the members of Karnak's triad. Next to this temple, on its eastern side, is the so-called 'Bubastite Portal' which gives access to the famous scenes of Sheshonq I - the Shishak of biblical fame (1 Kings 14: 25-26) -smiting captives on the south face of the main temple's side wall. The portal on the court's opposite, northern, side leads to an open-air museum where a number of small monuments have been reconstructed from dismantled blocks found within the temple's walls and pylons. These structures include the beautiful and nearly complete limestone barque chapel of Senwosret I, shrines of Amenophis I and II, and Hatshepsut's only recently reconstructed red quartzite 'Chapelle Rouge'.
The second pylon was fronted by two striding colossi of Ramesses II, of which only the feet of one remain. In front of these is a third, standing statue of the king - with the diminutive figure of the princess Bent'anta standing between his feet -which was later usurped by both Ramesses VI (20th dynasty) and the priest 'king' Pinudjem I (21st dynasty). The pylon itself was begun in the time of Horemheb but not completed till the reign of Sethos I, and from its core many sandstone talatat blocks of an earlier temple of Akhenaten have been removed.
The second pylon opens into the Great Hypostyle Hall, the most impressive part of the whole Karnak complex. A veritable forest in stone, the hall was filled with 134 papyrus columns, the centre 12 being larger (some 21 m or 69 ft tall) and with open capitals, the remaining 122 along the sides smaller (some 15 m or 49 ft tall), with closed capitals. Even when standing at their bases it is difficult to grasp the true size of these columns, for a crowd of 50 people could easily stand together on the capitals of the largest. Originally these great columns supported a roof with small clerestory windows - a few of which survive - which would have provided purposely muted illumination for the primeval papyrus swamp which the hall represented. In ancient times the spaces between the columns thronged wit; statues of gods and kings, a few of which have been placed here in recent times. Against the southern pylon wall is a low alabaster block decorated with Egypt's enemies, the 'nine bows', which served as a barque rest during processions. Although the hall was initiated by Amenophis III, the decoration was begun by Sethos I and completed by Ramesses II, whose more hurried and less subtle sunk reliefs can easily be differentiated from the earlier, raised reliefs in the northern half of the hall The interior decorations show scenes from the daily ritual as well as processional scenes and mythical topics such as the kings interacting with various gods. The exterior walls of the hall are covered by reliefs celebrating the military exploits of Sethos and Ramesses in Syria and Palestine, including Ramesses' battle at Kadesh.
The third pylon was begun by Amenophis III, though its entrance porch is part of the Ramessid construction of the hall. A great number of reused blocks were found within this pylon - from which most of the monuments of the 'open-air museum' have been reconstructed. Behind this pylon, four obelisks were erected by Tuthmosis I and III at the entrance to the original, inner temple, though only one of those of the former king remains. The space between the third and fourth pylons is also the area where the temple's second axis branches off to the south.
Continuing to the east on the main axis, the fourth and fifth pylons were constructed by Tuthmosis I, and together with the narrow, once-pillared area between them constitute the oldest part of temple still remaining This inner temple area received several later additions, however, including the two rose-granite obelisks of Hatshepsut, one of which still stands on the northern side; the other lies shattered to the south.
Little remains of the sixth pylon, built by Tuthmosis III, though the walls still retain the lists of conquered peoples of the south (southern wall) and the north (northern wall). The pylon precedes a court with two magnificent granite pillars bearing the floral emblems of Upper and Lower Egypt on the respective northern and southern sides. The court, which also holds on its north side two large statues of Amun and Amaunet dedicated by Tutankhamun, leads to a granite barque shrine. This structure was built by Alexander the Great's successor, Philip Arrhidaeus, and appears to have replaced an earlier shrine of Tuthmosis III. It is divided into two halves: an outer where offerings were made to the god; and the inner, which still contains the pedestal upon which the god's barque reposed. The inner walls are decorated with depictions of offering rites, with Amun appearing in both his usual anthropomorphic guise and also in his alternative ithyphallic form. The outer walls show various festival scenes, some still retaining much of the original brightly coloured paint.
The sandstone chambers surrounding the granite shrine were built by Hatshepsut, though the walls closest to the structure were added by Tuthmosis III and decorated by him with the 'annals' of his military campaigns and dedications to the temple - including a scene in which the king presents his two obelisks.
Behind these broken walls is the so-called 'central court', an open area upon which the very earliest temple at this site probably once stood and which became the heart of the later temple - the sanctuary with the image of the god. This building was plundered for its stone in antiquity, however, and the area now contains little of note other than the large calcite or 'alabaster' slab on which a shrine once stood. Beyond the central court is the relatively complete Festival Temple of Tuthmosis III, one of Karnak's more interesting and unusual features, Tuthmosis built this small complex as a kind of memorial to himself and his ancestral cult (his mortuary temple is on the west bank just north of the Ramesseum) and called it the 'Most Splendid of Monuments'. The entrance, originally flanked by two statues of the king in festival dress, is at the building's southwest corner, and leads into an antechamber with magazines and other rooms on the right and on the left the temple's great columned hall. The roof of this hall is supported around its perimeter by square pillars, but in the central section by curiously shaped columns imitating ancient tent poles (rather than tent 'pegs' as many books call them). Although this tent-pole architecture may recall ancient religious booths, it is perhaps more likely that it symbolizes the military tents so familiar to this great warrior pharaoh. In the Christian era the hall was reused as a church, and haloed icons may still be seen near the tops of several columns. Other chambers in the building include a 'chamber of the ancestors' and suites of rooms dedicated to the chthonic god Sokar, to the sun god in his morning manifestation, and to Amun. The chapel of Amun contains a massive quartzite pedestal which once supported the shrine of the god, and the vestibule of this 'inclusive temple' is the famous 'Botanical Room' with its representations of exotic flora and fauna encountered on Tuthmosis' foreign campaigns.
The rear walls of Tuthmosis' complex are largely broken down, and it is possible to exit there and : examine the niche shrines built against temple's back, to which the inhabitants of ancient Thebes brought their petitions for transfer to the great gods within Amun's domain. On either side of the shrines are the bases of two obelisks - long since destroyed - which Hatshepsut set up at the rear of the temple; and a little further to the east a reconstructed 'horned' altar of late date are remains of a small 'temple of the hearing ear’ built for the same purpose as the niche shrines by Ramesses II. This structure also once contained a single obelisk on the central axis (probably the so-called 'Lateran Obelisk' in Rome), unusual in that it stood alone on the central axis of the temple. This temple stretched almost to the rear gate of the Karnak complex, an imposing portal nearly 20 m (65 ft 6 in) tall constructed by Nectanebo I. This is the termination of Karnak's main east-west axis, but to the north, inside the crumbling remains of the mud-brick wall, may be seen the remains of a small 22nd-dynasty temple of Osorkon IV dedicated to Osiris Hekadjet, 'Ruler of Eternity', and several other small shrines.
Turning to the south the visitor may walk back towards the sacred lake which, filled by ground water, supplied the water for the priests' ablution and other temple needs. There the excavated remains of the priests' homes now lie beneath the seating erected for the sound and light show at the lake's eastern end. The lake's rough-hewn stone edging is punctuated on the southern side by the opening of a stone tunnel through which the .domesticated geese of Amun were released into the lake from the fowl-yards a little further to the south. At the lake's northwest corner is the chapel of Taharqa, a rather strange building, the underground chambers of which contain description of the sun-god's nightly journey through the earth and his rebirth each day as a scarab beetle. This seems to explain the significance of the large scarab sculpture which was brought from the west mortuary temple of Amenophis III and placed here.
Beyond the pyramidion of Hatshepsut's second obelisk which also lies at the lake's northwest corner is the first court of Karnak's north-south axis. Although the pylon (the seventh) of this court was constructed by Tuthmosis III, the side walls are the work of Ramesses II’s son Merenptah. It was here, at the south end of the court, that the great Karnak Cachette containing some 20,000 statues and stelae was discovered at the beginning of the century. Although most of the wooden statues had been destroyed by ground water, and many of the bronze ones were also damaged, hundreds of stone figures survived in good condition.
The remaining pylons on this axis are currently undergoing restoration by combined Franco-Egyptian teams. The eighth pylon was built by Hatshepsut and the ninth and tenth by Horemheb, who made considerable use of stone quarried from the temples of Akhenaten. Incorporated into the southern wall of the court between these last two pylons is a small Sed-festival or jubilee temple of Amenophis II, recently reconstructed by American Egyptologist Charles Van Siclen III. The temple's central hall contains some finely carved reliefs which retain much of their original colour, though the figures of the god Amun are desecrated by Akhenaten's agents and repaired Sethos I. Van Siclen believes that the structure once stood in the area before the eighth pylon and has shown that it was apparently removed, stone by one, by Horemheb and rebuilt at its present location when the king extended the Great Temple of Amun's south wing and added the ninth pylon. The tenth pylon served as the southern entrance to the precinct of Amun and led, through its gate, past
two limestone colossi (doubtless of Horemheb ) to the sphinx-lined processional way which connected with the precinct of Mut. Within the Amun precinct's walls, however, lie a number of other r temples.
Luxor Temple Luxor Temple, the southernmost of the monuments of the Theban east bank, was located in the heart of ancient Thebes and, like Karnak, was dedicated to the god Amun or Amun-Re. A special manifestation of the god was worshipped here, however. Like the Amun of Karnak he is depicted in two principal forms - as the blue-painted sky god and the black painted ithyphallic fertility god - but maintained a kind of separate identity and was Visited by the Amun of Karnak each year .The temple was called the Southern Opet or 'Place of Seclusion’ and its god Amenemope 'Amun of the Opet’
3,000 years of growth in 'The Place of Seclusion’
Luxor Temple provides a fascinating case study in the growth and expansion of Egyptian temples. While it may have been built on the site of even earlier temple structures, the history of the present structure nevertheless embraces over 3,000 years of growth.
It is known that Hatshepsut built extensively in Luxor Temple, but much of her work was eventually replaced. The core area of Luxor Temple as it stands today was constructed by Amenophis III the 18th-dynastys great 'sun king’. He built in two stages: in the first stage he constructed and decorated a multi-roomed complex on a raised platform that today is the southernmost part of the temple. Later in his reign the king added an open peristyle sun court to the north and also laid the foundations for a large colonnade to the north of that.
Work was interrupted, however, during the reign of Amenophis' son Akhenaten who strove to diminish or destroy the power of Amun’s temples. The colonnade was thus not completed and decorated until the time of Akhenaton’s eventual successor Tutankhamun, who officially restored the worship of Amun in Thebes.
For almost half a century the temple remained in this form until it was expanded again by Rameses II This prolific builder constructed a huge court and pylon on a new axis which swung to the east in order to align itself with Amun's main temple at Karnak - to which Luxor Temple was joined by a long processional way. The triple shrine constructed to hold the barques of Amun, Mut and Khonsu when they visited Luxor was also built by Ramesses at this time, on the location of an earlier way station (built by Hatshepsut), when the king enclosed this southern part of the processional way in his great court.
Although no further expansions were made on this scale in the following centuries, the Late Period king Shabaka seems to have constructed a large pillared kiosk before Ramesses' pylon, and some 300 years later Nectanebo I added a broad courtyard in the same open area before the pylon and embellished the temple's processional avenue to Karnak with hundreds of human-headed sphinxes.
The continuing importance of Luxor is also seen in the complete renewal of the central barque shrine in the name of Alexander the Great shortly after the Macedonian's conquest of Egypt. Likewise, the cult emperor worship was established in the temple, with certain architectural features being added or modified, when Egypt became an imperial province of Rome in the 1st century BC. Later still, in the 4th to 6th centuries AD, the whole temple was incorporated into a Roman castrum or fortified military encampment, the massive stone-paved avenues and pillared streets of which can still be seen today. After the conversion of Rome to Christianity and in the Byzantine Period, several Christian churches built in and around the temple precincts. In the 6th century one of these churches was built within the Ramesside court, and on top of this same building, in the 13th century, the Mosque of Abu el-Haggag was constructed. This mosque still remains in use today and effectively brings the history of Luxor Temple as a sacred precinct from its beginnings, some time before 1500 BC, to the present day –a history of well over 3,000 years of change, development and growth.
Monuments and artwork
Compact in plan, Luxor Temple may be explored in little more than an hour; but the complexity and richness of this structure warrant many times that. The temple's artwork includes some of the finest relief carving in Egypt and is often very well preserved because much of the temple was buried for many centuries. The present entrance is through the pylon of Ramesses II, once fronted by six colossi of the king (two seated and four standing) and two obelisks. One of the obelisks and two of the statues were transported to Paris in the last century, but those that remain provide impressive examples of these monuments.
The outer walls of the pylons were decorated in the time of Ramesses with a depiction of the Battle of Kadesh (1285 BC), and the reliefs of the inner walls of the gateway were added by the Nubian king Shabaka in the 25th dynasty. Beyond the pylons, the temple's large peristyle court is surrounded by two rows of papyrus-bud columns and contains, on the left, the Abu el-Haggag mosque, and on the right, the tripartite barque shrine built by Ramesses for use by the visiting deities Amun, Mut and Khonsu of Karnak. The statues between the ambulatory's columns were usurped or carved at the behest of Ramesses II; those of the southwest corner are particularly well preserved.
The imposing processional colonnade of Amenophis III, with its massive papyrus capital columns,| each in excess of 19 m (62 ft 3 in) tall, once fronted that king's temple and was the architectural prototype for the Great Hypostyle Hall of Karnak. Its walls were decorated by Tutankhamun and preserve scenes of the great Opet Festival celebrated here. The west wall depicts the southward procession from Karnak and the (better-preserved) east wall depicts the return sequence.
Beyond the colonnade is the Great Sun Court of Amenophis' temple which received decoration from the time of Amenophis himself to that of Alexander. The side walls retain some of their original colouring, and it was here that a spectacular cache of statuary was unearthed in 1989. At its southern end the court now blends almost imperceptibly into the hypostyle hall consisting of four rows of papyrus columns whose roof no longer survives. The hypostyle leads to a smaller eight-columned hall or portico which originally opened into the inner temple, but which was transformed by the Roman legion stationed at Luxor into a chapel dedicated to the imperial cult. The hall is flanked by chapels for Mut and Khonsu and leads to an offering hall and sanctuary in the form of a large barque shrine. In Amenophis' temple this was originally a large, square room (the bases of its columns are still visible in the floor), but the present shrine was erected within this space by Alexander the Great who is depicted on the shrine's walls, dressed as a pharaoh and presenting offerings to the ithyphallic Amun.
Directly behind the barque shrine are the innermost chambers of Amenophis’ temple, including, in the central location, the original sanctuary or 'holy of holies', containing the base of the block which once supported the god's image. The surrounding rooms form the suite of private or intimately secluded chambers which gave the temple its name of Opet or 'harem'. Separated from the main temple, this area formed a kind of temple within the temple, apparently with special mythic significance relating to the particular nature of the Amun of Luxor. The various chambers are ranged around an unusual small hall with 12 pillars -possibly symbolizing the hours of the day since depictions of the sun-god's day and evening barques appear on the room's opposing east and west walls. These innermost parts of the temple stood on a low mound which was held to be the original site of creation - the mound which rose from the primeval waters - so that the roles of the chief gods Amun and Re and the concepts Of creation and cyclic solar renewal were here particularly intertwined.
To the east of the barque shrine is the ‘birth room' so-called because of its decorative sequence. On the west wall is depicted the divine conception and birth of Amenophis III, along with his subsequent presentation to the gods and nurturing, as well as the determination of the future king's reign.
It is possible that the scenes depicted here in fact reflect a ritual 'divine marriage' that was celebrated between the king and the 'god's wife' -the queen -during the Opet Festival, but in any event, they affirm the overall theme of renewed royal and divine vitality celebrated in the festival. The mound on which this area of the temple stood was also held to be the very site of the birth of Amun so that the theme of birth was clearly one shared by temple and festival alike.
The outer surfaces of the eastern walls of the inner temple area can be seen to contain many blocks apparently randomly decorated with unrelated images. This 'out-of-the-way' area represents a 'practice wall' where the ancient masons and sculptors learned the skills of temple decoration. The carved practice representations were the plastered over, only to be revealed again in the course of centuries as the underlying stone became exposed.
The outer surfaces of the eastern walls of the inner temple area can be seen to contain many blocks apparently randomly decorated with unrelated images. This 'out-of-the-way' area represents a 'practice wall' where the ancient masons and sculptors learned the skills of temple decoration. The carved practice representations were the plastered over, only to be revealed again in the course of centuries as the underlying stone became exposed.
Ramesseum TempleThe Ramesseum...most noble and pure in Thebes as far as great monuments are concerned’.
Jean-Francois Champollion, 1829
Ramesses the Great began his mortuary temple in the second year of his reign, and it was not to be completed until some 20 years later. The 'House of millions of years of User-Maat-Re Setepenre [the throne name of Ramesses] that unites with Thebes¬ the city in the domain of Amun’ was ambitiously planned even by Ramesses’ standards; and although ruined and robbed, the temple remains one of the great monuments of Egypt. Diodorus Siculus referred to it as the ‘tomb’ of Ozymandias (derived from User-Maat-Ra), and Strabo gave it the name the Memnonium, and it was widely known until time forgot it. Also called the Memnonium by Napoleon's Expedition, the temple complex - for it originally consisted of two temples and a palace as well as many administrative building - was first called the Ramesseum’ by Champollion, who regarded it as perhaps the greatest of all the storeyed monuments of Thebes.
We are fortunate to know much of the Ramesseum's history. It was constructed for Ramesses by two architect-foremen, Penre of Coptos and Amenemone of Abydos, and built with a number of original features. The temple's pylons, for example constructed up to this time of mud-brick, were her first built of stone; its great colossus, 'Ozymandias was the largest free-standing statue ever made in Egypt. No effort was spared to make this the most splendid of all Ramesses' many monuments. Unfortunately, like so many of the mortuary complexes of western Thebes, the life of the tempi was not to be long. By the 22nd dynasty the complex was already in use as a necropolis for members of the Theban clergy, and several princesses and Divine Adoratrices were buried there. From the 29th dynasty onwards the Ramesseum was subject to much destruction through the dismantling of its walls, pillars and other features, with many blocks being used in the late additions to Medinet Habu. In the 1st century AD the remaining core of the temple was transformed into a Christian church, when many of the reliefs were hammered and numerous graffiti were painted or engraved upon its walls. For centuries thereafter the Ramesseum remained a cluttered, broken and puzzling - if romantic - ruin, as impressive for the incredible destruction wrought upon it as for its surviving features.
Since its rediscovery in the modern era, the Ramesseum has attracted much attention.
The main temple:
The temple's great entrance pylon decorated with scenes from the Battle of Kadesh, collapsed due to the continuing flooding of the temple forecourts and the resulting erosion of its foundations, and now lies crumbling at the front of the first court. Originally the court was lined by pillars on its northern side, and on the south a columned portico stood before the doors of the temple's palace. It was at the rear of this court that the truly colossal seated figure of the king was set up and flanked by a statue of his mother, the queen Tuya. From here stairs led up to the second court.
The second pylon is also badly destroyed, and the remains of its southern wall are partially covered by the shattered remnants of the toppled colossus.
On the remaining northern wall the Battle of Kadesh is again celebrated, along with scenes from the festival of Min. The current visitors' entrance is on the north side of this second court, which was originally bounded by a portico on three sides, with Osiride statues of the king against the pillars of its eastern and western sides. Here too, colossi were set up, though only the black granite head of one remains; the upper part of the other, known as the 'Younger Memmnon', was removed with great difficulty by Belzoni in 1816 and is now in the British Museum. This was the first royal colossus to be seen in England, where it revolutionized European appreciation of Egyptian art.
The temple's hypostyle hall was supported by elegant papyrus columns and, like the hypostyle of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, it was lighted only by high clerestory windows and designed to mimic the marshes of primeval creation. The eastern wall shows military scenes such as the king and his sons attacking the Hittite fortress of Dapur, while the western wall displays various scenes of Ramesses before the gods. Behind the hypostyle hall is the so-called 'astronomical room' or 'hall of the barques', decorated with scenes from the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley', and an astronomical ceiling showing the constellations and decans, or divisions of the night sky.
This small hypostyle is followed by another - the 'hall of the litanies', with ritual offering scenes involving the solar (Re-Horakhty) and the chthonic (Ptah) aspects of cultic service. Behind this was yet another eight-columned room, a four-columned hall in which the god's personal barque was kept, and the sanctuary. Though this and the rest of the main temple is destroyed, it seems that the sanctuary of Amun was probably flanked by chapels of the royal cult on the left and the solar cult on the right. Unusually, the plan of the Ramesseum can be seen to be a parallelogram rather than a true rectangle as would be expected. This was perhaps a result of orienting the temple along the lines of a small pre-existing chapel of Ramesses' mother Tuya while angling the pylons in order to achieve desired orientation with Luxor Temple on the Nile's east bank.
A vast maze-like array of magazines and administrative buildings surrounded the temple on three sides. Of little interest to the robbers of stone, many of the outlying structures of the temple complex have survived better than the temple itself, as stone was usually only used for doorjambs and thresholds in this kind of building. The temple stores were housed in magazines, some larger with roofs of wood and others smaller with vaulted brick roofs. Holes spaced about every 6 m (20 ft) in some of the roofs of these magazines were to allow grain to be poured into them. A well stood outside the second court to the west of the royal palace, and a sacred lake probably existed within the complex but has not yet been found.
The temple's great entrance pylon decorated with scenes from the Battle of Kadesh, collapsed due to the continuing flooding of the temple forecourts and the resulting erosion of its foundations, and now lies crumbling at the front of the first court. Originally the court was lined by pillars on its northern side, and on the south a columned portico stood before the doors of the temple's palace. It was at the rear of this court that the truly colossal seated figure of the king was set up and flanked by a statue of his mother, the queen Tuya. From here stairs led up to the second court.
The second pylon is also badly destroyed, and the remains of its southern wall are partially covered by the shattered remnants of the toppled colossus.
On the remaining northern wall the Battle of Kadesh is again celebrated, along with scenes from the festival of Min. The current visitors' entrance is on the north side of this second court, which was originally bounded by a portico on three sides, with Osiride statues of the king against the pillars of its eastern and western sides. Here too, colossi were set up, though only the black granite head of one remains; the upper part of the other, known as the 'Younger Memmnon', was removed with great difficulty by Belzoni in 1816 and is now in the British Museum. This was the first royal colossus to be seen in England, where it revolutionized European appreciation of Egyptian art.
The temple's hypostyle hall was supported by elegant papyrus columns and, like the hypostyle of the Great Temple of Amun at Karnak, it was lighted only by high clerestory windows and designed to mimic the marshes of primeval creation. The eastern wall shows military scenes such as the king and his sons attacking the Hittite fortress of Dapur, while the western wall displays various scenes of Ramesses before the gods. Behind the hypostyle hall is the so-called 'astronomical room' or 'hall of the barques', decorated with scenes from the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley', and an astronomical ceiling showing the constellations and decans, or divisions of the night sky.
This small hypostyle is followed by another - the 'hall of the litanies', with ritual offering scenes involving the solar (Re-Horakhty) and the chthonic (Ptah) aspects of cultic service. Behind this was yet another eight-columned room, a four-columned hall in which the god's personal barque was kept, and the sanctuary. Though this and the rest of the main temple is destroyed, it seems that the sanctuary of Amun was probably flanked by chapels of the royal cult on the left and the solar cult on the right. Unusually, the plan of the Ramesseum can be seen to be a parallelogram rather than a true rectangle as would be expected. This was perhaps a result of orienting the temple along the lines of a small pre-existing chapel of Ramesses' mother Tuya while angling the pylons in order to achieve desired orientation with Luxor Temple on the Nile's east bank.
A vast maze-like array of magazines and administrative buildings surrounded the temple on three sides. Of little interest to the robbers of stone, many of the outlying structures of the temple complex have survived better than the temple itself, as stone was usually only used for doorjambs and thresholds in this kind of building. The temple stores were housed in magazines, some larger with roofs of wood and others smaller with vaulted brick roofs. Holes spaced about every 6 m (20 ft) in some of the roofs of these magazines were to allow grain to be poured into them. A well stood outside the second court to the west of the royal palace, and a sacred lake probably existed within the complex but has not yet been found.
Temple of Hatshepsut'A palace of the god, wrought with gold and silver, it illuminated the faces [of the people] with its brightness.' Tomb inscription of Hatshepsut's official, Djehuty.Called by the Egyptians Djeser-djeseru, 'sacred of sacreds', Hatshepsut's terraced and rock-cut temple at Deir el-Bahri is one of the most impressive monuments of western Thebes. Situated directly against the rock face of Deir el-Bahri's great rock bay, the temple not only echoed the lines of the surrounding cliffs in its design but fused so effectively with them that it seems a natural extension of its setting. The temple was little more than a ruin when it was excavated by Edouard Naville (1891), and later by Herbert Winlock and Emile Baraize, but the work of the Polish-Egyptian mission, which has laboured at the site since 1961 (currently directed by Fran-ciszek Pawlicki), has Jed to a great deal of successful reconstruction.
It is known that the construction of this temple took 15 years, and modern studies have shown that it underwent a number of substantial modifications in that time. In the completed structure, the approach to the temple was along a sphinx-lined causeway, some 37 m (121 ft) wide, which led up from the valley to pylons which are now gone. Designed in multiple levels, the temple itself consisted of three broad courts separated by colonnades, linked by ascending ramps and bounded by dressed limestone walls. Hatshepsut recorded that she built her temple as 'a garden for my father Amun', and the first court once held exotic trees and shrubs brought from Punt (perhaps southern Sudan or Eritrea). Its portico was decorated on its northern side with scenes of the marshes of Lower (northern) Egypt and on the south with the quarrying and transportation of the queen's great obelisks in Upper (southern) Egypt. The portico of the second court was carved on its southern side with relief scenes of the famous expedition sent by Hatshepsut to distant Punt, and on the north, the renowned and finely executed 'birth' scenes showing the queen's divine inception (and hence regnal legitimacy), which probably served as a model for the later scene of this type in Luxor Temple.
The area of Deir el-Bahri was long sacred to the goddess Hathor, and at the southern end of the second colonnade is a complete Hathor chapel, originally with its own entrance. The chapel contains a vestibule with characteristic Hathor-headed pillars, a 12-columned hypostyle hall and inner rooms decorated with various scenes of Hatshepsut and Hathor, and a hidden representation of the queen's favourite Senenmut. At the northern end of the same colonnade is a somewhat smaller chapel of Anubis, again with a 12-columned hall and inner rooms.
The upper terrace had an entrance portico decorated with Osiride statues of the queen before each pillar, though most of these have been destroyed. The portico opened to a columned court flanked on the left with a chapel dedicated to the royal cult (here Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis I) and on the right by a chapel (with its own open court and altar) of the solar cult. A small ancillary chapel attached to this solar court is now believed to have been dedicated to the parents of Hatshepsut. At the very back of the central court the innermost part of the temple is cut into the cliff face. Eighteen cult niches - nine on each side - flank the rock sanctuary of Amun which was the focus of the whole complex and which received the sacred barque of the god during the annual celebration of the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley'.
During the Ptolemaic era the sanctuary of Amun was renewed and expanded to include the cults of two great architects: Amenophis son of Hapu - the skilled overseer of works for Amenophis III; and Imhotep - the builder of Djoser's Step Pyramid. These individuals were also associated with wisdom and medicine, and the upper court may in fact have been used as a sanatorium) and frequented by the sick at this time. Later yet, in the 7th century AD, the temple area became the site of a Coptic monastery, the 'Monastery of the North, from which the modern Arabic name of the site -Deir el-Bahri - is derived.
Sadly, because of her unorthodox reign and the tensions between Hatshepsut and her erstwhile ward, Tuthmosis III, the temple suffered much destruction and mutilation. Hatshepsut's name and many of her representations were hacked away in the reaction which inevitably followed her rule as pharaoh During the Amarna Period many of the images of Amun were also destroyed at the behest of Akhenaten, and even further attrition occurred in the 19th dynasty when the Osiride statues of Hatshepsut were destroyed. The early Copts too, in their zeal to do away with the old pagan images, defaced many representations of the gods, so that little of the temple's artwork was left undamaged. Restoration carried out at the temple over a good many years has successfully reconstructed many of the scenes, however, and the Polish-Egyptian team working in the temple has recently been able to restore the wall of the upper terrace with more than 70 recovered carved blocks. The newly repaired registers depict the procession of the sacred barque of Amun.
The upper terrace had an entrance portico decorated with Osiride statues of the queen before each pillar, though most of these have been destroyed. The portico opened to a columned court flanked on the left with a chapel dedicated to the royal cult (here Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis I) and on the right by a chapel (with its own open court and altar) of the solar cult. A small ancillary chapel attached to this solar court is now believed to have been dedicated to the parents of Hatshepsut. At the very back of the central court the innermost part of the temple is cut into the cliff face. Eighteen cult niches - nine on each side - flank the rock sanctuary of Amun which was the focus of the whole complex and which received the sacred barque of the god during the annual celebration of the 'Beautiful Feast of the Valley'.
During the Ptolemaic era the sanctuary of Amun was renewed and expanded to include the cults of two great architects: Amenophis son of Hapu - the skilled overseer of works for Amenophis III; and Imhotep - the builder of Djoser's Step Pyramid. These individuals were also associated with wisdom and medicine, and the upper court may in fact have been used as a sanatorium) and frequented by the sick at this time. Later yet, in the 7th century AD, the temple area became the site of a Coptic monastery, the 'Monastery of the North, from which the modern Arabic name of the site -Deir el-Bahri - is derived.
Sadly, because of her unorthodox reign and the tensions between Hatshepsut and her erstwhile ward, Tuthmosis III, the temple suffered much destruction and mutilation. Hatshepsut's name and many of her representations were hacked away in the reaction which inevitably followed her rule as pharaoh During the Amarna Period many of the images of Amun were also destroyed at the behest of Akhenaten, and even further attrition occurred in the 19th dynasty when the Osiride statues of Hatshepsut were destroyed. The early Copts too, in their zeal to do away with the old pagan images, defaced many representations of the gods, so that little of the temple's artwork was left undamaged. Restoration carried out at the temple over a good many years has successfully reconstructed many of the scenes, however, and the Polish-Egyptian team working in the temple has recently been able to restore the wall of the upper terrace with more than 70 recovered carved blocks. The newly repaired registers depict the procession of the sacred barque of Amun.
The Building of a Royal Tomb The building of his own tomb, the place where the transformation and the regeneration of the deceased king occurred, was one of the living pharaoh's deepest concerns: generally, already during his first year of reign the spot of the future tomb was chosen and a plan was worked out in which not only the architectural peculiarities were specified, but also the decorations, the paintings and the texts to be represented on the walls. Subsequently, they immediately proceeded to the implementation stage, entrusted to the architect and to the craftsmen who lived in the village of Deir el-Medina and went work following a trail over the mountain's crest that can still be easily crossed today. The working days were of variable length, according to the tomb's dimensions which, in their turn, were proportionate at least within certain limits, to the duration of the reign. The working day started at dawn and lasted eight hours with a break for lunch after the first four hours of work. The working pace was therefore family reasons, occurring rather frequently, were also granted. The craftsmen were organized in teams working under the supervision of an architect. The team was divided into two groups, the right and the left, working simultaneously under the orders of two foremen in the respective parts of the tomb. The head of the team, originally appointed by the pharaoh himself or by the vizier (a dignitary acting as a prime minister), was directly responsible for the work, checked the reasons for the absences of the workmen and had dealings with the vizier himself through a scribe specifically entrusted with this duty. The scribes, who fulfilled a highly important and prestigious task in Egyptian society, were also charged with the withdrawal from the pharaoh's warehouses of the food distributed as wages to the workmen, with the settling of quarrels and with the administration of justice in the village of Deir el-Medina. The foremen, on the other hand, had to inspect the distribution of the material kept in the warehouses and draw up the list of presences and absences. The groups did not have a fixed number of members, but the average strength numbered between thirty and sixty persons: this figure, however, could increase if need be, up to one hundred and twenty persons. The workmen's duties were specialized and complementary: stone-cutters, plasterers, sculptors, draftsmen and decorators worked side by side and simultaneously in a sort of assembly line. The quarrymen came into operation first and, while the digging went on, penetrating always deeper inside the mountain, the plasterers smoothed the walls of the parts not too far from the surface, affixing a layer of muna, a kind of plaster obtained from a mixture of clay and quartz, limestone and crushed straw, over which were laid a thinner plaster made of clay and limestone, successively whitened with a layer of gypsum dissolved in water.
The execution of the decorative program, chosen by the high priests in agreement with the pharaoh, was entrusted to the draftsmen. These worked using a red ochre after having subdivided the surface to paint into numerous squares, by means of a string fastened to a stick, in order to be able to place correctly the figures and the texts and make sure that proportions were respected according to very precise rules. The draftsmen were under the supervision of a chief draftsman who made necessary corrections using black charcoal. Then the sculptors stepped in and started carving the rock to obtain a bas relief, to be coloured later by the painters, who used six basic colours with precise symbolic and ritual meanings.
The Burial of the PharaohThe news of the pharaoh's death was generally received with a degree of joy by the Deir el-Medina craftsmen, not just because the enthroning of a new king meant new work, but also because it was necessary to quickly put the final touches to the tomb and to the very numerous funerary furnishings that had to accompany the king in his last dwelling, operations that all offered increased opportunities for additional income. Generally a three-month period intervened between the king's death and his burial: the time needed for the complex ritual of the embalming and preparation of the king's corpse, which, after having been immersed for seventy days in natron, was wrapped in a first layer of very thin linen bandages on which were laid, in well-determined spots, numerous amulets, later covered with a second layer of broader bandages soaked in resin and aromatic essential oils. The procession, setting out from the royal palace, reached the West of Thebes and entered "the road where Re sets" heading for "the great and majestic necropolis of the Pharaoh's millions of years Life Strength Health in the West of Thebes". The royal mummy in its wooden sarcophagus was followed by parties of women screaming and crying, while the bald-headed priests burnt incense, shaking their sistrums. As it reached the tomb and faced it, the coffin was stood upright and the high priest or, sometimes, the new pharaoh accomplished the ritual "of the opening of the mouth", thanks to which the deceased magically reacquired the use of his mouth and was able, in such a way, to speak again, to drink and to eat. Then, the mortal remains were carried to the burial chamber where a monumental stone sarcophagus had been prepared long since, on which was laid the heavy cover carved in high relief with the king's image. At that time, while family and friends started the funerary banquet, the workmen hermetically closed the entrance to the tomb, on which the necropolis seals were affixed. The entrance was not always hidden but, mainly starting from the Nineteenth Dynasty, it was left in plain view and the necropolis guards, beside garrisoning the road leading to the valley, regularly inspected the seals in order to verify their integrity, after which they drew up careful reports. Once the tomb was closed and sealed, nobody was permitted to penetrate it anymore and the Valley itself was a forbidden spot where nobody, except the craftsmen and the guards, was entitled to go: the worship of the deceased king never required a return to the place of burial and was performed far away, in the plain of the Nile Valley in the "castles of the millions of years" where the king united with eternity in the estates of Amun in the West of Thebes.
Tomb of King TUT-ANKH-AMEN (KV no. 62) In November 1922, Howard carter discovered the intact tomb of a practically unknown pharaoh whose name, Tutankhamun, pretty soon became so famous that it obscured those of the other pharaohs. Carter, who worked on behalf of Lord Carnarvon, a wealthy British landowner who had obtained from the Antiquities Service the concession to dig in the Valley of the Kings formerly granted to Theodore Davis, was digging from 1917 in the area between the tomb of Ramesses II and that of Ramesses IV. After years of research as unfruitful as it was expensive, Lord Carnarvon was about to give up the concession, as Davis had already, done declaring the valley an exhausted site from the archaeological point of view, when on November 4, 1922 a workman uncovered a stone step, the first of a flight descending into the mountain. Carter, perhaps guessing he was at the threshold of the much expected discovery, covered the find and sent Carnarvon a telegram to England informing him of the event and asking him to come over immediately.
On November 24 work was briskly resumed, the steps were freed of debris and Carter and Carnarvon found themselves facing a first walled door followed by a second inner door: both carried the necropolis seals and the long sought name, Tutankhamun. On November 26, 1922 Carter, Carnarvon, his daughter Lady Evelyn and Callender, the engineer who had been engaged to assist with the work a short time before, succeeded at last in digging a little hole in the second door and observing the tomb's interior and the treasures it contained. It was the first, and to this day the only royal tomb in the history of Egyptology to be found practically untouched, even though, in ancient times, it had been the object of no less than two attempts at robbery, luckily without serious consequences. The emptying of Tutankhamun's tomb lasted several years and made possible the recovery of about 3,500 articles, confirming that the matter at hand was the most exceptional archaeological discovery ever made in Egypt. The tomb presents a plan simple and typical of the Eighteenth Dynasty's tombs: at the bottom of the stairs, a short corridor ends inside a rectangular vestibule with a small annex. The vestibule leads to the burial chamber on whose eastern wall opens a second annex, called by Carter "the Treasury". The burial chamber, in the middle of which the large red quartzite sarcophagus occupies the place of honor, is the only room of the whole tomb decorated with paintings. Inside the quartzite sarcophagus, on whose corners four protecting deities are carved (Isis, Nephthys, Selkis and Neith), there is a wooden anthropoid coffin, covered with gold leaf, the first of three anthropoid coffins originally enclosing the mummy of the king, who, even though in poor condition as the result of a clumsy autopsy, rests in his tomb to this day. The decoration is rather simple, and the paintings, well preserved, show signs of Amarnan influence: the young king, son of Amenophis IV / Akhenaten, the heretical pharaoh who introduced the cult of Aten, the only solar god, was brought up and lived until he mounted the throne at the court in Akhetaten (Arnarna), the new capital founded by his father. The scenes represented describe the funerary procession with Tutankhamun's sarcophagus carried by the court's dignitaries and the ceremony of the mouth opening performed by Ay, his successor, both scenes being quite uncommon in a royal tomb. The other paintings represent Tutankhamun with his ka welcomed by Nut in front of Osiris (north wall), and again the young king, with Anubis and Isis following in his footsteps, in the presence of Hathor (south wall) and in the act of sailing in his boat for the Afterlife world (east wall): the texts painted on the walls are taken from the Book ofAmduat, from which some of the wall paintings also draw inspiration.
Tombs of the Nobles The private tombs of the New Kingdom period in Thebes, usually referred to as "Tombs of the Nobles", have been excavated on the sides of the mountain in a rather large area extending between the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens; they are situated in various necropolises: Dra Abu el-Naga, el-Khokha, Assasif, Deir el-Bahri, Sheikh Abd el-Qurna, Qurnet Murai and Deir el-Medina. They constitute an extraordinary complex of more than 500 tombs decorated with paintings which, unlike those in the royal tombs, also show scenes and moments of daily life, thus enabling us to observe, as in a journey into the past, the daily routine of Egypt three thousand five hundred years ago. The tombs, whose structure obviously varies according to their date, generally include an outer yard, a funerary chapel intended for the offerings and the private worship of the deceased, preceded by an underground passage or a shaft leading to the burial chamber, usually not decorated. The classical Theban tomb has an overturned T -like plan with a first transversal room, or vestibule, and a second prolonged one with the main axis perpendicular to the previous, or a chapel ending in a niche in which the statue of the deceased was found. Above the entrance there was frequently a pyramidion, of the kind which adorn the Deir el-Medina tombs. On these necropolises numerous private dwelling-places have been built, incorporating in many cases part of the tombs, which are used as cellars or cowsheds. This phenomenon is not a recent one (it was extensively described by nineteenth-century's travellers, but today it is increasingly the cause of very serious problems and of damage to the very delicate wall paintings, both because of the increase in the number of houses and because of the enormous increase in water consumption: in the absence of a drainage and sewerage network, the waste water is absorbed by the limestone which forms the Theban mountain, thus increasing the moisture in the walls of the tombs and producing alterations and flaking of the wall paintings. Presently, only about fifteen tombs are equipped for touristic visits and are open to the public, about ten among them being the most beautiful and best preserved of the entire necropolis. They may be regarded as great masterpieces of the art of the New Kingdom.
Valley of the Kings The Valley of the Kings, called by the Arabs Biban el-Muluk (that is "the gates of the kings") because of the entrances of several tombs opening in the valley's rocky walls, is a deep erosion dug out in the limestone of the Libyan range and directed mainly north-west. The ancient Egyptians referred to it in different ways such as Ta sekhet aat "Great Field" or "the beautiful ladder of the West", but its official name was "the great and majestic necropolis of Pharaoh's millions of years Life Strength Health in the West of Thebes". Today the access to the valley, several kilometers long, is over a wide asphalted road that follows the ancient track used in the Pharaonic era and referred to as the "road where Re sets". The valley is successively divided into two branches: the western one is called the Western Valley, as well as the Valley of the Monkeys and it shelters four tombs, two of which are royal and belong to the Pharaohs Amenophis III (WV no. 22) and Ay (WV no. 23), while the main branch, which is found on the extension of the access road, is the one commonly referred to as "Valley of the Kings" and encloses 58 tombs. The Valley of the Kings is dominated by the Theban Peak, called by the natives el-Qurna "the Horn" from its curious pyramid-like shape, identified in ancient times with the snake-goddess Mertseger "She Who Loves Silence". It was probably the presence of such a geomorphological element, clearly calling to mind the pyramid, a peculiarity of the Old Kingdom's royal burials that prompted the first pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty to single out this imposing spot, burnt by the desert sun, for the establishment of their eternal dwellings. To this religious and ritual Motive a more practical one is certainly to be added: as a result of its position and its geographical conformation, the access to this valley was difficult and in any case it could easily be supervised by the Medjay, the special police corps entrusted with the guarding of the necropolises. It is hard to ascertain who really was the first pharaoh who had himself buried in the valley, although apparently Tuthmosis I, occupying KV no. 38, seems to be entitled to the priority. This tomb, however, may have been arranged later, at the time of Tuthmosis III, who may have transferred there the sarcophagus of the first of the Tuthmosides, as is indicated by the objects found in it, which go back to the times of Tuthmosis III. One of the most ancient tombs, if not the most ancient, is certainly the gigantic and unusual one intended by Hatshepsut for herself and her father Tuthmosis I (KV no. 20). However, the possibility cannot be ruled out that the hypogeum was originally indeed built for Tuthmosis I and that Hatshepsut had extended the original plan.
In any case, starting from the time! Of Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, the Valley of the Kings became the Theban pharaohs' burial place and continued serving as a royal necropolis until the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, specifically until the times of Ramesses XI, who was the last pharaoh buried in the Valley. Contrary to prevailing belief, the entrances to the royal tombs were not hidden but clearly visible and the necropolis police, besides watching the road leading to the valley, regularly inspected the entrances to the tombs to ascertain that the seals, affixed at the moment of burial, were unbroken. Unfortunately quite early all these precautions turned out to be useless. In fact, during a difficult and insecure period of political and social instability like the one that occurred at the end of Ramesses Ill's reign and that worsened until the end of the Twentieth Dynasty, the great amount of treasures heaped up in the tombs attracted ever more frequent robberies and pillages. It was therefore decided not to use that site any longer, since by then it was too well-known to the thieves and the pillagers. The priests removed the royal mummies to safer and better concealed places, (such as the Deir el-Bahri cache) in order to save them from profanation. From the papyruses concerning the robberies in the tombs at the time of the Twentieth Dynasty, such as "Papyrus Mayer B", "Papyrus Salt 124" and "Papyrus Abbott", we learn that already at that time many private and royal tombs had been violated: the tomb of Tutankhamun represents a happy exception, having been covered up with the debris from the excavation of the tomb of Ramesses IV, located above its entrance. Silence fell on the Valley for many centuries, until the Ptolemaic era when the first Greek and Roman "tourists" arrived: the historian Diodorus Siculus, was in Egypt in 57 BC writes: "They say that these are the tombs of the ancient kings: they are magnificent and they do not leave to posterity the possibility of creating anything more beautiful" and on the walls of the tomb of Ramesses IV, for example, may be seen numerous graffiti left by the tourists of the Roman period. Then, silence again descended on this sacred site, until the times of the Jesuit Claude Sicard, who was in Egypt between 1708 and 1712 and identified the site of ancient Thebes, rediscovering the tombs in the Valley of the Kings. Afterwards in 1734 the English clergyman Richard Pococke visited the Valley and drew its first plan, in which eighteen tombs appeared, only half of which were accessible. Later on, the Scotsman James Bruce explored the tomb of Ramesses III in 1769 and the scholars following Napoleon's 1798 expedition discovered the tomb of Amenophis III (WV no. 22) in the Western Valley and undertook the first scientific survey of the site.
Several years later, in 1817, Giovanni Battista Belzoni from Padua discovered the tombs of Ramesses I (KV no. 16), of Sethos I (KV no. 17) and of Ay, this last one in the Western Valley (WV no. 23). These exceptional discoveries were followed, three years later, by those of the Englishman James Burton who discovered two uninscribed tombs and a third one (KV no. 5) assigned to prince Meriatum "He who is loved by Atum, son of Ramesses II". Between 1824 and 1830, in the years following the decipherment of hieroglyphic writing, John Gardiner Wilkinson tenaciously worked in the Valley of the Kings identifying and assigning for the first time to the tombs a numeration still in use in our own days. In the years between 1828 and 1850 the Valley was the goal of scientists, travelers and artists among whom were Champollion and Rossellini, Robert Hay, and Richard Lepsius, but new discoveries were not registered until 1898, when the Frenchman Victor Loret discovered two new tombs belonging to Tuthmosis III (KV no. 34) and Amenophis II (KV no. 35) and in the next year the tomb, by far smaller and more modest, of Tuthmosis I (KV no. 38). Finally, in 1903, Howard Carter discovered the tomb of Tuthmosis IV (KV no. 43) and, in 1905 Theodore Davis discovered the untouched tomb of Yuya and Tuyu (KV no. 46), the parents of Queen Tiy, Amenophis Ill's wife. In that same period Edward Ayrton discovered the tombs of pharaoh Siptah (KV no. 47) and of Horemheb (KV no. 57), the last ruler of the Eighteenth Dynasty.
A few years later, in 1922, Carter discovered the last royal tomb of the Valley, the only royal burial site that had remained practically untouched: the very famous one of Tutankhamun (KV no. 62). Chronologically, the last discovery occurred in February 1995, when Kent Weeks of the American University in Cairo found a series of new rooms arranged for the sons of Ramesses II in the tomb located opposite that of Ramesses 11 (KV no. 5) already visited by Burton in 1820, of which practically every trace had since been lost. This new section of the tomb, prepared for the sons of Ramesses II, basically changes our knowledge of Ramesside tomb architecture and makes this strange tomb with a "T" plan and a series of 67 rooms found until now (which may increase following the exploration of a lower floor) the largest of all the Valley's tombs.
A few years later, in 1922, Carter discovered the last royal tomb of the Valley, the only royal burial site that had remained practically untouched: the very famous one of Tutankhamun (KV no. 62). Chronologically, the last discovery occurred in February 1995, when Kent Weeks of the American University in Cairo found a series of new rooms arranged for the sons of Ramesses II in the tomb located opposite that of Ramesses 11 (KV no. 5) already visited by Burton in 1820, of which practically every trace had since been lost. This new section of the tomb, prepared for the sons of Ramesses II, basically changes our knowledge of Ramesside tomb architecture and makes this strange tomb with a "T" plan and a series of 67 rooms found until now (which may increase following the exploration of a lower floor) the largest of all the Valley's tombs.
Valley of the QueensThe Valley of the Queens is the southernmost of the Theban necropolises and is the place where, starting from the Eighteenth Dynasty (about the sixteenth century BC), the first princes and princesses of the royal blood were interred together with personages living in the court circles and, subsequently, starting from the times of Ramesses II, the queens on whom the title of "royal bride" had been bestowed. Later, during the Twentieth Dynasty, Ramesses III renewed the tradition and had the tombs of some of his children prepared in the Valley. The Valley of the Queens or Wadi el-Mellkat, as the natives call it in Arabic, was so named by Champollion, but originally the Egyptians referred to it as Ta-set-neferu, an expression which admits of various interpretations but which can in all likelihood be translated as "the Place of the Children of the Pharaoh", clearly referring to the tombs of the royal princes, rather than "the Site of Beauty", this interpretation being generally more widespread. The site was regarded as sacred, hence suitable for its function of royal necropolis, both for its proximity to the Theban Peak and for the presence at the bottom of the valley of a cave waterfall; whose shape and the natural phenomena connected with it could suggest a religious and funerary concept.
In fact, the cave would have represented the belly or the womb of the Celestial Cow (one of the figurations of the goddess Hathor) from whom the waters gushed out which foretold the impending revival of the deceased buried in this privileged site. From a typological point of view the burials of the Valley of the Queens can be divided into two large groups: the first includes the funerary shafts (over sixty) going back to the Eighteenth Dynasty, the second the large Ramessid tombs of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties which exhibit a complex structure and constitute real funerary apartments modeled on the type of those existing in the nearby Valley of the Kings, of which they would appear to be "simplified versions". Only starting from the beginning of the Nineteenth Dynasty, with the inhumation of Sat-Re, wife of Ramesses I and mother of Sethos I, did the Valley of the Queens begin to harbour the mortal remains of the royal brides. After the end of the Ramessid period and the subsequent systematic looting of the site by grave robbers, as proven by numerous juridical papyri, burials in the Valley were resumed: starting from the Twenty-First Dynasty and in the Third Intermediate Period the tombs became a burial site for personages of non-royal blood and essentially linked to the tilling of the soil in the huge estates of the priests Turned into a popular cemetery at the beginning of the Roman Empire, the Valley of the Queens kept this status until the mid-fourth century AD, when the Copts settled in the site burning and irretrievably disfiguring numerous tombs and founding a monastery, the Deir Rumi, whose ruins can still be seen today. Many of the tombs excavated in the Valley of the Queens suffered already in antiquity from serious, so to say "constitutional" problems, linked to the hydrogeological and petrographical characteristics of the site.
The pharaoh's craftsmen, who 3500 years ago were working to prepare the royal burials in this valley, no doubt realized that they had to work on bad rock which forced them to make use of peculiar technical devices such as the massive use of muna, a special plaster often covering the entire wall and ceilings of the hypogeum. Sometimes the rock became of such poor quality that the ancient architects chose to interrupt the work and start it over again at a new, more suitable site: this explains the high number of unfinished tombs found in the valley.
Besides, plentiful signs have been discovered of the advent of a period of torrential rains in the post-Ramessid era, which no doubt had devastating effects on the tombs themselves. The first archaeologist who conducted systematic excavations in the Valley of the Queens was the Italian Ernesto Schiaparelli, director of the Egyptian Museum in Turin, who worked on the spot between 1903 and 1906 assisted by Francesco Ballerini an Egyptologist from Como. To Schiaparelli’s excavations we owe the discovery of all the most important tombs of the site, such as those belonging to the children of Ramesses III, Seth-her-khopshef, Khaemwaset and Amun-her-khepshef. But the most extraordinary discovery was the tomb of Nefertari, Ramesses II's "great royal bride", regarded by many as the most beautiful of all Theban tombs. It was only in 1970 that a series of annual missions began, carried out by the Centre National de la Recherché Scientifique (CNRS) of Paris, the Louvre Museum and the Centre d'Etudes et Documentation sur l'Ancienne Egypte (CEDAE) of the Egyptian Antiquities Organization. The works made possible the cleaning and a complete survey of the site, in addition to a systematic study of all the burials in the valley whose original aspect was restored thanks to the removal of backfill materials and of the debris from Schiaparelli's excavations, which had changed the morphological characteristics of the valley
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