Middle Kingdom Karnak: The Complexities of a Decorated Wall

The blog post for this week is written by Yvonne Buskens-Frenken, from the Netherlands. She is a member of the Dutch Egyptology society Mehen and a former student of Egyptology at Manchester University (Certificate 2015 and Diploma 2017). While Yvonne has never been to the Egypt Centre before, she hopes to visit in the near future, perhaps with other Mehen members. 

Last week a fabulous new online course was launched by The Egypt Centre called Karnak: The most select of places. From my experience of previous courses, I’m sure that this course will again be brilliantly hosted by Dr Ken Griffin. Ken will discuss the temple chronologically, with week one dedicated to the origins of this temple complex until the New Kingdom.

Many of you may have visited Karnak temple and its surroundings. Although I visited Karnak temple several times, every visit leaves me in awe. There is so much history packed into one spot, available for us to explore, but almost impossible to comprehend. Many excavations and restorations have taken place at Karnak and it is still an ongoing process. These excavations and new discoveries, which lead to new theories, teach us even more about the history of this awesome temple complex.

Karnak temple lies on the east bank of the River Nile in modern Luxor. The landscape of Karnak changed considerably over the millennia and latest research suggest it was actually built on an island (Graham & Bunbury 2005). Karnak now comprises three main complexes covering a vast area of 750 acres: an Amun Complex (Khonsu temple, Ptah temple, Opet temple, Amun-Re-Horakhty temple, Osiride temples/shrines), the Mut complex, and the Montu complex (fig. 1). Not all are open to the public. The Montu complex is closed, but the Mut complex has been open to the public for some years now.

Fig. 1: Ahmed Bahloul Khier Galal, CC BY-SA 4.0
<https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons

The Karnak complex was known in ancient times, more specifically since the Middle Kingdom, as I͗pt-swt (“the most select of places”). Other names are pt-ḥr-sꜣ-tꜣ (“Heaven on Earth”), ḫnty-wꜣst (“Foremost of Thebes”), and ḏw-n-bi͗ꜣt (“Mountain of Wonders”?). The main temple is dedicated to the god Amun. We don’t know exactly when the temple was founded as there are indications that Amun was worshipped in earlier times. The god Montu, for instance, was worshipped in Thebes in earlier times as well. Does mean that there was not already a temple dedicated to the god Amun? Not necessarily, but the most concrete architectural evidence for worshipping Amun dates from the reign of Intef II of the Eleventh Dynasty. An eight-sided sandstone column found in 1985 bears the text: “(Monument in favour of) Amun-Ra, lord of heaven, (by) the mighty of the land, pillar of Victorious Thebes, (his) praised one, his beloved one, the (protecting) Horus, king of Upper and Lower Egypt, son of Ra Intef the great one, the victorious one, born of Neferu, which he made as his monument on behalf of this god […]”. This column is now in the Luxor Museum (fig. 2). The earliest reference to a temple of Amun also dates to the Eleventh Dynasty and is from a fragmentary stela of Rhwi now at the Manchester Museum (5052). It reads, “I supplied the house of Amun (in) years of scarcity of shutting off the slaughter, in order to provide the altar tables at each opening of the month and to endow (them) at each opening of the year.”

Fig. 2: Column of Intef

The most ancient parts of the Karnak temple complex itself are the White Chapel of Senwosret I, a large brick ramp towards the Montu precinct (north-west side), and the Middle Kingdom court. I want to highlight some aspects of the Middle Kingdom court. Why? First of all, most visitors usually walk straight from the sanctuary of Philip Arrhidaeus, over the large open Middle Kingdom court towards the so called Akh-menu, a more popular tourist attraction within the complex. But this almost empty yard does not make it less interesting; sometimes less is actually more! (fig. 3) Although today only three granite doorsills, in a line along the axes east-west, and some remains of an alabaster pedestal are visible for the visitors (fig. 4), excavations done by Luc Gabolde (Co-director of the CFEETK project) inform us that underneath this court are the foundations of a Middle Kingdom temple. These possibly date to the Eleventh Dynasty, but were certainly extensively redeveloped by king Senwosret I. The Middle Kingdom temple was built of limestone and surrounded by a mudbrick wall. It had a façade with twelve portico pillars each with a statue of the king in Osirian form (fig. 5). The limestone pillars of the court were carved in fine raised reliefs—similar to what we know from the White Chapel now in the Open Air Museum—of the king worshipping Amun, Atum, Horus, and Ptah.

Fig. 3: View of the Middle Kingdom course

Fig. 4: Remains of the Middle Kingdom temple

Fig. 5: Osiride columns of Senwosret I

This temple was probably in use throughout the Pharaonic Period. It was made of limestone, which is not always the best material to use in an architectural structure with a long lifespace. Therefore, by the time of the New Kingdom, it needed to be refurbished. This brings me to another Middle Kingdom aspect to be found close to the court and easy to miss when heading towards the Akh-menu. It relates to the southeast wall of the so-called Hatshepsut’s suite, which also needed to be refurbished (fig. 6). The south wall of this structure is decorated with two almost identical scenes, both depicting a king sitting on a throne, flanked by two lions (fig. 7) and the smꜣ-tꜣwy motif (the binding of the heraldic plants of Upper and Lower Egypt symbolising the union of the Two Lands). It is a copy from a scene dating to Middle Kingdom (fig. 8). At some point during the New Kingdom, this limestone wall was replaced by a sandstone one, either because of its bad condition (decaying limestone) or because it was deliberately demolished to fit into the building programme for either Hatshepsut or Thutmose III. There is still much debate amongst Egyptologists as to which king replaced the Middle Kingdom wall and how it was integrated into the Hatshepsut suite. According to Luc Gabolde, the most eastern scene on this south wall was carved during the reign of Hatshepsut when she replaced the Middle Kingdom wall. It depicts king Senwosret I with only two columns of text as the rest is now lost. The western end of the south wall shows a similar image, but here Thutmose III is shown. The big difference here with the eastern depiction is the fact that more text is available for us. The text is known as the Texte de la Jeunesse. The text is mainly meant to be autobiographical as it boasts about how Thutmose III, still as a young man (hence the name of the text) is chosen to be king of Egypt by Amun, his titulary given by the gods, and his ascension to the throne as a sole king.

Fig. 6: Passage leading to the southern wall of the Hatshepsut suite

Fig. 7: Lion under the throne of Senwosret I

Fig. 8: Southern wall of the Hatshepsut suite (Larche 2009, fig. 1)

Whether it was Hatshepsut or Thutmose III who was responsible for refurbishing this wall and to what extent it was made to fit into the New Kingdom building, for now it is important to understand that Thutmose III was devoted to Senwosret I and/or important to identify himself with the actions of the this great Middle Kingdom king. 

Bibliography:

Blyth, Elizabeth 2006. Karnak: evolution of a temple. London: Routledge.

Gabolde, Luc 1998. Le “Grand Château d’Amon” de Sésostris Ier à Karnak: la décoration du temple d’Amon-Rê au Moyen Empire. Mémoires de l’Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, nouvelle série 17. Paris: Diffusion de Boccard.

———. 2018. Karnak, Amon-Rê: la genèse d’un temple, la naissance d’un dieu. Bibliothèque d’étude 167. Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale.

Graham, Angus and Judith Bunbury 2005. The ancient landscapes and waterscapes of Karnak. Egyptian Archaeology 27, 17–19.

Larché, François 2009. A reconstruction of Senwosret I’s portico and of some structures of Amenhotep I at Karnak. In Brand, Peter J. and Louise Cooper (eds), Causing his name to live: studies in Egyptian epigraphy and history in memory of William J. Murnane, Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 37. 137–173. Leiden; Boston: Brill.