Alexander the Great at Karnak

The blog post for this week is written by Linda Kimmel, from Ann Arbor, Michigan, in the United States. When she retired from full-time work as a data research manager in late 2020, she began studying the ancient world and serving as a docent at the University of Michigan’s Kelsey Museum of Archaeology. Linda had never heard of the Egypt Centre before the pandemic but has taken every course offered since she first noticed a tweet about the museum in the fall of 2020 and has been taking online courses there ever since. She hopes to visit the Egypt Centre in 2024, provided the trains are running!

 

The latest Egypt Centre course with Ken Griffin—Karnak: The Most Select of Places—finished with a final session on Graeco-Roman Karnak. This was the session I most looked forward to when Ken first gave us the outline for the course. In addition to being fascinated with ancient Egypt, I am also interested in ancient Greece and ancient Rome, and in particular the Hellenistic period.

 

Most of the expansion at Karnak occurred during the New Kingdom. However, while few monuments were built during the Graeco-Roman Period, many older monuments were restored and redecorated. In our last session, Ken covered a host of Macedonian, Ptolemaic, and Roman rulers and the changes made at Karnak during their reigns. While far more work was done at Karnak under various Ptolemaic rulers, notably Ptolemy III, I decided to focus on the work done under the rule of Alexander III of Macedon, more frequently known as Alexander the Great (fig. 1). Nearly one year ago I took a course on Alexander the Great. I was fascinated not so much by his military conquests, but by how he interacted with the lands he invaded.

Fig. 1: Alexander the Great at Karnak

When I think of Alexander the Great and Egypt, two sites come to mind: Alexandria and Siwa. Alexandria is easy. It is one of the many cities called Alexandria founded by Alexander throughout his empire. Siwa, comes to mind as it is there that Alexander visited the oracle and after said he was the son of Zeus Amun (Bosch-Puche, 2014; Carney 2006) and not Philip (fig. 2). But Karnak? Until this last class I had never linked Alexander to Karnak.

Fig. 2: Siwa oracle temple

Alexander entered Egypt in late 332 BCE, but while he ruled Egypt for approximately ten years, he was only in the country for a brief period, with no evidence he went as far south as Karnak. How then did he become associated with Karnak? Ken said it is most likely that the work at Karnak during Alexander’s reign was done by order of the priests, using Alexander’s name as a sponsor. Given Alexander’s associations with Zeus Amun, it is appropriate that he would appear in some form at Karnak, with its main complex devoted to the god Amun-Ra. 

 

As with most of the Graeco-Roman Period, the work done in Alexander’s name focused on the renewal and redecoration of existing monuments. His different pharaonic names are attested in numerous locations at Karnak (Bosch-Puche, 2013). Under Alexander, the gateway of the Fourth Pylon was renewed, with his cartouche added (fig. 3). Alexander’s name was also added to the entrance gateway to the Khonsu Temple. But for me, the most interesting work is that done to the Akhmenu, over 1,000 years after its original construction.

Fig. 3: Cartouches of Alexander the Great on the Fourth Pylon (CNRS-CFEETK 202558)

The Akhmenu, or “Festival Hall,” was first constructed during the reign of Thutmosis III. It is both an imposing and puzzling structure, as there is no clear consensus amongst Egyptologists as to what its original function and use was during the reign of Thutmosis III (Blyth, 2006). The work in the Akhmenu is the most well-known of the work at Karnak done under Alexander, with a room at the back of the building now termed the “Sanctuary of Alexander” (fig. 4). Originally built under the reign of Thutmosis III, the Macedonian inscription indicates the renovation was done under the name of Alexander the Great. Why is this important? Ken noted that many would say Thutmosis III was Egypt’s greatest military ruler, so was it a deliberate choice, most likely of the priests, to link Alexander, the great Macedonian military ruler, with Thutmosis III?

Fig. 4: Plan of the Akhmenu

Alexander is typically depicted in classical Greek style with a handsome, youthful, idealized face and long hair (fig. 5). It is suggested that Alexander understood the propaganda power of portraiture and allowed only one sculptor to carve his portrait (Getty). In contrast to this classical portrait, among the work done to the Akhmenu is a relief showing Alexander between the gods Sokar and Amun, with him making offerings to these gods (fig. 6). In this relief, Alexander is clearly depicted as an Egyptian, rather than as a Macedonian. In addition to making offerings to an Egyptian god, he is wearing a kilt and a broad collar, carrying an ankh, and on his normally clean-shaven face is a false beard. Moreover, Bosch-Puche (2014) notes numerous linkages to the god Amun in Alexander’s royal titulary. Clearly, he is being portrayed as an Egyptian. But to what purpose?

Fig. 5: Classical head of Alexander from the Getty Museum

 

Bosch-Puche (2014) suggests that Alexander’s royal names were selected deliberately by the priests, both to establish Alexander as the legitimate ruler of Egypt and to indicate that the Macedonians were accommodating themselves to Egyptian traditions. Given Alexander’s brief stay in Egypt, it is unclear if he was even aware of the images carved of him and the inscriptions attributed to him that were placed at Karnak. Nevertheless, I find the Egyptianized portraits of Alexander, along with the linkages in his royal titulary to Amun, consistent with the stories we hear of Alexander’s practices in Persia.

Fig. 6: Alexander the Great between Amun and Sokar

Numerous ancient writers recount episodes in which Alexander took steps to adapt to local practices, seemingly to unite the residents of his newly conquered lands with the Macedonians. At Susa, he held a mass wedding in which he, and many of his officers, married the daughters of the local aristocracy. Arrian reports that the wedding was held in “Persian style.” (Romm, 2012). We are also told that in addition to wearing Persian clothes, Alexander began to require that visitors prostrate themselves upon entering his tent, the Persian practice of proskynesis. While these practices may have had practical purposes, they seem to have caused dissension in his troops. I am left wondering what his troops—and fellow officers—would have thought about the images of Alexander at Karnak. Clearly, the succeeding Ptolemaic rulers endorsed these practices, as they too depicted themselves as Egyptians. Perhaps it was a practice that worked better over time.

 

The next Egypt Centre course—Causing Their Names to Live: The Lives of the Ancient Egyptians—begins on January 21. That gives me a month to review some of the many articles Ken has sent us about Karnak, to delve more into Alexander and the Ptolemies in Egypt, as well as to do some initial readings on who some of the famous or infamous characters we will encounter in our next class might be.

 

References

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

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2013. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, I: Horus, Two Ladies, Golden Horus, and Throne names. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 99, 131–154.

Bosch-Puche, Francisco 2014. The Egyptian royal titulary of Alexander the Great, II: Personal name, empty cartouches, final remarks, and appendix. Journal of Egyptian Archaeology 100, 89–109.

Carney, Elizabeth 2006. Olympias: mother of Alexander the Great. New York: Routledge.

Getty 2023. https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/object/103SXY [accessed December 20, 2023]

Romm, James 2012. The landmark Arrian: the campaigns of Alexander. New York: Anchor Books.