Karnak, Akhenaten temples To Karnak, precinct of Montu (Archaeology of Ancient Egypt)

Karnak, Akhenaten temples

Akhenaten, second son and successor of Amenhotep III, instituted a revolution in art and religion that thrust the sun god to the fore as sole god and celebrated his creation in a colorful, expressionistic style of art. Born and brought up in Thebes, Akhenaten spent the first five years of his reign in this southern city, and there evidence is found of the first stage in the development of the new monotheism. The new god was solar in aspect, "the living Sun-disc," and the king favored the simple type of sun shrine characteristic of the Heliopolitan center of solar worship, which featured open courts on a central axis. To expedite the work the king chose a smaller size masonry block than was normal, 52x26x24cm, which a single man could shoulder and transport. These blocks, called in the local dialect of Luxor talatat (probably from the Italian tagliata, "cut masonry"), were quarried in the tens of thousands at Gebel el-Silsila, circa 100km south of Thebes, where the best local sandstone was to be had. A country-wide work project was authorized to accomplish this task, and personnel and funds were diverted from temples all over Egypt. Extreme haste attended the construction, as the king wished to celebrate a jubilee as soon as possible; the laying of the blocks and their decoration display a casualness uncharacteristic of ancient Egyptian architecture.

Despite the anathema Akhenaten’s memory suffered at the hands of later generations, and the wholesale destruction wrought on his buildings, thousands of talatat have survived. Easily and conveniently recyclable, these small blocks were removed from the dismembered walls of the sun temples and reused as fill or foundation material in later walls and pylons erected in the 19th Dynasty. They are found in Horemheb’s Pylons II and IX at the Theban temple of Amen at Karnak, as foundation blocks beneath the hypostyle hall of the Amen temple, and in Ramesses II’s pylon and outbuildings in the Luxor temple. Some survived to be used as late as the reign of Nectanebo I, and not a few drifted far afield, such as those which have turned up in Ptolemaic constructions at Medamud. They first attracted scholarly attention about the middle of the nineteenth century, when talatat with relief in the startling new style and texts mentioning Akhenaten and the sundisc turned up around the badly ruined Pylon IX. By the end of WWI a sizable collection of talatat had been amassed by Legrain and Pillet, Inspectors of the Department of Antiquities; but it was only in the 1920s that new blocks began to emerge by the thousands. Henri Chevier, Inspector of Antiquities at Karnak from 1925 to 1952, in the course of a program to shore up and restore the ruins, had occasion to replace the flooring in the hypostyle hall and to "gut" parts of Pylon II with an eye to inserting concrete coring. In both places thousands of decorated talatat came to light, and many more which had not sat in wall-surfaces and so had received no relief decoration. In the 1960s one of Chevier’s successors, Ramadan Saad, undertook methodically to remove the talatat from the core of the west wing of Pylon IX, a project pursued with great success after 1967 by the newly formed Centre Franco-Egyptien for the restoration of Karnak, under the direction of Jean Lauffray. Thousands of decorated talatat were recovered here, many with bright paint still intact. The total number of talatat recovered from the mid-nineteenth century to the present numbers 80,000-90,000.


Intensive scientific study of the talatat was slow to develop. In 1966 Ray Winfield Smith, a retired foreign service officer of the US government, conceived of the notion of applying computer science to the problem of reconstructing the talatat. With the assistance of IBM Cairo, Smith set up a project staffed by a dozen young Egyptologists. All the talatat then known, both those in Egypt and those in foreign collections, were photographed to scale and described in meticulous detail. By 1968 contact prints of the talatat began to be matched together in collages, and a "jig-saw puzzle" of relief-scenes began to take shape. By 1972, when the first volume of results was published, over 800 scenes had been matched. The Centre Franco-Egyptien experienced equal success in matching talatat from the Pylon IX into scenes, especially when their careful recovery of talatat from superimposed beds in that structure revealed a salient fact. In dismantling Akhenaten’s constructions, Horemheb’s men had immediately deposited the blocks in the new pylon and foundations, so that scenes often lay in their new locations in reverse order, as it were, and could be reconstituted on the spot. This fact had unfortunately eluded Henri Chevier. In 1975 the Akhenaten Temple Project initiated excavations in East Karnak at a spot where the municipal canal had uncovered two fallen colossi of Akhenaten in 1925. Work has continued at East Karnak until the present day.

From an examination of the reliefs alone (specifically the captions accompanying the sun-discs), it soon became apparent that Akhenaten had erected four major structures at Karnak during the first five years of his reign. Of these the major building, to judge by the frequency of references in the talatat, was the Gm-p3-itn (literally, "The Sun-disc is Found"[?]); slightly smaller on the same criteria were the Tni-mnw-n-itn ("Exalted are the monuments of the Sun-disc") and Rwd-mnw-n-itn ("Sturdy are the movements of the Sun disc"). The smallest appears to have been the Hwt-bnbn ("Mansion of the benben-sione"). A ffwt-H* ("Mansion of the Sun-disc") mentioned in tombs on the west bank has not as yet turned up in the talatat scenes. The order in which these buildings were erected is not clear, except that Hw-bnbn appears to have been the last. Gm-p3-itn was built in anticipation of the jubilee (end of the third or beginning of the fourth regnal year), so that perhaps a point late in the second regnal year represents the inception of talatat construction. Prior to this the king erected a gate (blocks now secreted as core material in the Pylon X) decorated in traditional relief, somewhere on the south side of Karnak.

Only one of the four structures named above has been located and partly excavated. The Gm-p3-itn, 210m wide and of (at present) unknown length, was built to the east of Karnak on ground that had not been occupied for centuries. Its longer axis ran east-west, with its south side aligned with the central east-west axis of the Amen temple. From the center of its western side a columned corridor 4m wide led from the temple westward to communicate with the 18th Dynasty royal palace which lay just north of Pylons IV, V and VI of the Amen temple. The Gm-p3-itn was surrounded by an outer wall of mudbrick laid in undulating courses and, at a distance of 5m, an inner stone wall 2m thick constructed of talatat. The vast court thus enclosed was lined on the north, west and south sides by a continuous colonnade of rectangular piers, each 2×1.80m, set at intervals of 2m, and supported by the talatat wall. In front of this colonnade and parallel to it ran a stylobate 5m wide, to support the colossal statues which, on the south side and southern half of the west side, adorned the inner faces of the piers. Probably before each statue stood a granite offering table bearing the names of the king, queen and the sun-disc. On the north side the excavated fragments suggest the presence of life-size, free-standing statues of red quartzite and occasionally granite, at intervals of 7-8m. Most seem to have depicted the king with arms crossed in "Osiride" -fashion, but some fragments suggest double statues of the king and queen. The inner faces of the piers on the north side, not obscured by statues, were decorated in sunk relief showing the king with one arm outstretched and caressed by the rays of the sun-disc.

The inner face of the stone talatat wall, protected by the colonnade in front, was the location of the painted relief scenes. Especially on the south and west sides, sufficient fragments of relief were recovered in the excavation to enable identification of scene types. In the Gm-p3-itn the consistent theme was the celebration of the jubilee, or heb-sed. In the entrance corridor coming from the palace were to be found scenes showing the approach of the royal party, outrunners, courtiers kissing the earth, men dragging bulls, payment of rations and so on. Turning right along the inner face of the west wall as far as the southwest corner and then east along the south wall, one encountered the ritual of "the days of the White Crown," when the king made offerings in the regalia of the King of Upper Egypt, and was duly crowned as southern monarch. Here a repeating motif, circa 12m long, showed the events of a single day: emergence from the palace, procession in palanquin to the temple, sacrifices in open-roofed kiosks to the sun-disc, recessional to the palace and feasting in the palace. At least four repetitions of the sequence can be identified along the south wall proceeding from the southwest corner, and at a point circa 180m to the east on the south wall the fragments suggest the motif is still present. Too little is preserved on the north side of the court to make any final statement, but it is likely that the same sequence was followed, with the king wearing the Red Crown and the regalia of Lower Egypt.

Location of Akhenaten's Gm-p3-itn temple at East Karnak

Figure 50 Location of Akhenaten’s Gm-p3-itn temple at East Karnak

The location and ground plan of the three remaining buildings, and even their purpose, remain in doubt. The £>e/j£>e/j-stone, commemorated in the is shaped like an obelisk in the hieroglyphic writing of Akhenaten’s inscriptions; one wonders whether this points to the unique obelisk (now in St John Lateran, Rome) which once stood east of the temple of Amen. The ifw’-Aflftfl as reconstructed in the talatat scenes featured tall graceful pylons and their cross walls. What comes as a surprise is the identity of the celebrant of the offering to the sun-disc (the only scene type found in bttbtt) Nefertiti appears (sometimes with one, rarely two daughters) to the total exclusion of her husband! The locations of Tni-mnw and Rwd-mnw are unknown, although it may be argued that they lay on the south side of Karnak. Their relief decoration is much more varied than that of Gm-p3-itn, showing scenes taken from life: offering bringers, domestic apartments, scenes of agriculture and animal husbandry, the proffering of taxes, appointment and rewarding of officers, and the like.

In the light of Akhenaten’s hatred of Amen, chief of the pantheon, what use was made during Akhenaten’s first five years of the Karnak temple? Several scenes of rewarding and feasting show those officials being honored squatting before the fagade of the palace, with a head-smiting scene in the background. This can only be the large relief of Akhenaten which decorated the reveals of the gate of Pylon III at Karnak, and lay just south of the royal palace. Whether a large colonnade decorated with figures of Nefertiti once stood on the site of the present Pylon II must remain moot; it remains a possibility that some parts of the Amen temple remained in operation, at least until the celebration of the jubilee. Thereafter, we find the high priest of Amen, Maya, sent to the quarries (year 4), and the writing of the name "Amen" obliterated intentionally throughout Karnak and the whole Theban area. On the eve of Akhenaten’s abandonment of Thebes for Amarna the king changed his name from "Amenhotep" to "Akhenaten," and had every cartouche modified accordingly. After this hejira, work stopped on his Theban buildings: none of the later changes in nomenclature or art style appears at Thebes.

The phenomenal number of talatat with relief scenes recovered from Karnak and Luxor offers us two unique opportunities: first, to view the astounding revolution in art and religion authored by the monotheist king in its initial experimental stage; and second, to view the oldest festival of ancient Egypt, the royal jubilee, in the fullest and most detailed set of reliefs which ever recorded it.

Karnak, precinct of Montu

The Montu precinct is the most significant architectural complex on the archaeological site north of the temple of Amen-Re at Karnak (25°43′ N, 32°40′ E). It includes other monuments besides the Montu temple. In 1940 the French Archaeological Institute in Cairo (IFAO) began excavations and studies in this area, which are still ongoing. The extant brick girdle wall and its monumental gate were probably built by Ptolemy III, replacing a previous wall tentatively dated to the time of Nectanebo I and II. However, we know for sure that a girdle wall, although with different eastern and western limits, existed in the time of Amenhotep III, the founder of the main temple. In its current state, the Montu precinct encloses the following identified structures: (1) the Montu temple; (2) a temple of Ma’at; (3) a temple of Harpre; (4) a sacred lake; (5) a "high temple"; and (6) six chapels dedicated by the Divine Votaresses of Amen. A dromos (7) leading to a quay on a canal (no longer extant), completes the complex.

The so-called "temple of Montu," largely destroyed today, was founded by Amenhotep III. Like other temples of this king at Luxor and Soleb, it is built on a podium. Its masonry included blocks belonging to various dismantled monuments bearing the names of Amenhotep I (a copy of the "White Chapel" of Senusret I), Hatshepsut-Tuthmose III, Amenhotep II (a peristyle chapel for the sacred bark of Amen) and Tuthmose IV. The plan was modified twice during the building process. At first, the project consisted of a square building with two rows of columns in the fagade and an entry ramp facing north. However, before the surface of the walls was completely smoothed the temple was extended to the south, where the rear wall was opened and a range of supplementary rooms were added. The fagade was modified with the addition of a peristyle court that incorporated the previous ramp into the new extended foundation. A new ramp flanked by obelisks led to the portal opening onto the peristyle court.

Karnak, plan of the Montu precinct

Figure 51 Karnak, plan of the Montu precinct

No significant modification is known up to the reign of Taharka, except restorations after the Amarna period (including the erection of a copy of the "Restoration Stela" of Tutankhamen), a stela of Seti I, inscriptions of Ramesses II, Merenptah, Amenmesses, Pinedjem and Nimrod. We know that the eastern part of the temple collapsed at the end of the New Kingdom, and it is most probable that reconstruction of the temple was undertaken by Taharka, who is also responsible for a great portico on the main fagade (very similar to those of East Karnak and the Khonsu temple). The portico was dismantled and rebuilt by the first Ptolemies, who also rebuilt the gate of the temple proper and that of the enclosure wall.

Among the numerous finds, the statuary is of particular interest, including statues of Amenhotep II and Amenhotep III in the heb-sed (jubilee) garment; two quartzite statues of Amenhotep III holding the sacred pole of Amen (found shattered to pieces and buried in two adjoining heaps beneath a chapel in the middle of the dromos), and two human-handed sphinxes of the same king presenting an offering table. Very little of the decoration on the walls remains. It should be mentioned that the Ptolemies recarved the walls of the hypostyle hall, the bark sanctuary and architraves in the name of Amenhotep III.

The temple of Ma’at, the only one extant dedicated to this deity, leans on the rear side of the Montu temple. Largely destroyed today, it still preserves inscriptions of some of the viziers of Ramesses III and XI. Scattered reliefs and stelae belonging to the reign of Amenhotep III indicate that a previous Ma’at temple existed at that time in the same area. The door in the wall of the precinct opening to this temple was rebuilt by the Nectanebos, reusing a previous Kushite door. The trials of the perpetrators of the great tomb robberies at the end of the Ramesside period took place in the temple of Ma’at.

The temple of Harpre is built along the east side of the Montu temple. The oldest part (i.e. the sanctuary on the south side) may date back to the 21st Dynasty. Nepherites and Hakor (29th Dynasty) built a hypostyle hall with Hathor capitals. A geographical procession formed part of the decoration of the hypostyle hall. An open court and a pylon were added to the north fagade during the 30th Dynasty. The question of the identification of this temple as a mammisi or birthhouse has been proposed and rejected by various scholars. A subsidiary building, in front of the pylon, is known as the "eastern secondary temple" and may be related to the cult of the bull of Montu.

The sacred lake, on the west side of the Montu temple, may have been dug by Amenhotep III and restored by Montuemhat, as can be inferred from his biographical inscription in Mut temple. A "high temple," built on a massive brick structure, was erected by Nectanebo II as a "pure storehouse" for the offerings.

Six doors in the south wall of the Montu precinct lead to six chapels dedicated by Divine Votaresses of Amen to different forms of Osiris. From west to east they are: (a) chapel of Nitocris (Psamtik I); (b) Amenirdis (Shabako or Shabataka); (c) and (d) unattributed; (e) Karomama (Takelot II); (f) reign of Taharka. These chapels may not have been included in the precinct until the girdle wall was built under Nectanebo I and II, as there are other chapels of the same type outside of the precinct.

The dromos is a stone-paved road leading from the gate of the precinct to a quay on a canal which lay north of the site. The quay may be dated to the reign of Psamtik I, as his name is found on the masonry. The temple dromos is flanked by sphinxes, now badly damaged. It was probably part of the original temple plan of Amenhotep III, as indicated by the discovery of two quartzite statues of the king carrying the sacred pole of Amen found broken and buried under a chapel in the middle of its length. They probably once stood in a chapel on the same site.

Outside of the temple precinct, a number of buildings have been located in the vicinity. A limestone gate of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III (formerly attributed to Tuthmose I), usurped by Amenhotep II and completed by Seti I, is on the west side of the west wall of the precinct. It probably led to a palace complex of Hatshepsut situated farther north, only known from textual sources. Only two brick walls remain of the chapel dedicated to Osiris by Shepenwepet II (Taharka), the site where Auguste Mariette discovered the splendid statue of goddess Taweret (CG 39145). Farther west, a door of Ptolemy IV marks the entrance to a small temple of Thoth, now in ruins. In the northwest of the area, a columned building consecrated to the Theban triad by Nitocris has suffered greatly since the time of its discovery. To the east of the Montu precinct, the remains of a building of Tuthmose I have been excavated. Known by quarry marks as a "Treasury," it consisted of a bark station of Amen, storerooms and workshops.

The oldest remains on the site of North Karnak date back to the end of the Middle Kingdom (13th Dynasty) and belong to urban settlements identified at different parts of the site, consisting of mudbrick houses, granaries and workshops. The chronology of monumental constructions on the site is as follows: the oldest building known today is the Treasury of Tuthmose I, which is most probably a modification of a sanctuary of Ahmose; then, reused blocks of Amenhotep I, Hatshepsut and Amenhotep II in the Montu temple (although there is no evidence that they belong to buildings once erected on the spot), and the limestone door of Hatshepsut and Tuthmose III; then, the temple of Amenhotep III itself.

It should be pointed out that all the above mentioned monuments (or parts of monuments), including the temple of Amenhotep III, are dedicated to Amen-Re of Thebes, even if rare mentions of Montu have been found on the site (mainly epithets describing various kings as "beloved of Montu"). The dedicatory inscription of the main temple attributes the sanctuary to "Amen-Re, Lord of the Thrones of the Two Lands, Preeminent in Ipet-Sut," an attribution which is confirmed by the text of the "Petrie Stela," and various minor monuments such as the obelisks, the two quartzite statues of Amenhotep III and other pieces of statuary. The first dedicatory inscription to Montu known to us appears on the stela erected by Seti I in the court of the temple. It is from the reign of Taharka, however, that we have a comprehensive documentation in the decoration of the portico, stating that Montu is the main god of the temple. The scenes on the Ptolemaic gate of the precinct confirm this rank for Montu, paralleled however by the expected presence of Amen-Re. In this matter, the dedicatory inscription carved under the Ptolemies in the central bark station of the Montu temple is eloquent: while attributing to Amenhotep III the foundation of the monument, the text clearly dedicates the temple to "Montu, Lord of Thebes."

Thus, the area of North Karnak appears to have been originally a dependency of the temple of Amen-Re and was only progressively and partially devoted to Montu. The cult of this divinity of the Theban nome, which predates that of Amen, was developed during the Late period in the framework of the theology of the "four Theban Montu," at Medamud, Armant, Tod and North Karnak. In Graeco-Roman times, Montu was identified with Apollo and the temple was designated as an Apolloneion. The Demotic documentation reveals that this area was called "the House of the Cow" while Greek papyri call it Chrysopolis.

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