The Karnak temple consists of ten pylons.
It seemed that the ancient Egyptians liked building monuments, why ?
In their lives, the gate of the pylon protects their religious sanctuary ( their sacred place), and on the way to the afterlife, the soul of the dead must pass from one edifice after another.
Explanation of the temple
There are elves and witch ghosts waiting next to each pylons, and the soul must know the password or spell of each pylons in order for it to pass smoothly.
All this is described in detail in the ancient “ Book of the Dead “, with illustrations. Pages from the ( Book of the Dead) pictured in the graves of the Pharaohs.
A room was built in the innermost part of the temple, and this room contains a statue of the god, and this room is called ( The Holy of Holies ). The Holy of Holies is an important part of the temple due to the presence of statues of the gods in it.
Common people pray in the temple in the great hypostyle hall.
The rich, the noble and the powerful all worship in the small Hypostyle Hall.
Only the king and the highest priests in the temple can enter the Holy of Holies for worship.
The first pylon
The height of the first gate of the Karnak Temple is 55 meters, its width is 15 meters, and the thickness of the wall is about 43.5 meters.
There is a crypt on the top, the flagpole inside.
After entering the gate of the pylon, you will see a dirt slope on your right hand.
This slope shows us how the ancient Egyptians built pyramids and gates of pylons.
After entering the portal, there is a sloping mud mound below the gate on the left. The heap is distributed in a wave. There were originally such piles under the gate on the right, but they have been around for a long time since it was demolished by the old government, why did leave the left pile?
Because this pile is so important, we only know how the gate was built from it, so the old government left it.
The ancient Egyptians built this mound, sprayed water on the pile, placed a large stone on it, and then someone pulled it from the front and someone pushed it in the back to move the stone slowly to the top.
There are two stone columns on the right that have not been completed yet, through them we also discovered how the ancient Egyptians built these large stone columns.
They also built a mound like this one, slowly piling up large sandstone boulders.
They smoothly polished it with a stone stronger than these stones, then they carved it on the stone pillar, carving the top first, then gradually removing the pile, carving from top to bottom.
We saw a row of ( rams and Sphinxes ) by way of rams in front of the stone columns, in fact the stone pillars were not in this place, they were in a straight line with two rows of rams and a Sphinx we saw when we entered the gate now.
But we can see that their original position has been replaced by 10 stone pillars. Unfortunately, we can only see a 25 m column still standing, and the other columns have been weathered or have collapsed.
Why did they move through the rams and the Sphinx to build a stone pillar?
Because the ancient Egyptians believed in multiple gods, every king at that time hoped to contribute more to the gods during his reign.
So they all worked hardly for the gods in building the stone pillars, as well as the gates of the edifices, etc. the kings of the 25th Dynasty moved the Rams Road and the Sphinx aside in order to build these stone columns.
The ancient Egyptians used sand and clay to form a flat or sloping platform ( slope ), then they raised the rock with with a certain scale, and the platform ( slope) rose gradually step by step.
The columns or gates of the pylon are raised layer by layer, for each layer is higher, an upward slope of sand or clay is added to the building.
After finishing with the rock pull method, they clean the Sandy slope, the dirt slope that has not been removed indicates that the edifice is not yet complete, and if it is completed, it must be moved ( the slope ) to another place.
Fresco ( Battle of Kadesh )
Part of history:
The Hittites came from ancient Asia Minor during the Eighteenth Dynasty, the Egyptian King Akhenaten made a religious reform, this reform failed and caused political chaos, and the Hittites seized this opportunity to seize Egyptian lands.
In the Nineteenth Dynasty, there was a king named Horemheb, under his rule the country gradually united, and then after the succession of Seti I, fighting began abroad.
In order to achieve national unity, the war continued until the fifth year of the reign of Ramses II, and the Hittites and the Egyptian army fought a very famous battle.
It was called the battle of Kadesh, and Ramses II was in trouble at first, adjusting the battle plan in time to take advantage of the war.
But this battle lasted for a long time, and both sides suffered extremely heavy losses, and there was no victory or defeat.
Finally, in 1283 BC, the two countries signed the world’s first peace treaty, which stipulated that they should not attack or bully each other.
In order to maintain the long-lasting peace between the two countries, Ramses II also married the princess of the Hittite Empire, and the two countries had a military alliance since then.
What we see on this wall is a scene of war. At that time, we will see Ramses II sitting on a chariot with two wheels bending his bow and shooting his arrows.
Enemies fell off their horses when they were hit by spear arrows, and here you can also see the captives bound
The King dedicated the spoils to the god Amun, and all these frescoes reflect the intelligence and daring of Ramses II.
Look at the left hand and you will see three niches ( rooms or shrines ).
These three niches are called the three temples of Seti I.
And because the ancient Egyptian kings were accustomed to building a part of the temple that must be named after him, they called the three shrines the name of Seti I.
For whom were the three shrines built ?
We can see the three rooms, the middle room used to place the statue of Amun, and the two adjacent rooms are for the statue of his wife and the statue of his son.
We call them « the Trinity ».
Originally, these rooms had gates, but some of these were burned, some were stolen, and some of the gate stones were used to build other things.
So it is longer there, and we can only see the hole used to install the stone gate on the side wall.
The surfaces of these rooms were originally painted with many wonderful colorful murals, but have now been discarded.
There was originally a cubic stone platform in the middle of the middle room.
This stone platform is used to place the sacred ark, the sacred ship is in the shape of a boat, and there is a rectangular wooden box in the center of the ship, and the statue is placed in the box.
Covered with a curtain that represents the sacred divine meaning, but now the stone platform no longer exists, but through these frescoes on the wall we know that this stone platform was once here.
We will see many of the murals on the wall, and these murals describe the sacrificial rituals the king made to the holy ship and the various honors to the sacred ship.
Likewise, we can see the soot written on the wall, which is the ancient writing of
« Karnak », which means « protected land ».
On the left we see three halls on the opposite wall of the room, which are dedicated to the statue of King Seti II, who built the three rooms.
These halls were used to commemorate the king of that time.
It was also used as a resting place for the statue of Amun and his sacred ship.
There were many such shrines but most of them collapsed or demolished, and later kings used the collapsing stones to build new gates, new stone pillars, etc. This can reduce stone transport over long distances and speed up construction period.
After that, the Karnak Temple suffered an earthquake and some temples collapsed. Scientists discovered that some stones in the edifices were derived from these shrines, and now they used these stones to restore them and put them here.
The open courtyard
Taharqa column
He is one of the kings of the twenty-fifth family. And his rule extends from the year
690 - 664 BC.
Column is considered one of the remnants of the huge Columns hall, which was built by this Ethiopian King in the seventh century BC.
In 1928 and 1929 the Antiquities Authority rebuilt this column.
The column is 21 meters high and has a papyrus flower crown.
This is the second tallest stone pillar in Egypt, the first in Alexandria and is called the “ Pompey’s Column “.
Can you imagine what the original ten cylindrical columns looked like ?
As this hall consisted of two rows of columns on a base in the middle of which was the sacred compound of the god Amun during the celebrations.
A small temple can be seen in the front of the temple on the right hand, which is the Temple of Ramses III as a gift to the Temple of the Sun, and there are two statues of him in the front.
Ramses III believed that the temple of Amun-Ra had ended its planning by establishing the second pylon and the way of rams in front of it, so Ramses III preferred to build his temple to the south ( to the right of the entrance ), and he did not know that his temple was destined to merge into successive additions to the great temple.
But the Kings of the past had to give a lot of gifts to the god Amun, so they came to build some buildings that represent themselves and extended to the outer door.
In the open courtyard, there are two rows of sixteen columns, eight on each side, and in front of each column stood a statue of the king in his Osirian image, most of which was deformed.
Looking at the statue of Ramses III in front of the stone pillars, in the form of a mummy ( the Osiri position ), only Ramses III liked to make such columns, but most of them were destroyed.
Ramses II statue
Starting at the small temple and walking forward, you will see a statue directly in front of you, it is Pharaoh Ramses II, Ramses II stands with his arms crossed, wears a double crown that represents Upper and Lower Egypt, but pink granite cannot show the red and white colors of the crown.
But if you look closely at this statue, you will find two colors, the upper part and the lower part have different colors, why ?
Because this statue was tampered with by another pharaoh ( tampered with it ). It is said that in the Twenty-first Dynasty, a king named “ Ba Najm “ destroyed the upper part of the statue and Ramses II and added his own statue.
So some don’t think this is not a statue of Ramses II.
But how do we make sure it is a statue of Ramses II ?
Only Ramses II had a small statue or a picture of his wife between or beside his feet, so even though his face is not like that of Ramses II, but the small statue of his wife allows us to be sure that this statue belongs to him.
The second pylon
It is the remains or ruins of the second pylon.
It is largely destroyed; its construction was started by King Horemheb and completed by King Ramses the First, and his name Ramses II was registered on it.
There was a small prison, which was mainly used to detain priests who did bad deeds, such as rebelling against the king, disobeying the king’s orders, theft, etc.
Most of the gate to the second pylon was destroyed, only its ruins remaining.
This gate of pylon by king Eighteenth Dynasty called Horemheb.
Then King Ramses I completed it in the nineteenth dynasty, and finally Ramses II added his name to it.
Addition were added to it from the reign of Yorgtes II, “ Ptolemy VIII “.
It was 98 meters long, 29.5 meters high, and 14 meters thick.
Hypostyle Hall
We continue from the front of the statue to the largest colonnade in the temple, it is the famous multi-column hall.
This multi-columned hall is the best preserved part of the Karnak Temple, and has appeared in countless paintings and photographs, and has amazed and praised countless people.
The multi-column hall is 366 meters long and 110 meters wide, with an area of about 5,000 square meters.
The multi-column hall contains 134 red-brown columns, divided into 16 rows, approximately two meters apart, all built of sandstone.
The top of the column is either a lotus or papyrus, and the lotus and papyrus represent Upper and Lower Egypt, respectively.
The multi-columned hall was built by three kings, the first was King Ramses I, founder of the Nineteenth Dynasty, who started the construction, after his death, his son
“ Seti I “, continued building, building 14 classrooms.
Each row has 7 rows for a total of 122 columns.
The column is about 17 meters high, and its top is shaped like a papyrus bud.
After the death of “ Seti the first “, his son Ramses II continued construction, building 12 columns in the multi-columned hall.
It is the longest, with a diameter of 3.57 meters, 23 meters in height, and 15 meters in circumference.
Each column is carved with wonderful pictures and ancient Egyptian figures ( pharaohs, goddesses).
But most of the frescoes, and the colors on the columns are gone, why ?
It is said that the Egyptians after the end of the Pharaonic era did not pay any attention to these monuments at all, as they dug holes in the temple pillars to tie the bulls, as well as moved the temple stones to their homes to build livestock pens.
At that time, those in charge of the temple were all French, and one of them saw that the stone columns were submerged with sand, so they wanted to dig a canal from the Nile to the temple to clean the salt in the Karnak columns.
Surprisingly, the Nile River flooded once a year, and the submerged water flowed into the temple, and the water flooded up to two meters high and was submerged in water, so it was easy to remove the murals and colors on the stone columns.
You can also see the letters of the names of contemporary people on the column in 1851, 1857 and 1887.
This is what the French archaeologist drew, when he stood on the sand and made an inscription, as the inscription characterises the Nile water line.
Now we are in the hall and see 134 very grandiose columns, the stone columns on the left built by Seti I and the stone columns on the right built by Ramses II.
They are all kings of the Nineteenth Dynasty.
Why should we build 134 pillars, because 134 columns represent that the two kings ruled the country for 134 years.
Of course, such a large temple would also need many stone columns to support the weight of the roof.
Through the roof, we can also distinguish between the method of building in the area of the pharaohs and the method of building in the Ptolemaic period.
We can see that these stone pillars are very thick, ten people can open their arms to fix it, you can try, some of the columns here still keep their original colors and are very beautiful.
The ancient Egyptians constructed buildings in the symbolic sense, for example as you can see, the two rows of stone columns in the middle are longer, and they are about 20 meters long, the stone pillar next to it is relatively short, about 15 meters. Why ?
And because the ancient Egyptians considered the middle road as the Nile River, the sacred ship carrying the sun god would pass along this path, the earth sun god gives sunlight to the sides of the temple, so the closer the stone columns are to the sun and the river water, the faster it grows.
It is also higher ( taller ), and at the top of the nearby stone columns you see that the lotus flower has already been completed, and the distant columns have not yet opened due to lack of sunlight and water.
These columns are made of sandstone, sandstone is rich in crystal salt, and slowly the columns begin to turn white, a French archaeologist wanted to wash the crystal salt from the columns with water.
When the Nile River flooded in 1899, the river’s water entered the temple, as a result of which a tragedy occurred, as the river swept 16 columns of columns.
The next inscription on the wall on our right is the foundation stone laying ceremony for the Karnak Temple.
You see, the king needs God’s approval to start work.
In the center of the temple, the king himself used a shovel to sweep the winding ground so that he could turn it into a flat ground.
In his hand, two ropes used to draw stone, the king prepares stones, which are the foundation stone used in the foundation-laying ceremony for the temple.
Upon coming here, we see that this god Amun this different from other places. He has changed his appearance. We cannot see his hands. His legs are intertwined. Is it not like a mummy ?
Because Amun must become a mummified to enter the underworld, what we see is the image of Amun in the underworld, he is responsible for the production and the harvest, so how can he return ?
Have you seen these genitals ?
Scene of King Amenhotep I with the Divine Entity ( Amon - Min )
It is inconceivable that the ancient Egyptians wrote all these symbols on the walls of temples and tombs with such precision and care that cost them time and effort to finally express myths.
The human mind of the modern age looks at the past and the emergence of the universe as events that go in a straight line from the oldest to the latest. But recently scientists have begun to realize that the stories of creation in ancient civilizations are all based on the idea of “ creation cycles “ that repeat themselves to forever.
Here we have to go beyond the idea of polytheism and look at divine entities such as
« Amun-Ra » in the Karnak Temple and « Amun-Min » in the Luxor Temple as many manifestations names, and attributes of one « Supreme / Transcendent / Hidden » entity that cannot be identified with the name One and that Supreme Divine Entity ( God ) takes many forms and manifestations.
When he appears in the name of Amun in the form of a human taking a step forward with his left leg, he thus expresses the breath of life that inhabits all beings and revives them.
And when it appears as “ Amun-Ra “, it expresses the manifestation of the divine light in the system of the sun.
And when he appears as “ Amun-Min “ in the form of a mummified man raising his arm and his scepter while his penis is erect and carrying over his head the crown of the double feather that penetrates the sky, it thus expresses the transmission of cosmic energy from heaven to earth, and he symbolized the Egyptian artist therefore, a red ribbon wraps around the head of “ Amu-Min “ and hangs behind his back to the ground.
In one of the scenes accompanying the procession of “ Amun-Min “, which was recorded on the walls on the temple of Habu, that divine entity is “ that which is above the clouds” or “ that penetrates the clouds”.
This name refers to the relationship between “ Amun-Min “ and between rain and storms.
“ Amun-Min “ is also called “ his mother’s bull “ to express “ cosmic fertilization “, meaning the universe’s ability to reproduce itself and permanently renew its youth and energy.
“ Amun-Min “ attracts cosmic energy from its inexhaustible source, the water of eternity “ No “, and recycles it in all forms of life. Therefore, “ Amun-Min “ combines the characteristics of a cosmic mother with the characteristics of virility, which are related to fertilization.
The god Amun had a relationship with the goddess of the sky, so the goddess of the sky was pregnant and the child in her womb was the god ( Min ), who gave birth to him the next morning ( the resurrection).
Now, the god Amun has returned to the sun, which represents sunrise and the cyclical relationship between production and harvest.
So the Egyptians set up a harvest feast.
At this point, let me add a comment. Let me tell you an Egyptian legend.
According to legend, the ancient Egyptians were recruited to fight.
There was only one handicapped person in the city.
Because he had no hand or feet, he could not participate in the war, and when the army returned victorious after many years, he found that all the women in this city were pregnant.
Guess who is the father?
Of course this is just a myth, how can there be such a disabled person who can sleep with all these women ?
When we come here, we will see the king killing the antelope and biting the neck of the duck, because the ducks and the antelope represent the evil spirits of the sun god, and this is an exorcism celebration.
Now let’s turn to this side to see, this is the pharaoh king wearing the double crown. After the god Amun gave him a spell, the god Amun also gave him a palm tree. The date palm represents the “ eternal throne “, and under the palm tree there is a frog.
The frog represents the number of 100,000 in ancient Egypt, indicating that the king could rule Egypt for 100,000 years.
There are many murals here about King Ramses II paying homage to the god Amun, such as burning incense, making offerings, and worshiping the gods.
On the one hand honouring spices ( spices ), and on the other hand, preventing ghosts from approaching and purifying the temple, but it is strange that there is another god standing behind the mural of Amun, it is Ramses II was deifying himself.
In the last fresco we notice that the priest holds the sacred ark, and the one in the center is Ramses II who also carries the sacred ship, which indicates that he is also actively participating in sacrificial activities.
Early ancient Egyptian paintings often used five main colors : blue, red, black, yellow and white.
The blue color represents the Nile water used to paint the roof of the temple, as it comes from raw materials extracted from a copper mine in the Sinai Peninsula.
Red represents victory and is made of molten iron ore; black is used to draw eyelashes and dry hair, and it comes from soot or iron filings.
Yellow represents the sun, gold and the color of a woman’s complexion, and is found in the sandstone of Western Sahara; white is the color of clothes, derived from quicklime, calcium carbonate and calcium sulfate from Aswan.
I said before that the roof of the temple was colored but now most of it is black, so why ?
In the era of the pharaohs, people used to use egg white as well. Protein and glue are mixed evenly and used as a dye, so that the dye dries quickly.
At the same time, ancient Egyptians would rub butter on the surface of the stone wall, in order to make the murals appear glossy, copper phosphate was used as a pigment in the Greek period, and butter was also used to increase the shiny effect of the murals.
But they didn’t know that egg white, butter, and copper phosphate would rot under prolonged oxidation, and that some kind of bacteria would produce on their surface.
So that it turns black, so most of the surfaces we see now are black.
Have you seen the movie “ The Nile Massacre “ ? The stone pillars and the dramatic set of shots are depicted in the film of the huge stone tumbling down from the top of the column in this hall.
King Ramses II makes an offering of onions:
King Ramses II offers an offering of green onions to the idol Amun-Ra, a view from the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak from the New Kingdom era. This view shows the importance of green onions in the past, as they were photographed in large size as they were considered the source of awakening.
“ Onions “ was associated with the will to live, to conquer death, and to overcome disease, and its appearance was linked to a narration contained is one of the papyri myths of the ancient “ Memphis “ which recounts that one of the kings of the pharaohs had a lonely child who had a mysterious disease that kept him out of motion for several years, and doctors and priests in Memphis Temple in his treatment took place, and the pharaoh took refuge in the priest of the temple of “ On “, the temple of the sun god, who attributed the cause of the son’s illness to the control of evil spirits on him and ordered that a ripe fruit of onions be placed under the head of the prince after he read some spells on them, as he hung on the bed and the doors of the rooms in the palace the green onion sticks to flush out evil spirits and at sunrise he slashed one fruit onions and put their juice in the nose of the prince who gradually recovered from his illness and since that time the pharaohs considered him a sacred plant.
The third pylon
There are many difficulties in determining the date of construction from the Third Pylon to the Tenth Pylon.
Perhaps the reason for this is the succession of kings, and even their demolition of the kings built by their predecessors and rebuilding them with their own buildings that represent their era.
The third edifice built by Amenhotep III in the Temple of Amun-Ra at Karnak, as he found inside it - :
The whole stones of the shrine of King Senusret I, which was constructed somewhere in the temple of white stone, and the archaeological engineer ( Shafriya ) was able to erect from it a small temple ( Kiosk-jusuq-shrine ) which is now located in the area known conventionally in the museum north of the courtyard of the temple.
A base of bink granite with the names of Amenemhat the Third and Amenemhat the Fourth.
Remains of inscriptions on limestone dating back to the reigns of King Ahmose and Queen Ahmose Nefertari.
Remains of a stone stela from the reign of King Ahmose.
Alabaster resting ( shrine ) compartment for King Amenhotep the first and is now in his place at Karnak.
Remains of traces of limestone inscribed with the name of Amenhotep the First.
Remnants of limestone blocks of an entrance in the reign of Amenhotep III himself, who built the Third pylon.
A sandstone lintel dating back to the reign of Thutmose II.
Blocks of red quartz stone from the resting compartment of the sacred boat dating back to the era of Hatshepsut.
Remains of limestone blocks of an entrance from the reign of Hatshepsut.
Remains of the alabaster resting place for the sacred boat, dating back to the reign of Thutmose III.
A block of red granite representing Amenhotep II shooting arrows from the bow with his hands.
Remnants of an alabaster roof dating back to the reign of Amenhotep II.
Base of a composite of alabaster dating back to the reign of Tuthmosis the Fourth.
Remains of a sandstone column dating back to the reign of Thutmose IV.
Remains of stone of an entrance made of limestone, dating back to the reign of Thutmose II.
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