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Coordinates: 25°43′7″N 32°39′31″E

Karnak
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak
(/ˈkɑːr.næk/,[1] from Arabic Khurnak meaning "fortified village"), Karnak
comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and
other buildings near Luxor, in Egypt. Construction at the complex
began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom
(around 2000–1700 BC) and continued into the Ptolemaic period
(305–30 BC), although most of the extant buildings date from the
New Kingdom. The area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian
Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places") and the main place of
worship of the Eighteenth Dynasty Theban Triad with the god
Amun as its head. It is part of the monumental city of Thebes.
The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly
surrounded, modern village of El-Karnak, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 Pillars of the Great Hypostyle Hall from
miles) north of Luxor. the Precinct of Amun-Re

Contents
Overview
History
European knowledge of Karnak
Main parts
Precinct of Amun-Re
Precinct of Mut
Precinct of Montu
Temple of Amenhotep IV (deliberately dismantled) Shown within Egypt

In popular culture Location El-Karnak, Luxor

Governorate, Egypt
Gallery
Region Upper Egypt
See also
Coordinates 25°43′7″N 32°39′31″E
References
Type Sanctuary
Further reading
Part of Thebes
External links
History
Builder Senusret I
Overview Periods Middle Kingdom to
Ptolemaic Kingdom
The complex is a vast open site and includes the Karnak Open Air
Museum. It is believed to be the second most visited historical UNESCO World Heritage Site
site in Egypt; only the Giza Pyramids near Cairo receive more
visits. It consists of four main parts, of which only the largest is Official name Ancient Thebes with its
currently open to the general public. The term Karnak often is Necropolis

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understood as being the Precinct of Amun-Re only, because this Type Cultural
is the only part most visitors see. The three other parts, the Criteria I, III, VI
Precinct of Mut, the Precinct of Montu, and the dismantled
Temple of Amenhotep IV, are closed to the public. There also are Designated 1979 (3rd session)
a few smaller temples and sanctuaries connecting the Precinct of Reference no. 87 (https://whc.unesco.
Mut, the Precinct of Amun-Re, and the Luxor Temple. The org/en/list/87)
Precinct of Mut is very ancient, being dedicated to an Earth and
Region Arab States
creation deity, but not yet restored. The original temple was
destroyed and partially restored by Hatshepsut, although another
pharaoh built around it in order to change the focus or orientation of the sacred area. Many portions of it
may have been carried away for use in other buildings.

The key difference between Karnak and most of the other temples and sites in Egypt is the length of time
over which it was developed and used. Construction of temples started in the Middle Kingdom and
continued into Ptolemaic times. Approximately thirty pharaohs contributed to the buildings, enabling it
to reach a size, complexity, and diversity not seen elsewhere. Few of the individual features of Karnak are
unique, but the size and number of features are overwhelming. The deities represented range from some
of the earliest worshiped to those worshiped much later in the history of the Ancient Egyptian culture.
Although destroyed, it also contained an early temple built by Amenhotep IV (Akhenaten), the pharaoh
who later would celebrate a near monotheistic religion he established that prompted him to move his
court and religious center away from Thebes. It also contains evidence of adaptations, where the
buildings of the ancient Egyptians were used by later cultures for their own religious purposes.

One famous aspect of Karnak is the Great Hypostyle Hall in the

Precinct of Amun-Re, a hall area of 50,000 sq ft (5,000 m2) with 134
massive columns arranged in 16 rows. One hundred and twenty-two
of these columns are 10 meters tall, and the other 12 are 21 meters
tall with a diameter of over three meters. The architraves on top of
these columns are estimated to weigh 70 tons. These architraves
may have been lifted to these heights using levers. This would be an
extremely time-consuming process and also would require great
balance to get to such great heights. A common alternative theory
Open papyrus umbel capitals and
regarding how they were moved is that large ramps were
architrave on the central columns of constructed of sand, mud, brick or stone and that the stones were
the Hypostyle Hall then towed up the ramps. If stone had been used for the ramps, they
would have been able to use much less material. The top of the
ramps presumably would have employed either wooden tracks or
cobblestones for towing the megaliths. There is an unfinished pillar in an out-of-the-way location that
indicates how it would have been finished. Final carving was executed after the drums were put in place
so that it was not damaged while being placed.[2][3] Several experiments moving megaliths with ancient
technology were made at other locations – some of them are listed here.

In 2009 UCLA launched a website dedicated to virtual reality digital reconstructions of the Karnak
complex and other resources.[4]

The sun god's shrine has light focused upon it during the winter solstice.[5]

History

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The history of the Karnak complex is largely the history of Thebes and its
changing role in the culture. Religious centers varied by region, and when a
new capital of the unified culture was established, the religious centers in
that area gained prominence. The city of Thebes does not appear to have
been of great significance before the Eleventh Dynasty and previous temple
building there would have been relatively small, with shrines being
dedicated to the early deities of Thebes, the Earth goddess Mut and Montu.
Early building was destroyed by invaders. The earliest known artifact found
in the area of the temple is a small, eight-sided column from the Eleventh
Dynasty, which mentions Amun-Re. Amun (sometimes called Amen) was
long the local tutelary deity of Thebes. He was identified with the ram and Gate at Karnak. Brooklyn
the goose. The Egyptian meaning of Amun is "hidden" or the "hidden Museum Archives,
god".[6] Goodyear Archival
Collection
Major construction work in the
Precinct of Amun-Re took place during
the Eighteenth Dynasty, when Thebes became the capital of the
unified Ancient Egypt. Almost every pharaoh of that dynasty added
something to the temple site. Thutmose I erected an enclosure wall
connecting the Fourth and Fifth pylons, which comprise the earliest
part of the temple still standing in situ. Hatshepsut had monuments
constructed and also restored the original Precinct of Mut, that had
been ravaged by the foreign rulers during the Hyksos occupation.
Obelisks of Hatshepsut: a tall She had twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world, erected at
obelisk stands above a field of the entrance to the temple. One still stands, as the tallest surviving
rubble and bricks; in the foreground ancient obelisk on Earth; the other has broken in two and toppled.
lies the top of another obelisk. Another of her projects at the site, Karnak's Red Chapel or Chapelle
Rouge, was intended as a barque shrine and originally may have
stood between her two obelisks. She later ordered the construction
of two more obelisks to celebrate her sixteenth year as pharaoh; one of the obelisks broke during
construction, and thus, a third was constructed to replace it. The broken obelisk was left at its quarrying
site in Aswan, where it still remains. Known as the unfinished obelisk, it provides evidence of how
obelisks were quarried.[7]

Construction of the Great Hypostyle Hall also may have begun

during the Eighteenth Dynasty (although most new building was
undertaken under Seti I and Ramesses II in the Nineteenth).
Merneptah, also of the Nineteenth Dynasty, commemorated his
victories over the Sea Peoples on the walls of the Cachette Court, the
start of the processional route to the Luxor Temple. The last major
change to the Precinct of Amun-Re's layout was the addition of the
First Pylon and the massive enclosure walls that surround the whole
precinct, both constructed by Nectanebo I of the Thirtieth Dynasty.
The Great Hypostyle Hall
In 323 AD, Roman emperor Constantine the Great recognised the
Christian religion, and in 356 Constantius II ordered the closing of
pagan temples throughout the Roman empire, into which Egypt had
been annexed in 30 BC. Karnak was by this time mostly abandoned, and Christian churches were
founded among the ruins, the most famous example of this is the reuse of the Festival Hall of
Thutmose III's central hall, where painted decorations of saints and Coptic inscriptions can still be seen.

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European knowledge of Karnak

Thebes' exact placement was unknown in medieval Europe, though both Herodotus and Strabo give the
exact location of Thebes and how long up the Nile one must travel to reach it. Maps of Egypt, based on
the 2nd century Claudius Ptolemaeus' mammoth work Geographia, had been circulating in Europe since
the late 14th century, all of them showing Thebes' (Diospolis) location. Despite this, several European
authors of the 15th and 16th centuries who visited only Lower Egypt and published their travel accounts,
such as Joos van Ghistele and André Thévet, put Thebes in or close to Memphis.

The Karnak temple complex is first described by an unknown

Venetian in 1589, although his account gives no name for the
complex. This account, housed in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale
di Firenze, is the first known European mention, since ancient Greek
and Roman writers, about a whole range of monuments in Upper
Egypt and Nubia, including Karnak, Luxor temple, the.Colossi of
Memnon, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae, and others.

Karnak ("Carnac") as a village name, and name of the complex, is

first attested in 1668, when two capuchin missionary brothers,
Protais and Charles François d'Orléans, travelled though the area.
Protais' writing about their travel was published by Melchisédech
Thévenot (Relations de divers voyages curieux, 1670s–1696
editions) and Johann Michael Vansleb (The Present State of Egypt,
1678).

The first drawing of Karnak is

Photograph of the temple complex
taken in 1914, Cornell University
Library
found in Paul Lucas' travel Hieroglyphs from the great obelisk
account of 1704, (Voyage du of Karnak, transcribed by Ippolito
Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant). It Rosellini in 1828
is rather inaccurate, and can be
quite confusing to modern eyes.
Lucas travelled in Egypt during 1699–1703. The drawing shows a
mixture of the Precinct of Amun-Re and the Precinct of Montu,
based on a complex confined by the three huge Ptolemaic gateways
of Ptolemy III Euergetes / Ptolemy IV Philopator, and the massive
113 m long, 43 m high and 15 m thick, First Pylon of the Precinct of
Amun-Re.

Karnak was visited and described in succession by Claude Sicard and

his travel companion Pierre Laurent Pincia (1718 and 1720–21), Granger (1731), Frederick Louis Norden
(1737–38), Richard Pococke (1738), James Bruce (1769), Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de
Manoncourt (1777), William George Browne (1792–93), and finally by a number of scientists of the
Napoleon expedition, including Vivant Denon, during 1798–1799. Claude-Étienne Savary describes the
complex in rather great detail in his work of 1785; especially in light of the fact that it is a fictional
account of a pretend journey to Upper Egypt, composed out of information from other travellers. Savary
did visit Lower Egypt in 1777–78, and published a work about that too.

Main parts

Precinct of Amun-Re
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This is the largest of the precincts of the temple complex, and is

dedicated to Amun-Re, the chief deity of the Theban Triad. There
are several colossal statues, including the figure of Pinedjem I which
is 10.5 metres (34 ft) tall. The sandstone for this temple, including
all of the columns, was transported from Gebel Silsila 100 miles
(161 km) south on the Nile river.[8] It also has one of the largest
obelisks, weighing 328 tonnes and standing 29 metres (95 ft)
tall.[9][10]
The Precinct of Amun-Re as seen
from the Sacred Lake
Precinct of Mut

Located to the south of the

newer Amen-Re complex, this precinct was dedicated to the mother
goddess, Mut, who became identified as the wife of Amun-Re in the
Eighteenth Dynasty Theban Triad. It has several smaller temples
associated with it and has its own sacred lake, constructed in a
crescent shape. This temple has been ravaged, many portions having
been used in other structures. Following excavation and restoration
works by the Johns Hopkins University team, led by Betsy Bryan
(see below) the Precinct of Mut has been opened to the public. Six
hundred black granite statues were found in the courtyard to her
Map of the Precinct of Mut, showing temple. It may be the oldest portion of the site.
the sacred crescent lake of Mut
In 2006, Betsy Bryan presented her findings of one festival that
included apparent intentional overindulgence in alcohol.[11]
Participation in the festival was great, including the priestesses and the population. Historical records of
tens of thousands attending the festival exist. These findings were made in the temple of Mut because
when Thebes rose to greater prominence, Mut absorbed the warrior goddesses, Sekhmet and Bast, as
some of her aspects. First, Mut became Mut-Wadjet-Bast, then Mut-Sekhmet-Bast (Wadjet having
merged into Bast), then Mut also assimilated Menhit, another lioness goddess, and her adopted son's
wife, becoming Mut-Sekhmet-Bast-Menhit, and finally becoming Mut-Nekhbet. Temple excavations at
Luxor discovered a "porch of drunkenness" built onto the temple by the pharaoh Hatshepsut, during the
height of her twenty-year reign. In a later myth developed around the annual drunken Sekhmet festival,
Ra, by then the sun god of Upper Egypt, created her from a fiery eye gained from his mother, to destroy
mortals who conspired against him (Lower Egypt). In the myth, Sekhmet's blood-lust was not quelled at
the end of the battle and led to her destroying almost all of humanity, so Ra had tricked her by turning
the Nile as red as blood (the Nile turns red every year when filled with silt during inundation) so that
Sekhmet would drink it. The trick, however, was that the red liquid was not blood, but beer mixed with
pomegranate juice so that it resembled blood, making her so drunk that she gave up slaughter and
became an aspect of the gentle Hathor. The complex interweaving of deities occurred over the thousands
of years of the culture.

Precinct of Montu

This portion of the site is dedicated to the son of Mut and Amun-Re, Montu, the war-god of the Theban
Triad. It is located to the north of the Amun-Re complex and is much smaller in size. It is not open to the
public.

Temple of Amenhotep IV (deliberately dismantled)

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The temple that Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) constructed on the site

was located east of the main complex, outside the walls of the Amun-
Re precinct. It was destroyed immediately after the death of its
builder, who had attempted to overcome the powerful priesthood
who had gained control over Egypt before his reign. It was so
thoroughly demolished that its full extent and layout is currently
unknown. The priesthood of that temple regained their powerful
position as soon as Akhenaten died, and were instrumental in
destroying many records of his existence.
Ruins in the Precinct of Montu
In popular culture
In Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, the final battle between Optimus Prime versus Megatron,
The Fallen, and Starscream takes place in the hypostyle hall at Karnak.
Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile takes place mainly on the steamship S.S. Karnak, as well as
using the temple itself in one of its scenes.
Lara Croft visited Karnak for three levels in Tomb Raider: The Last Revelation (Temple of Karnak,
The Great Hypostyle Hall, and Sacred Lake) and it was featured in the level-editor package.
In the movie The Mummy Returns, Karnak is one of the places to which Rick O'Connell and the
others must go, in order to ultimately reach the Scorpion King.
The British symphonic metal band Bal-Sagoth have a song called "Unfettering the Hoary Sentinels of
Karnak".
The first-person shooter video game PowerSlave (inspired by the Iron Maiden album Powerslave
and its title song) is set in and around Karnak.
Karnak is featured as a location for exploration in the PC game The Sims 3: World Adventures.
Karnak is featured as a location in the PC game Serious Sam.
Karnak is featured in the James Bond movie The Spy Who Loved Me.
In Watchmen, "Karnak" is the name given by Adrian "Ozymandias" Veidt to his secret Antarctic lair,
which he built based on its Egyptian namesake.
In the Stargate SG-1 episode "Serpent's Song", Apophis's host was a scribe in the Temple of Amun
at Karnak.
In the original Battlestar Galactica series, for the episode "Lost Planet of the Gods, Part II", some
shots of the pyramids at Kobol were actually filmed at the site of the Great Temple at Karnak and the
Pyramids of Giza.
In Final Fantasy V, a fortified town/castle powered by the fire crystal is named Karnak.
A tour of Karnak, including explanations of hieroglyphs and Egyptian culture, is shown in the BBC
documentary Connections, written and hosted by James Burke.
Karnak is a location featured in the DLC "The Curse of the Pharaohs" for the video game Assassin's
Creed: Origins.

Gallery

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Luxor dromos, an The Sacred Lake of View of the first Ram-headed sphinx
avenue of human Precinct of Amun- pylon of the temple statues at Karnak
headed sphinxes Re of Amun-Re at
which once Karnak
connected the
temples of Karnak
and Luxor.

Hypostyle hall of the Colossal statue of Open papyrus Closed papyrus

Precinct of Amun- Ramses II umbel capitals of the umbel capitals of the
Re, as it appeared Hypostyle Hall. Hypostyle Hall.
in 1838 in The Holy
Land, Syria,
Idumea, Arabia,
Egypt, and Nubia

Obelisk of Statue of Khepri in Egypt - Karnak. Egypt - Karnak.

Thutmosis I in Karnak Gate and Pylon., Great Statues., n.d.,
Karnak n.d., Brooklyn Goodyear. Brooklyn
Museum Archives Museum Archives

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See also
List of megalithic sites

References
1. "Karnak" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/karnak). Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary,
Eleventh Edition. Merriam-Webster, 2007. p. 1550
2. Egypt: Engineering an empire engineering feats
3. Lehner, Mark The Complete Pyramids, London: Thames and Hudson (1997) pp.202–225 ISBN 0-
500-05084-8.
4. "Ancient Egypt Brought To Life With Virtual Model Of Historic Temple Complex", Science Daily, 30
April 2009, retrieved 12 June 2009 [1] (https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/04/09042917222
4.htm)
5. Brian Handwerk (December 21, 2015) Everything You Need to Know About the Winter Solstice (htt
p://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/12/151221-winter-solstice-explained-pagans/) National
Geographic
6. Stewert, Desmond and editors of the Newsweek Book Division "The Pyramids and Sphinx" 1971 pp.
60–62
7. The Unfinished Obelisk (https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/egypt/dispatches/990316.html) by Peter
Tyson March 16, 1999 NOVA online adventure
8. Time Life Lost Civilizations series: Ramses II: Magnificence on the Nile (1993) pp. 53–54
9. Walker, Charles, 1980 "Wonders of the Ancient World" pp24–7
10. "The Seventy Wonders of the Ancient World", edited by Chris Scarre (1999) Thames & Hudson,
London
11. "Sex and booze figured in Egyptian rites" (http://www.nbcnews.com/id/15475319/#.V3MUP0_UnYg)
nbcnews.com, Oct 30, 2006,

Further reading
Blyth, Elizabeth (2006). Karnak: Evolution of a Temple. Routledge. ISBN 978-0-203-96837-6.

External links
CFEETK – Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak (en) (https://web.archive.org/we
b/20090605165359/http://www.cfeetk.cnrs.fr/uk/)
Temple of Amun, numerous photos & schemes (comments in russian) (http://www.bellabs.ru/Egypt/K
arnak.html)
Karnak images (http://www.picturechoice.org/egypt/karnak_temple.html)
www.karnak3d.net :: "Web-book" The 3D reconstruction of the Great Temple of Amun in Karnak.
Marc (https://web.archive.org/web/20041205220629/http://www.karnak3d.net/)
Digital Karnak UCLA (http://dlib.etc.ucla.edu/projects/Karnak)
Karnak Temple picture gallery (https://web.archive.org/web/20090928131107/http://www.remains.se/
picturem.php?ObjectID=129&Browse=AREA) at Remains.se

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