Most tourist visits to Egypt include life, death and the afterlife, or at least an ancient Egyptian look at how all intertwine. The Necropolis of Thebes, much like that seen further north in the Giza-Saqqara-Dashur necropolis of Memphis, extends for many miles beyond the main attraction, the Valley of the Kings. Mortuary temples built by New Kingdom pharaohs front the desert mountains rising to the west. Mortuary temples arose as early as the Old Kingdom. The temples commemorated a specific king who reigned during the construction of the temple. Most prominent of all was to the peculiar Queen-King Hatshepsut.

These temples first arose around the pyramids of the Old Kingdom. With the center of power shifting south to Thebes in the time of the New Kingdom, the mortuary temples arose near the west bank of the Nile. With the kings lying inside the cliffs of the wadis beneath the natural pyramid of al-Qurn, the mortuary temples went up on the desert edge a little bit aways from the tombs of the kings.

MORTUARY TEMPLES

In Thebes – Waset, the temples served both as a home for the specific cult of the king, so his cult could carry on after the death of the royal. Known as “mansions of millions of years” by the locals, the temples served as centers of worship for dead kings with food and objects offered up in respect. There were normally an open pillared court with elongated shrines and a chapel with an offering table. The temples were served by a staff of priests. Each temple was assured of supplies through endowments of estates and lands so the services and offerings could go on in perpetuity.

Hab Nefer en Painet

 These temples also served as a resting place for the boat of Amun during the “Beautiful Festival of the Valley” – Hab Nefer en Painet. This was an annual celebration of the dead tracing back to the Old Kingdom. The festival highlighted the liturgical calendar of Thebes along with the Opet Festival. The Beautiful Festival of the Valley took place normally around the start of summer – the new moon of the second month of the harvesting season, Shemu.

A grand procession started the festival off which could go on for several days. Beginning in Thebes – the east side, direction of new life, a statue or picture of Amun-Ra decorated with a sun disc was carried by priests to cross over the Nile in a ceremonial barque. The barque laid placed in a ship – Userhet (“Powerful Prow”) – covered in gold. The Userhet led boats carrying Mut and Khonsu making up the Theban Triad.

party for all

At the temple, food, drink and flowers made up sacrifices to the boats. The people of Thebes would then separate to find their relatives’ tombs where they would drink, eat and sleep on the tombs to show respect for their ancestors and ensure the revival of the dead spirits. Amun-Ra, likewise, in traveling to the west to pay respects to the dead including Osiris, “Foremost of the Westerners”. Heavy drinking became involved since Egyptians thought a drunken state brought one closer to the gods and the blessed dead.

The actual procession, once it reached the west side, was off-limits to commoners, only the pharaoh, his high-ranking officials and priests could proceed to the Djoser-djoseru “Holy of Holies”, another name for the mortuary temples. The next morning, the statue of Amun-Ra would make the rounds to mortuary temples of earlier pharaohs. At the end of the festival, the statues retreated back across the river to make their way back to their respective temples at Karnak.

TEMPLE OF HATSHEPSUT

Of the myriads of New Kingdom mortuary temples, only one remains – restored as it has been – in reasonably good condition, the Temple of Hatshepsut. Ironically, this temple was built to honor a female pharaoh, Hatshepsut. Supposedly designed by her close confidant Senenmut, the High Steward of the King. The temple went up next to the earlier mortuary temple of Mentuhotep II, built 500 years prior. It represents the most magnificent building of western Thebes. Known as the Djeser-Djeseru – “the sublime of the sublimes”. The design became attributed to Senenmut, “Chief Steward of Amun”. He wanted the temple to integrate with the surrounding scenery inspired by the neighboring earlier Temple of Mentuhotep.

construction

Construction took fifteen years with some evidence of profound modifications occurring over the course of construction. The site already lay considered sacred for over 500 years to the primary feminine goddess – Hathor – of the funeral world. It stood also only a few hundred meters in a straight line from the tomb Hatshepsut picked out for herself and her father, Thutmose I – KV 20, lying on the other side of the mountain. Also, like the Temple of Mentuhotep before, the temple here linked up with another temple built closer to the Nile. The temple is straight across the river from the temples at Karnak. So, the shrine barques came straight across the river during the Festival of the Valley before preceding up to the Djeser-Djeseru. The avenue of processions lay flanked by two rows of sphinxes leading to the first courtyard on the bottom level of the mortuary temple.

Hatshepsut

Hashepsut was a daughter of Thutmose I. She wed her brother Thutmose II with whom they only had one daughter, Neferure. The heir shifted to Thutmose III, the son of another of Thutmose II’s wives. Because of Thutmose III’s young age, Hatshepsut became a co-regent. They ruled happily for a couple of years before she declared herself Egypt’s king and pharaoh. She continued to include Thutmose III’s name beside her own papers and documents until her ninth year when Hatshepsut’s name was the only king name appearing on all documents.

To legitimate her role as Egypt’s ruling pharaoh, Hatshepsut dressed in men’s attire. She also assumed the regalia and symbols of pharaonic office, including the khat head cloth topped with a uraeus, traditional false beard, and the shendyt kilt. She held male titles and used masculine grammatical forms in official documents to make Egyptians feel nothing had changed in their tradition by her arrival on the throne. With time, she even dropped the female ending from her name (‘t’) and became His Majesty, Hatshepsu.

the queen-king

To strengthen her position as pharaoh, Hatshepsut created the myth of her own divine birth. This is shown in scenes on the walls of her temple.  The god Amun-Re comes to her mother Ahmose in the form of king Thutmose I and finds her sleeping in her room. He awakens her with his pleasant odor.  Amun-Re then places the ankh, a symbol of life, to Ahmose’s nose, and Hatshepsut becomes conceived. Khnum, the god who forms the bodies of human children, then gains instructions to create a body and ka, or life force, for Hatshepsut. Khnum and Heket, goddess of life and fertility, lead Ahmose along to a lion bed where she gives birth to Hatshepsut.

Further strengthening her position, the Oracle of Amun proclaimed according to the will of Amun, Hatshepsut was to become Pharaoh. She publicized Amun’s support with the god’s endorsement carved on her monuments. She also claimed as her father’s intended heir, he made her crown prince of Egypt.

First Portico

The first courtyard was limited in the west by a portico with twenty-two columns. Flanking on both sides by two Osiride statues of the Queen-King adorned with bas-reliefs showing the transportation of two large granite obelisks from Aswan and their erection at the Temple of Karnak. Two ramps lead into a second courtyard and on to the upper terrace. On the intermediate level, the portico stands flanked on the south by a temple dedicated to Hathor and to the north, a temple to Anubis. On the portico walls, the south side shows illustrations of the expedition to Punt (Eritrea-Ethiopia). The northern side shows the divine birth of Hatshepsut where Amun substituted for her father Thutmose I to provide a divine conception.

Here, we ran into the problem often found at Thebes temples, simply too many visitors. Of course, they all want to pose and take selfies. You don’t have much time to take in what you are seeing. There is just time for a few quick photos and hope you can discern some of the information you witnessed later. And, of course, you miss many things which you might have photographed later. My visit became worse when my hearing device decided to quit not allowing me to hear our guide as we made our way through the throngs.

Temple of Hathor

An original separate entrance came with this temple. There is a vestibule – accessible from the portico of Punt – with two square Hathor-headed columns centrally positioned. On either side two groups of four columns flanked the central square columns. There is a hypostyle hall of twelve columns on a higher level. The walls covered in decorations showing festivals celebrating the goddess with sacrifices to her represented by her boat in the form of a cow. There are also two niches with the portrait of Senenmut in the corner of one. Other motifs show Hator in the form of a cow nursing Hatshepsut along with the Queen-King giving sacrifices to her wet-nurse. On the back wall, the consecration by Amun-Ra and Hathor of the Queen-King wearing the double crown and the ritual beard.

Chapel of Anubis

On the north side lies a hypostyle hall with twelve grooved columns and an astronomical ceiling. In one major scene, Anubis introduces her (here, Hatshepsut’s image became erased in the later era of Thutmose III’s reign) into the chapel while in on the north side, Thutmose III offers wine to Sokar, the falcon-headed funerary god of Memphis. There are two small niched on which images of Hatshepsut makes offering to Amun-Ra and Anubis. The images of the Queen-King no longer visible due to erasure.

Third Portico

Atop the causeway stairs is the main level of the temple. Fronting twenty-six pillars were Osirid statues of the Queen-King. Standing more than five meters high all similar to the giant statues which used to stand in front of the first portico. Hands crossed in regal form holding symbols of royal authority. Going into the upper court, one hundred-ten columns surround the yard. They rise decorated with events taking place before the accession of Hatshepsut. These events expressed the will of Amun-Ra that she should become king of the Two Lands. The columns later found themselves with pastoral scenes in the latter part of the reign of Thutmose III.

Opposite the courtyard is the main temple of Amun-Ra, with sub-chapels on the north and south sides. There are other chapels – a Sun Altar, an upper chapel dedicated to Anubis and Cult Chapels to both Hatshepsut and her father Thutmose I. All of these chapels, however, remained closed.

SENENMUT

Senenmut carried out his work so well, his Queen-King allowed him to build his tomb chapel on the north side of the causeway which leads into her mortuary temple. The chapel – TT353 – lies in a little valley just north of the end of the pavement upon which the little tramcars deliver visitors from the ticket office to the entrance causeway. Construction of Senenmut’s tomb began in 1472 BC during the 7th year of Hatshepsut’s reign.

Liturgical texts on the walls date back to the Middle Kingdom. The tomb chapel is about 90 meters long with a staircase leading down from the east. About halfway along the corridor is a small door on the south side leading to a small chamber. Continuing on the main corridor another ten meters brings one to Chamber A. The room represents the only decorated room within the tomb chapel. The walls are lined with limestone. As a centerpiece, a false door stands on the western wall partly inscribed with spell 148 from the Book of the Dead.

Book of the Dead, Spell 148:

‘For making provision for a spirit in the realm of the dead’. This spell provided the names of the Bull of Heaven and his seven cows, providing an eternal supply of food and beer.

The names of the cattle are:

Mansion of Kas, Mistress of All.

Silent One who dwells in her place

She of Chemmis whom the god ennobled

The Much Beloved, red of hair

She who protects in life, the particoloured.

She whose name has power in her craft.

Storm in the sky which wafts the god aloft

The bull, husband of the cows.

One job leads to another.”

The overseer

Senmut, a low-born man, rose to power with Hatshepsut. Some of his many titles included “Overseer of the Works,” “Overseer of the Fields,” “Overseer of the Double Gold House,” “Overseer of the Gardens of Amun,” “Controller of Works,” “Overseer of the Administrative Office of the Mansion,” “Conductor of Festivals,” “Overseer of the Cattle of Amun,” “Steward of the King’s Daughter Neferura,” “Chief of the King,” “Magnate of the Tens of Upper and Lower Egypt,” “Chief of the Mansion of the Red Crown, Privy Councilor, Chief Steward of Amun, Overseer of the Double Granary of Amun”. Senenmut liked to describe himself as “Companion greatly beloved, Keeper of the Palace, Keeper of the Heart of the King, making content the Lady of Both Lands, making all things come to pass for the Spirit of Her Majesty”.

He had worked with Thutmose II becoming the tutor of Neferure, the daughter of Thutmose II and Hatshepsut. Hatshepsut actually was preparing her daughter to become a prince. Her primary tutor was none other than Senenmut. Several statues appear with Senenmut and Neferure together. The actual nature of his relationship with Hatshepsut remains unknown, but he served as one of her strongest supporters, probably even one of her top advisers. Neferure died young ending any hope Hatshepsut had of her succeeding as pharaoh. Thutmose III, who did succeed Hatashepsut, was a grandson of Thutmose I – Hatshepsut’s own father – son of Thutmose II by way of another wife. Iset.

Fall from Grace?

Senenmut held his offices until at least the 16 year of the co-regency, after which, all traces of him lost. His tomb TT 353 closed unfinished and some of his figures inside this tomb and another earlier one built on the Sheikh abdel Qurna Hill – TT 71 – became destroyed. No evidence remains whether either tomb served as his final resting place.

One thought is he ran afoul of Hatshepsut by building TT 353 on a scale of nearly royal scale. Plus there were the many images and personal inscriptions he placed behind the door jams of Hatshepsut’s temple, a few of which in the Chapel of Hathor have survived. Though with so many places where his name or image appeared, it is hard to think Hatshepsut would not have consented. She allowed him to put his image and name in other temples as well as here.

theory two and three

A second theory deals with an early death for his pupil Neferure. She does not appear anywhere in TT 353 so the assumption is she died before regnal year 16. Maybe with her death, Hatshepsut could get rid of a companion who she did not need anymore. The problem here, by year 16, Senenmut reached the apogee of his career. Some inscriptions suggest Neferure lived as the principal queen of Thutmose III until his 22 or 23rd regnal year.

Another thought again refers to an early death of Nefurure. Senenmut then switched his political support to Thutmose III instead of Hatshepsut. Such a betrayal would not have played well with the old queen-king.

sometimes the simplest explanation …

Of course, Senenmut served a long time by the 16th year of the co-regency. He started during the reign of Amenhotep I as a soldier before continuing as an administrator under Thutmose I. His age by year 16 was anywhere from 50 to 70 years, so he could have retired or died before Hatshepsut herself died. TT353 not finished before his death does not exclude his possible burial in TT 71 where parts of a sarcophagus have been found – but no mummy.

His tomb of TT 353 is not open to the public today for security reason, much like many of the trails which wind up and over the hills.

KV 60

Hatshepsut had a burial tomb built for her father, Thutmose I. Later on, she expanded the tomb to make room for herself. Thutmose III built a new tomb for his grandfather – KV 38 – leaving his stepmother in KV 20. Because of tomb robbers, many royal mummies became gathered during the Twenty-first Dynasty into one new tomb – the Royal Cache – TT 320. Included in the tomb were more than 50 kings, queens, and other royals of the New Kingdom.

In 1903, KV 60 was discovered by Howard Carter. He found the tomb ransacked from ancient times but two female mummies lay at the base of a coffin along with some mummified geese. Carter removed the geese and re-closed the tomb. The tomb became re-opened in 1906 by Edward Ayrton who removed one of the female mummies taking it and the coffin base to the Egyptian Museum. Neither Carter or Ayrton described exactly where the tomb was and with time, the location was forgotten. That is until 1989 when the tomb was rediscovered.

the other mummy

The second mummy was noted as decently preserved with an age of 50-60 years at the time of her death. Obese and in poor health, she probably had bone cancer and diabetes. One of her molars with only one root had been extracted before her death. Inside TT 320, a wooden box was earlier discovered with her cartouches inscribed. The box was CT-scanned and found to have a mummified liver and intestine as well as a molar tooth lacking one root. The molar matched the teeth remaining in the second mummy of KV 60 as well as lacking the one root still present in the jaw.

The first mummy in the meantime already had been identified as Sitre In, the royal nurse of Hatshepsut.

A Side Tomb from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty

Looking to the north from the porticos of Hatshepsut’s temple, your eye draws to a large tomb entrance – TT 312 (or MMA 509) which appears recently restored. One guide mentioned it as the tomb of Senenmut which, as seen above, is not the case. It does not even have anything to do with the New Kingdom but comes from a much later date.

Nepaskashuty served as vizier and overseer of Upper Egypt during the reign of Psamtik I – 660-610 BC. Psamtik was the first pharaoh of the Saite Twenty-sixth Dynasty. The tomb dates to about 656-650 BC as Nespakashuty signed the Oracle Papyrus as a fourth witness in 651 BC, the fourteenth year of Psamtik I’s reign. An important man of Thebes of his time, two fine statues of Nepaskashuty sit in the Cairo Museum. The Saite Dynasty rose up with help at first of the Assyrians who placed them as governors and later outright rulers.

His tomb became excavated in the 1920s by the Metropolitan Museum’s Egyptian Expeditions led by H.E. Winlock.

OTHER MORTUARY TEMPLES NEXT TO HATSHEPSUT

Mentuhotep II

The kings of the New Kingdom ended up buried somewhere in the vast necropolis of west Thebes. Most ended with substantial tombs carved into the rocks of the Valley of the Kings. Their memory as king-gods stayed maintained in the many mortuary temples they built on the edge of the desert from Seti I in the north to Ramses III at Madinat Habu in the south. The area became a place for royalty with the mortuary temple of Mentuhotep Nebhepetre. His temple preceded Hatshepsut’s by 550 years, foreshadowing the Temples of Millions of Years of the New Kingdom to come. Mentuhotep brought an end to the First Intermediate Period reunifying all of Egypt instituting the beginning of the Middle Kingdom.

His mortuary temple served as his tomb, as well, with a corridor leading to his tomb from the courtyard in the rear of the complex. The temple possibly featured a pyramid in the front. The temple was dedicated to Amun-Ra, also the favorite god of Thebes from which Mentuhotep’s family came from.

Today there is very little remaining except for the platforms on which the temple stood. Many of the stones of the temple reused in projects to come.

Thutmose III

Thutmose lies buried in the Valley of the Kings in KV 34. His tomb, as most others, was robbed in antiquity. His mummy, damaged, became gathered up with many others during the Twenty-first Dynasty into TT 320, the Royal Cache. He became pharaoh with the death of his father Thutmose II while he was still a child. Power remained, however, in the hands of his stepmother Hatshepsut for the next 22 years until she died and he became sole king.

As king, Thutmose III took Egypt to its apogee of imperial control. He is remembered as one of Egypt’s greatest military leaders. To decrease the amount of tomb robbing, the kings had taken to separating the site of their burial – now, for the New Kingdom in the nearby Valley of the Kings – from their cult temples.

Mortuary temple of Thutmose III

The mortuary temple of Thutmose III went up in between those of Mentuhotep and Hatshepsut. His temple overlooked both. The temple was built between 1435 and 1425 BC. An earthquake probably destroyed the temple sometime around the Twenty-first Dynasty or after a period of at least 250 years. Most of the temple sits above the level of the upper portico of the temple of Hatshepsut on a square platform cut from the rock with a stone revetment fronting the temple foundation.

The temple was probably not finished when Thutmose III died and was likely brought to completion by his successor Amenhotep II, in the early years of his reign. The temple remained hidden from archaeologists until the 1960s because of an ancient rock fall from the high cliffs above. After the destruction of the temple, the site became stripped of its sandstone building blocks other projects. Completing the temple’s devastation was an eventual collapse of the built-up portion of its supporting platform, causing the south-eastern corner of the temple to drop down onto the Temple of Montuhotep immediately below. Reconstruction of the temple’s layout was hindered by the large scale of destruction.

The Temple of Millions of Years of the Pharaoh Thutmose III (Luxor). An Update on the Research

MORTUARY TEMPLES ON THE DESERT’S EDGE

With the push to separate royal tombs from the associated mortuary temples – the temples were needed to make sure the king’s cult would continue to flourish with offerings to allow the royal to succeed in his afterlife journey – a line of New Kingdom mortuary temples sprang up at the border of agricultural land and the desert hills. Now, we only visited briefly the temple of Amenhotep III, settling for driving past most of the others. To visit the others, you probably have to make up your own tour, though a fair number of tour buses include Ramses III’s temple at Medinah Habu. The temples lie along a road running southwest from the Howard Carter House at the entrance to the Valley of the Kings.

Mortuary Temple of Seti I

Seti I’s tomb – KV 17 – is one of the most glamorous tombs found in the Valley of the Kings. There is a large mortuary temple erected along the road leading southeast from the Kings Valley Road intersection by the Carter House. He began constructing his temple dedicating it to Amun-Ra and himself. It was completed after his death by his son Ramesses II. There is also a shrine to Seti’s father Ramesses I, who only reigned for two years. Ramses I never erected a mortuary temple for himself.

Seti I’s temple suffered from flooding in ancient days. Modern times have not been much better. The temple, like all other structures, suffers a great deal from salts from fertilizers, used since the Nile has stopped from normal flooding with the building of the Aswan dams.

The Ramesseum

Early in his reign, Ramesses II began construction of his mortuary temple.  It took twenty years to complete and became the model for Ramesses III’s temple at Medinet Habu. Like with his father’s temple, the location was badly chosen. Sited too close to the river, flooding water undermined the structure before long. Still, today the hypostyle hall features a well-preserved ceiling and in there are remains of a palace and extensive granaries and storerooms. Rameses II lies in KV 7 in the Valley of the Kings, one of the more impressive tombs befitting of the great king.

Storerooms surround the temple on three sides, forming three groups, with the oldest behind the temple. The site is notable for its true arches made of mud bricks simply held in place by mortar and prone to collapse. The Ramesseum stands as the oldest example of such arches still standing in Egypt ~1300 BC.

the cry of teh great king

Nineteenth century drawings of the ruined temple inspired Percy Shelley to write his ode “Ozymandias” – the Greek name for Ramses.

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desart.^[d] Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

— Percy Shelley, “Ozymandias”, 1819 edition

There were two colossal sculptures stood at the rear of the complex. One represented Ramses while the other was his mother Tuya. The head of one fell and was infamously transported to Britain where it sits in the British Museum today. The other still lies dropped off its perch in the sands of Egypt, the “Fallen Ozymandis”.

Other ruined temples lie between Ramses II and his successor Merenptah – Thutmose IV, Tausert. Both usurped by later pharaohs to reuse their materials.

Mortuary Temple of Mereptah

Merneptah – lies in KV 8 in the Valley of the Kings – gained the throne latter in life due to the long life of his father Ramses II. Far less well preserved than neighboring monuments, the temple reused earlier temples for material and inscriptions to illuminate ideological priorities of Mereptah’s reign.

Along with other temples found along the desert-Nile inundation border, the temple suffered from Nile floods leading to structural instability and a rapid decline. By the Third Intermediate Period, most of the complex was already dismantled or buried with its stone to be quarried for future project.

Today, the temple survives in a ruined state. The ground plan still traceable through foundation walls, column bases, and the remains of pylons and courtyards, but little of the building stands intact. Scattered blocks, relief fragments, and shattered colossi dominate the site, many with traces of earlier inscriptions from the reign of Amenhotep III alongside later Ramesside modifications. The reuse of Amenhotep III’s monument is a hallmark of the Nineteenth Dynasty’s economic and architectural strategy, illustrating a pragmatic approach to monumental construction.

israel

The Merneptah Stele – also known as the “Israel Stele” – contains the earliest known extra-biblical reference to “Israel”. Carved from a massive block of black granite – originally the reverse side of a stela belonging to Amenhotep III – the inscription serves primarily as a record of Merneptah’s military triumphs. While the text focuses largely on the king’s victory over a Libyan confederation, the concluding passage contains a brief register of a campaign in the Levant including Israel.

Interestingly, the destruction of Merneptah’s temple complex resulted from the same forces that took Amenhotep III’s structure. Built not far away from the more ancient temple of Amenhotep III, a Nile flood first swept away the two pylons leading into the temple, along with the first hypostyle hall, its side chambers, and the second hypostyle hall and even the cult chapels. Soon the rest of the building also collapsed. This event was not unlike the destruction of Amenhotep III’s complex, though the earlier king’s mortuary temple was built so close to the flood plain that a flood was not required for its demise.

Amenhotep III Mortuary Temple – North Gate

Two new colossi have been raised here on the north side of Merenptah’s temple.. These colossi lie about 300 meters from their original site. These represented the northern entrance to Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple.

The Mortuary Temple of Amehnhotep III

The largest of all the mortuary temples belonged to Amenhotep III. This temple became erected so low on the Nile plain it lies partly flooded during the Inundation. As the water withdrew, the temple appeared rising from the Primeval Mound. Good as a religious concept, the complex, suffering from poor construction, was quickly destroyed. Today, very little remains except for a series of great statues of Amenhotep, the eastern duo known as the “Memnon Colossi”.

the colossi of memnom

The original function of these eastern colossi was to stand guard at the east entrance to the temple complex. At the time, this temple complex reigned as the largest and most opulent of Ancient Egypt. Covering 86 acres, the complex was larger than even the Temple of Karnak. As if the annual floods were not enough, an earthquake destroyed much of the complex around 1200 BC.

The same earthquake opened chasms in the ground where many of the statues fell buried in the muck. Recently, some have been re-dug and restored. Now there are more than two colossi standing where they used to.

Another earthquake in 27 BC shattered the northern of the eastern duo. It collapsed from the waist up with the lower half suffering a crack. The lower half reportedly “sang” on occasion, normally at dawn. The “singing” drew ancient tourists from the ranks of Greeks and Romans including several Roman emperors.

The last recorded reliable mention of the sound dates from 196. Late in the Roman era, the upper tiers of sandstone were added, the date but attributed to the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus trying to curry favor with the oracle. He paid a visit, but did not hear the song.

Mortuary Temple of Ramses III

One of the larger and best-preserved mortuary temple comes courtesy of Ramses III (tomb in the Valley of the Kings was KV 11). The temple serves as a source of reliefs depicting the advent and defeat of the “sea peoples” during the reign of Ramesses III. Some of the building materials were re-used from earlier monuments including the mortuary temple of Tausret, one of the last known rulers of the Nineteenth Dynasty. In turn, a Greco-Roman period temple to Isis lying four kilometers south re-used inscribed blocks from here there.

Located north of the outer wall, lies the poorly preserved memorial Temple of Ay and Horemheb. That temple, originally built by Ay was usurped by Horemheb who removed all inscriptions and images of Ay. 

Ramesses III temple closely resembles the nearby Ramesseum. Many of the inscriptions and scenes are in similar locations and in some cases largely copied.

FURTHER

Maat-ka-Ra Hatshepsut – complete info on the Queen-King and her temple

Lipinska Totmes Ksiazka:Layout 1.qxd – Thutmose III’s temple

The Temple of Millions of Years of the Pharaoh Thutmose III (Luxor). An Update on the Research – another temple of Thutmose III close to the Ramesseum. Both Thutmose III and Hatshepsut had second mortuary temples closer to the valley. Of Hatshepsut’s valley temple little remains.

OLGIS-TN – Online Geographical Information System for the Theban Necropolis

NMEC – National Museum of Egyptian Civilization – more information on the mummies and findings from the Royal Cache

Toby Wilkinson’s The Rise and Fall of Ancient Egypt and The Nile: A Journey Downriver Through Egypt’s Past and Present.