The Great Temple Of Amen-Rê .. The Karnak Temple Complex .. Part ( 13 )

We pass through pylon No. IV, which formed the west front of the temple in the days of Tuthmosis I, but is now sadly ruined . The doorway was restored by Alexander The Great, the first of the later intrusions which we have to notice in this earlier part of the temple .

The court into which we now enter has had the most curios history of any part of the great building . It was originally erected by Tuthmosis I and, as he designed it, was meant to have a roof of cedar, and columns of the same costly wood, which, however, were subsequently replaced by stone, three of the bases of the stone columns still remaining .

Before long the court was strangely transformed by the daughter of Tuthmosis, Queen Hatshepsut . She wished to celebrate the attainment of her sixteenth year as queen regnant, and to this end she sent up to Aswan her factotum, Senmût, to bring down to Thebes and erect at Karnak two great obelisks . Senmût duly accomplished his heavy task, and the two obelisks were floated down to Thebes . Then the queen, for what reason it is impossible to say, chose as the site for their erection the cedar hall of her father . She unroofed the larger portion of it, and thrust the two granite shafts up above the broken roof . The hall was thus rendered quite unfit for any ceremonial observances .

After the death of Hatshepsut, Tuthmosis III, restored the wall so far as was possible ( the work was completed by his son, Amenophis II ), and took steps to deprive Hatshepsut of whatever glory she might have derived from her obelisks . He sheathed them both in masonry up to a height of 82 feet, so that the queen's inscriptions could not be read, only the points of the two shafts being left projecting for 15½ feet above the roof of the hall . His masonry casing has now fallen down, though parts of it still remain on the spot, and the inscription can be read with comfort . Around the court was a series of niches, with Osirid statues of Tuthmosis I, which have the arms crossed and the ankh, a symbol of life, in each hand .

Of the two great obelisks of Hatshepsut, one only remains standing . A portion of the other lies not far off, affording a good opportunity of examining the carvings on the upper part of the shaft, and on the pyramidion (a small pyramid, especially one on top of an obelisk or a larger pyramid ) . The carving of the pyramidion is of special interest . It represents Queen Hatshepsut, as a man, and wearing the royal war-helmet, kneeling in front of Amûn, who sits on a throne, wearing his tall plumes, and lays his hands in blessing upon her . During the religious strife of Akhenaten's reign, the figure of Amûn was chiselled out ; but it was restored at a later date, and the deeper cutting necessitated by this restoration is still conspicuous .

The standing obelisk, which is 97½ feet in height, and weighs 323 tons, is the largest obelisk in Egypt, the inscriptions on the shaft run in single vertical columns down each face, and are merely formal, intimating, with the curious complication of genders which the fact of a female Pharaoh made necessary, that " the King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Lord of the Two Lands, Maet ke rê ( Hatshepsut ) ", she made it as her monument for her father Amûn, Lord of Thebes, erecting for him two great obelisks at the august gate : " Amûn-is-Great-in-Terror " ( pylon V ), wrought with much electrum ( an alloy of gold and silver ) ; which illuminate the Two Lands like the sun ; never was the like made since the beginning . The inscription on the base, on the other hand, is of extraordinary interest, as in the queen expresses with great simplicity the reason which led to erect these memorials, and tells a number of facts with regard to the work, concluding with an appeal to the judgment of posterity and its favourable construction on her work .

Indeed the surviving obelisk is well worthy of all the pride with which Hatshepsut regarded it . Tuthmosis III, indeed, was to surpass it by far, though his greatest shafts have perished ; but up to her own time no such gigantic obelisks had been erected in Egypt, and the near-by obelisk of her father looks small beside hers . The fact that in its erection it did not come down quite square upon its pedestal scarcely detracts from the merit of the performance, though it was, no doubt, a rankling sore in the mind and conscience of Senmût .

Passing through the remains of the ruined pylon V, we enter a transverse hall of Tuthmosis I, which originally had sixteen-sided columns, and statues of Osiris . Into this chamber, Tuthmosis III has intruded a couple of small shrines, or antechambers, one on either side of the central aisle . In the passage leading from the left-hand chamber to the north side of the main chamber is a colossal seated statue of Amenophis II, in red granite .

Part ( 14 ) .. The Great Temple Of Amen-Rê .. Coming SoOoOon .....

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