Historical Notes .. The Karnak Temple Complex .. Part ( 4 )

Her successor, Tuthmosis III, made considerable additions to the growing building . He sheathed the obelisks of Hatshepsut in masonry up to the roof of the cedar hall, so that the inscriptions of the great queen should not be visible; but his other works were more worthy of his name .
He built several small chapels in the court of Tuthmosis I, adding a new pylon ( VI ), and a colonnaded hall between pylons VI and V; and he added two obelisks to the pair which his father had set up before pylon IV ( Tuthmosis, may be constructed 4 obelisks not 2 obelisks . at present; where found a base of an obelisk under the one of the horoscope of the pylon III may be for Tuthmosis III ) . Later, he built behind pylon VI two chambers of records, whose notable survivals are the two beautiful granite pillars with the papyrus and the lotus in relief . Hitherto the growth of the temple had mainly been westwards; but he now added a great festal hall at the eastern end of the building . He also built the sandstone chamber, to the east of pylon VI, within which Philip Arrhidaeus was later to place his granite sanctuary . Three of the sides of this chamber were covered with the annals of the various campaigns of Tuthmosis in Syria .

The next great builder at Karnak was the magnificent Amenophis III, whose work here, however, suffers from being scattered . His avenue of sphinxes must have added greatly to the dignity of the approach to Karnak ; and his largest piece of building here, the pylon ( No. III ) which was used by the 19^th dynasty pharaohs as the back wall to their great Hypostyle Hall, and which is now completely ruined, must in its day have formed an imposing western front to the great temple . But on the whole Amenophis III is better represented at Luxor Temple than here . With his reign, Karnak was virtually completed, so far as the 18^th dynasty is concerned, although Horemheb, who is the link between the 18^th and 19^th dynasties, Horemheb built two pylons to the south of the main building ( IX and X ) . The temple, at this stage, covered not much more than the half of its present area, and was completed by the pylon ( III ) of Amenophis III .

With the 19^th dynasty began the great Hypostyle Hall, and the huge pylon west of it ( II ), Ramses I began them both ; but the bulk of the work was done by the great pharaoh, Seti I, who set up the great columns of the central nave of the Hypostyle ( now, the opinion prevailing is the row of the great columns was built in Amenophis III's era ), those of the northern aisles, and at all events, most, if not all, of the southern aisles as well . The decoration, however, had to be left to Ramses II who was thus enable to claim all the credit for the whole hall, a course to which he was well accustomed and not in the least averse .

There now comes a break in the continuity of the work at Karnak . Ramses III seems to have considered that the temple was complete, otherwise he would scarcely have built his little temple to Amûn at vertically to the axis of the greater building, and right in the line of any subsequent extension . It forms, however, a picturesque addition to the later Court of the Bubastites, the remaining Pharaohs of the 20^th dynasty did comparatively little at Karnak .

With the Libyan Pharaohs of the 22^nd dynasty, there was a revival of building activity at Karnak, and the vast Court of the Bubastites, west of the Hypostyle Hall shows large were their designs-larger, indeed, than their powers . The court, as planned, covered an area of 9,755 square yards, or nearly double that of the 19^th dynasty hypostyle ; but it was never finished, and the attempt of Taharqa, of the 25^th dynasty, to make it into a gigantic hypostyle ( if that be the true interpretation of the colonnade of which only a single column is now standing ), was a costly failure, like the rest of his reign .

Finally, the Ethiopians erected the most gigantic of all the pylons of Karnak that which now forms the western front of the great temple . It is 370 feet wide, with towers 142½ feet high, and 49 feet thick, and, though it was never completed, it is still by far the largest façade of any religious building . Beyond this tremendous front lies the quay which once formed the river approach ( or canal approach ) to the temple, and which bears one of a pair of small obelisks erected by Seti II of the 19^th dynasty . The avenue of sphinxes which borders the road from the quay to the temple is the work of Ramses II, usurped and altered subsequent to the reign of Pinûtem I, 21^st dynasty, possibly by Sheshonq, 22^nd dynasty .

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