The Southern Buildings Of The Great Temple Of Amûn .. The Karnak Temple Complex .. Part ( 20 )

The rectangular slots in the southern face of this pylon, which once held the great flagstaves, should be noticed . They bear the obvious traces of the action of fire, as the stones have been split in every direction .

The flagstaves must have been burned, probably at the Assyrian sack of Thebes in 663 B.C. . On the south face of the pylon, Tuthmosis II is seen slaying his enemies .

The open court before us contains nothing of interest . The Sacred Lake lies on our left, and in front of us is pylon IX, the work of Haremhab, and now almost completely ruined . It was partly built, as was also companion pylon ( X ), of blocks taken from Akhenaten's shrine of the Aten, which was at once destroyed by the Amûnites on the collapse of Atenism at the death of the king .

Passing through pylon IX, we have before us another court, on the left hand ( east ) of which is a small and much-ruined temple built by Amenophis II in celebration of his jubilee . An open portico with twelve square pillars leads to a colonnaded hall with twenty square pillars dividing it into five aisles, or rather four aisles and a central nave . On either side of this hall is a smaller pillared hall . The relief work in this temple is of fine quality, in low relief, instead of the relief en creux which came into favour so much at a later period . The remains of the east and west walls of this court have reliefs of Haremhab, mostly too much damaged to be worth inspection . Those on the east wall in the angle of pylon X are the best .

Of pylon X, which forms the southern front of the great temple, little remains but the granite gateway . The panels on the right-hand side of this fine gateway are still in fair preservation, and show Haremhab before Amûn-Rê, Min, Mût, and Khonsu . On the north side of the doorway stand two headless limestone colossi of Ramses II, with the remains of a stele of Haremhab, giving his manifesto to the country after the Akhenaten revolution . On the south side of the doorway are the wrecks of colossi of Amenophis III ( east ) and Haremhab ( west ) with the lower part of an Osirid figure .

From pylon X, the eastern avenue of sphinxes of Amenophis III runs southwards to the gate of Ptolemy Philadelphus, before the temple of Mût in Asher, to which we shall return later .

Part ( 21 ) .. The Temple Of Mût In Asher .. Coming SoOoOon .....

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