Wednesday, November 23, 2016

The Mortuary Temples at Medinet Habu .. Historical notes .. Part ( 1 )

About three-quarters of a mile from the Memnon colossi lies the southernmost group of the long line of mortuary temples which extends along the whole eastern face of the Theban necropolis .




It goes by the general name of Medinet Habu ; but there is a whole group of buildings comprehended under that title, and these have to be distinguished from one another . The earliest building at Medinet Habu dates from the dawn of the 18th Dynasty . This is the smaller temple within the enclosure, which, in spite of Ptolemaic and Roman additions, belonged originally to the reign of Amenhotep I, whose mortuary temple it may conceivably have been .



It was usurped, according to the amiable Pharaonic custom, by Tuthmosis I, and considerably added to by Hatshepsut and Tuthmosis III, so that the main part of the rear of the existing building is of mid 18th Dynasty date . Ramses II and Ramses III also did work upon the temple, and the outside reliefs are the work of the latter Pharaoh .



A court from a Saite period ( 664-525 B.C. ),  and a court of Nectanebis, with a gate of Taharqa of the 25th Dynasty carry on the complicated history of the building, and the last work is of Ptolemaic and Roman date, and includes the whole of the present beautiful façade . In short, the smaller temple of Medinet Habu is almost as much an epitome of Egyptian history as is its greater neighbour across the Nile at Karnak .



Besides this temple, there are at Medinet Habu three other more or less important buildings, all of them of a mortuary nature . These are : the pavilion of Ramses III, the small mortuary temple of Amenartais, and the great temple of Ramses III .




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