The house of Amun at Thebes
Karnak lies on the east bank of the Nile at Luxor, the ancient city of Thebes. It is not one temple but a complex of temples, and the largest part of it is the Precinct of Amun-Re, the sanctuary of the god Amun. Its story begins in the Middle Kingdom, when Senusret I, a king of the Twelfth Dynasty, built a small temple or shrine at what would become the heart of the precinct.
Thebes then became the home of the dynasties that ruled Egypt in the New Kingdom, and their god rose with them. As Amun, often combined with the sun god Ra as Amun-Re, became the leading god of Egypt, his temple became the place where kings had to be seen. That is the root of everything that followed.
Every king added something
Karnak grew like a city, layer by layer. Its great gateways, the pylons, were built by different rulers: Hatshepsut raised the Eighth Pylon, Thutmose III the Seventh, and Horemheb finished the Tenth, begun by Amenhotep III, and built the Ninth. Each new pylon, hall or courtyard was a king’s signature in stone, and because new work was usually added in front of or around the old, the complex kept expanding outwards.
Hatshepsut, the queen who ruled as king, set up obelisks in the temple, tall single blocks of stone carved with inscriptions. Her own mortuary temple, the temple of Hatshepsut, stands across the river and argued her right to rule.
The forest of columns
The most famous addition is the Great Hypostyle Hall, a covered hall of columns of about 5,000 square metres. A hypostyle hall, from the Greek for “under columns”, has a roof held up by rows of pillars. Here there are 134 columns, those of the central aisle rising to over 20 metres. The hall was built under Seti I and completed and decorated under his son Ramesses II, in the Nineteenth Dynasty.
Its outer walls show why kings wanted to build here. On the north wall, reliefs celebrate Seti I’s military campaigns; on the south, Ramesses II’s battles, and next to them a copy of his peace treaty with the Hittites. A temple wall at Karnak was the best billboard in Egypt: the gods, the priests and the crowds at the festivals all saw it.
A god who travelled: the festival of Opet
Karnak was not a closed sanctuary on festival days. Once a year, during the festival of Opet, the statues of Amun, his wife Mut and their son Khonsu left Karnak for Luxor Temple, about 2 km to the south. They travelled sometimes by river, on a gilded boat of cedar wood, and sometimes on foot along the Avenue of Sphinxes that linked the two temples.
The festival grew over time: it lasted 11 days under Thutmose III, and under Ramesses III between 24 and 27 days. For the king it was the moment to appear beside the god before the people, which is exactly the kind of prestige a new monument at Karnak also bought. The avenue, excavated over decades, was reopened to the public in November 2021.
The priests who ended up ruling Thebes
All this building made Karnak rich. The temple owned land, workers and goods, and the priests of Amun who ran it became increasingly wealthy and powerful. By the end of the New Kingdom they controlled the government of Thebes. In the period that followed, the Third Intermediate Period, Egypt was divided: kings ruled from the north, while high priests of Amun held power in Thebes.
Two of them, Herihor and Pinedjem I, went on decorating the Temple of Khonsu inside Karnak, and Herihor is shown there with royal titles. The temple that kings had built to show their power had produced a rival power of its own. The young Tutankhamun had already learned how much Amun mattered: his very name, and his restoration of the god’s temples, show it.
Where to see it
Karnak is on the east bank of Luxor, north of the town centre and of Luxor Temple, to which it is linked by the Avenue of Sphinxes. Across the river, on the west bank, lie the royal tombs of the Valley of the Kings.
Sources
- Madain Project, “Great Hypostyle Hall”; Ancient History Sites, “Precinct of Amun-Re: The Principal Temple Enclosure at Karnak”.
- National Geographic History, “Egypt’s pharaohs welcomed summer with this fabulous festival” (2019).
- Lonely Planet, “Amun Temple Enclosure” (sacred lake).
- World History Encyclopedia, “Karnak” (on the priests of Amun and the end of the New Kingdom).
