Ancient Egyptian Architecture

History of Architecture (Archist 1)

The Ancient World
 Background
Geography
- The Nile River defined the culture of Egypt and influenced the people’s way of
living and development surrounding it
- Its fertile deltas yielded crops and became home to different animals
- Flood control was done through the construction of dams which led to the growth
and sustenance of Egyptian civilization
- It became also a source of mud which were used to create sun-baked bricks for
various structures built during this era
Climate
- Hot and dry desert climate
Background on the Period

The Nile River in Ancient Egypt

(http://www.iziko.org.za)
 Background

Religion
- People believed in immortality; Egyptians needed to ensure safety and happiness for their souls after
death
- Belief in the “ka”, a person’s “other self”, which upon death of the body can inhabit the corpse and live on
- Belief in afterlife resulted to construction of massive pyramids and tombs
- Tombs were filled with items for the use of the dead in the afterlife
 Background
Religion
- Various deities influenced every aspect of nature
and every human activity
- Important deities of ancient Egypt were:
a) Amon Re
b) Re (sun god)
c) Isis (represented the devoted mother & wife; their
most important goddess)
d) Osiris (husband and brother of Isis, ruled over
vegetation and the dead)
e) Horus (god of the sky, son of Isis and Osiris)
f) Ptah (creator god of Memphis)
 Background on the Period

Society
- Farming in the fertile Nile Valley
- Developed irrigation system (building canals
channeling water from the Nile to the farms) to
nurture main crops
- Main mode of transport were boats and barges on
the Nile River but during the 1,600’s B.C.,
Egyptians began to ride on horse-drawn chariots
 Background on the Period

-Manufactured paper made of papyrus, a thick paper-like material

from papyrus plant
 Background on the Period

Hieroglyphics was a formal writing system developed by Ancient Egyptians containing

logographic and alphabetic elements (Photo from firehow.com)
Background
The Cubit was the first recorded unit of
length and one of the oldest standards
of measurements in history.

The Egyptian cubit was subdivided into

palms and digits - 7 'palms' of 4 'digits',
making 28 parts in all, and was between
52.3 and 52.4cm in length
 Background

Politics & Government

- Kings or pharaohs (means ‘great house’ in Egyptian)
ruled most of its history; people believed that their
king was the god Horus in human form
- Viziers were officials who helped the king govern
Ancient Egypt
- Taxes were collected in the form of crops; the
government also levied a corvee (tax paid in the form
of labor)
 Background
History
- Divided into the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom
- The Old Kingdom (3000-2130 B.C.) was known for the construction of the great pyramids; Dynasty
III began when Egypt had a strong central government
- The Middle Kingdom (2130-1580 B.C.)was a period in history when Dynasty XII, founded by
Amenemhet (vizier in southern Egypt), began; architecture, literature and other arts flourished
under this dynasty
- The New Kingdom (1580-322 B.C.) was a period when Egypt became the world’s strongest power.
It developed a permanent army that used horse-drawn chariots and other advance military
techniques used in conquering portions of southwest Asia. Notable rulers of these era are
Thutmose I and daughter Hatshepsut, and Thutmose III
 Famous Rulers of Ancient Egypt

Khufu – the pharaoah who built the Great Pyramids, which included tombs for his son King Khafre and
King Menkaure
King Menes – united the Upper and Lower Egypt and formed the world’s first national government;
founded Memphis as the capital, near the present-day capital Cairo
Amenemhet – founded Dynasty XII of the Middle Kingdom. His strong successors Senusret I, Senusret
III and Amenemhet III, helped restore Egypt’s wealth and power.
The Hyksos kings – settlers and immigrants from Asia who overthrew weak kings during 1670 B.C. by
the use of war tools unknown to native Egyptians
Thutmose I – ruler of Dynasty XVIII (New Kingdom) who led military campaigns into Asia that brought
Palestine and Syria to the Egyptian Empire
 Famous Rulers of Ancient Egypt
Amenhotep IV – changed his name to Akhenaton and devoted himself to the sun god, Aton, who was
represented as the disk of the sun
Tutankhaton (or Tutankhamen) – restored the old state religion allowing the worship of old dieties
as well as Aton.
Ramses II – powerful and ambitious ruler of the Dynasty XIX who expanded a vast deal of the Egyptian
Empire and known for his construction of temples that overshadow those built before him.
Alexander the Great – Macedonian conqueror who added Egypt to his empire in 332 B.C. and
founded the city of Alexandria in the Nile river delta
Ptolemy – successor of Alexander the Great and ruled his dynasty known as the Ptolemies. They spread
Greek culture in Egypt and built temples to Egyptian gods, developed its natural resources and
increased foreign trade.
Octavian – made Egypt a province of Rome after defeating the military forces of Cleopatra and Mark
Antony. Rome’s control of Egypt weakened in A.D. 395 when the Roman Empire split into eastern
and western parts.
 Egyptian Architecture
Classifications:
1) Tomb Architecture
2) Temple Architecture
3) Obelisks
4) Dwellings

3 Types of Tomb Architecture:

1) Mastaba
2) Royal Pyramid
3) Rock-hewn Tombs

2 Types of Temples:
1) Mortuary – temples built for religious purposes
2) Cult – temples built for popular worship of ancient gods
 Architectural Characteristics
Principal Building Materials:
- Stone used mostly for monuments and religious
buildings
- Herbaceous materials (from plants like reeds) for
dwellings
- Mud bricks
Building Construction:
- Columnar and trabeated
- Use of flat roofs using palm logs
- Use of massive, battered walls for stability;
windowless wall surfaces suitable for reliefs and
hieroglyphics
- Use of decorations like mouldings and column
capitals inspired by natural forms or vegetative
origins
 Architectural Characteristics
- Wall thicknesses ranged from 9 meters to 24.5
meters in great temple enclosures
- Natural light came through skylights and
clerestories
- Temples are distinguished by massive pylons,
avenue of sphinxes, hypostyle halls and great
courts
Architectural Characteristics
- Stone blocks are joined through iron clamps
after being levered into position
- Early graves were constructed in a broad pit
below ground with wooden roof supported by
wooden posts and crude brick pillars
 Ancient Egyptian Architects
IMHOTEP
- The architect of King Zoser and is considered as
the world’s first master architect
- Built Egypt’s first pyramid located at Saqqara,
which is recognized as the “first monumental
stone structure”
- Existed as a mythological figure in the minds of
most scholars until the end of the nineteenth
century when he was established as a real
historical person
- He was also a doctor, scribe, poet, astrologer, chief
minister
 Ancient Egyptian Architects
SEMNUT
- Architect and a government official; chief architect of Queen Hatshepsut’s works in Deir El Bahari
- Supervised the quarrying, transport, and erection of twin obelisks, at the time the tallest in the world, at the
entrance to the Temple of Karnak.
- Designed and implemented the Hatshepsut’s mortuary complex in which the focal point was the Djeser-
Djeseru or "the Sublime of the Sublimes"-('Holy (of) Holiests'), a colonnaded structure of perfect harmony
built nearly one thousand years before the Parthenon in Greece.

Djeser-Djeseru (from Wikepedia)

 Tomb Architecture - Mastaba
- A rectangular, flat-topped funerary
mound in Ancient Egypt with
battered sides, covering a burial
chamber below ground
- From the Arabic word meaning
“bench”
- Length between 20-50 meters,
width between 15-37 meters and a
height of around 9-10 meters (30 ft.)
- Built with a north and south
orientation

Photos from www.guardians.net;

library.thinkquest.com
Plan & Elevation of Mastaba of King Aha in Sakkara (1st Dynasty)
Stairway Mastaba at Beit Khallaf (3rd Dynasty)
 Tomb Architecture - Mastaba
Mastaba CHAPEL
- Deep tomb chamber was dug and lined
with stones or bricks
SERDAB
- Above ground structure has a place for
offerings to the “ka”, the chapel with a false
door
- The serdab (or “cellar”) houses the dead
person’s statue hidden within the masonry
for protection; high up the walls of the
serdab were small openings for allowing the
the fragrance of burning incense and ritual
VERTICAL
spells to reach the statue SHAFT

TOMB CHAMBER
 Tomb Architecture - Mastaba

SERDAB FALSE DOOR

Tomb Architecture
Obelisks
- a tall, narrow, four-sided, tapering monument
which ends in a pyramid-like shape, called
pyramidion, at the top.
- often monolithic whereas most modern
obelisks are made of several stones and can
have interior spaces.
- associated with timelessness and
memorializing for the dead
- magical protection to monuments like tombs
and temples of Egypt
- carved with hieroglyphics containing the
titles of the Pharaoh and praises to their god
-symbolized the sun god, Ra, and during the
brief religious reformation of Akhenaton was
said to be a petrified ray of the Aten, the
sundisk.

Obelisk for Ramses II (photo from http://www.bible-

history.com)
Dwellings

Dwellings (photo from

http://www.archaeolink.com)
 Dwellings
- Made of crude brick, one or two storeys high, with flat or arched ceilings, and a parapet roof; it is
occupied by a loggia
- Rooms looked forward to a north-facing court
- For workers, barrack-like dwellings exist at pyramid sites like those of Chepren in Gizeh; each
worker’s establishment constituted a considerable village laid out in rigidly formal lines
- In better houses and mansions, columns and beams, doors and windows were of precious timber; a
central hall or living room was a typical space and raised sufficiently high with the help of columns
to allow clerestory light on one or more sides
- Three fundamental parts of a Egyptian dwelling/mansion: a) reception suite, b) service area,
and c) private quarters
 Dwellings

Diagram of spaces in a typical house found in Deir el Medina, Gurob and Amarna
in Egypt
 Dwellings

Layout of spaces in a large house (mansion) for the elite families, had small
suites of rooms joined by interlinked corridors
 Temple Architecture
- Thick temple walls were made of limestone,
sandstone or granite
- Steps on how wall decorations were made: 1)
chiseling and smoothening the surface, 2)
drawing of hieroglyphs with a red line by an
artist and corrected with black lines by chief
artist, 3) carving low reliefs, d) applying thin
coat of stucco to receive the color from the
painter
- Collonnades and doorways spanned by massive
lintels
- Used torus or roll mouldings
- Ornaments were often symbolic Photos from
http://lexicorient.com &
http://www.pyramidofma
n.com
 Temple Architecture at a Glance
- Egyptians were masters in use of color and
carried out their schemes mainly in blue, red
and yellow
- Roofs were of heavy stone slabs
- Column height seldom exceeded six times
their own diameter; among the types of
columns/pillars used were the square pillar,
polygonal columns, palm columns, bell
columns, columns with foliated capitals,
columns with Hathor-headed capitals and
the Osiris pillar

Photos from
http://lexicorient.com &
http://www.pyramidofma
n.com
 Architectural Elements and Details
PYLONS – monumental gateway leading to a temple, usually composed of two masses of masonry
with sloping sides
SPHINX – a creature in Egyptian mythology that has a body of a lion and a head of a human. Their
representations are associated with royal tombs or religious temples. First sphinx in Egypt depicted
Queen Hetepheres II of the Fourth Dynasty
TRABEATED – having horizontal beams and lintels; “columnar and trabeated” construction in
mortuary temples
HYPOSTYLE HALL – a hall whose roof is supported by columns all throughout; applied to the
collonnaded hall of Egyptian pylon temple
ALABASTER – calcite-based material used on floor slabs of the pyramids at Gizeh;
RELIEF – carving on a surface so that figures are raised against a background
BELL-SHAPED CAPITALS – based on the shapes of papyrus and lotus reeds
 Existing Conditions & Influence on Ancient Egyptian Architecture

EXISTING CONDITION INFLUENCES ON ARCHITECTURE

GEOGRAPHICAL Fertile river banks of the Nile served as

efficient sites for villages, cities and
cemeteries (ex. Mortuary complex)

GEOLOGICAL Abundance of stone, brick, clay and timber

determined Ancient Egypt’s architectural
character as these were used as main
building materials
CLIMATIC Sufficient sunlight almost all year round
made way for simplicity in design; no real
windows, drainage; used flat roofs
 Existing Conditions & Influence on Ancient Egyptian Architecture

EXISTING CONDITION INFLUENCES ON ARCHITECTURE

RELIGIOUS Monotheistic in theory but polytheistic in

practice; high-regard for the dead led to
the building of lordly and massive tombs
and temples; strong belief in future state
led to the erection of monumental
pyramids for preservation of their dead
SOCIAL Government ruled by pharaohs employed
large states of trained craftsmen and
armies of laborers to build their structures;
prisoners of war also included
HISTORICAL Had military and commercial contacts with
other countries
 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser (2,750 B.C.)

• The world’s first large-scale stone monument which began as a complete mastaba
 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser (2,750 B.C.)

• Underwent five changes in plan to reach its final form of a total of 6 stages with
dimensions of 411 ft. (east-west side) X 358 ft. Wide X 200 ft. high
 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser

2 Zoser’s Pyramid

Other Parts of Zoser’s Pyramid Complex

1) Colonnaded entrance – passageway from door is lined with 6.6-meter high drummed columns
2) Great Court – large court between South Tomb and the stepped pyramid that contained curved
columns thought to be territorial markers associated with Heb-Sed Festival
 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser

Main entrance door to the pyramid complex Engaged columns

 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser

Cobra (uraei) cresting

Stone-panelled wall inside South/Great Court
KHEKER cresting – made use of patterns
inspired by the form of lotus buds
 Stepped Pyramid of Zoser

Zoser’s Pyramid 4
5 3

3) South Tomb – thought to be “satellite pyramids” of later Dynasties which housed the ka
4) North Temple & Serdab Court–served as the cult center of the king where offerings are made
5) Heb-Sed Court – meant to provide space for the king to perform the Heb-Sed rituals even in afterlife;
surrounded by chapels
Stepped Pyramid of Zoser
Dummy Chapels in the Heb-
Sed Court

Platform for pharaoh’s

throne
 Evolution of the Pyramid

Mastaba Zoser’s Stepped Pyramid Pyramid at Meydum

Snefru’s North pyramid” Sneferu’s “Bent Pyramid” at Dashur

Pyramid at Meydum
Bent (South) Pyramid at Dashur
North Pyramid at Dashur (Red Pyramid)
 Pyramids of Giza (2,700 B.C.)
Mortuary
Temple

Causeway
An 810-meter-
long corridor
that had 40-
meter
foundations to
carry the
corridor from
edge of plateau
to valley temple

Valley Temple
 Khufu’s Pyramid

Khufu’s Pyramid
• Originally 146.4 meters high and 230.6 square meter on plan
• Angle with respect to the ground is 51°52’; 146m. high
• Entrance is 7.3 meters off center on the north side and 17 meters above the ground
• Pyramid is cased in tura limestone blocks bedded with thin lime mortar laid with fine
joints
Khufu’s Pyramid
Khufu’s Pyramid

http://www.cheops-pyramide.ch/khufu-pyramid/khufu-numbers.html
 Khufu’s Pyramid
1) Underground Chamber – oldest
chamber and never fully completed due
to little oxygen
2) Grand Gallery – rises gradually to the
King’s Chamber with a stepped hall
(49m. Long, 11m. Tall); has polished
stones and corbelled stone roofing
3) Queen’s Chamber
4) King’s Chamber – contains 7.30 x
3.75ft. Sarcophagus; had smooth walls,
polished ceilings, 60 sqm. Pink Granite
covered floors
Khufu’s Pyramid
• King’s Chamber is 5.2m x 10.5m long
and 5.8m high lined with granite and
chamber covered by 5 tiers of great
stone beams, 9 beams to a tier,
weighing 400 tons one above the other
with voids (relieving chambers)
between layers
• Vault of pairs of great stones inclined
against one another over the King and
Queen’s Chambers
Khufu’s Pyramid
Khufu’s Pyramid
• Grand gallery was a 49-meter long passage,
covered by a 7-course corbelled vault (11 m.
High)
• Used as pathway where heavy granite is
transported towards the King’s Chamber
during construction
Pyramids of Giza
• Queen’s Chamber (18 feet, 10 inches
by 17 feet, 2 inches by 15 feet high) and
subterranean chamber were unfinished
• Two 203mm X 152mm vent or air
shafts for the Ka’s free passage
• Offering chapel abutted center of
pyramid’s east face and mortuary
temple stood axially in front of it, joined
by a causeway leading askew eastwards
to valley temple
 Pyramids of Giza
Khafre’s Pyramid
• 216m sides and 143m high, 52°20’ slope
• Its offering chapel is 113.3 X 42.7m wide
• Valley building , 44.8sqm and battered outside and
vertical within; serves as venue for ceremonies of
purification, mummification and “opening of the mouth”
• Khafre’s sphinx, 73.2m long, 20m high, was carved
from a rock left by Khufu’s quarry-masons
Menkaure’s Pyramid
• 109sqm area at base, 66.5m high with a slope of 51°
• Bottom level and burial chamber were sheathed with
granite

Section & Plan of Khafre’s Pyramid

 Pyramids of Giza
Khafre’s Mortuary Temple has five
basic parts:
a) Entrance Hall
b) Columned courtyard
c) Niches
d) Storage chambers
e) Inner Sanctuary

- A pit was found in the burial chamber

which was believed to be a canopic
chest containing jars that held the
body parts of the dead pharaoh
Tombs at Beni Hasan (2,130-1,785 B.C.)
Beni Hasan, also spelled Banī Ḥasan, Egyptian
archaeological site from the Middle Kingdom (1938–
c. 1630 BCE), lying on the eastern bank of the Nile roughly
155 miles (245 km) south of Cairo. The site is noted for its
rock-cut tombs of 11th- and 12th-dynasty officials of the
16th Upper Egyptian (Oryx) nome, or province. Some of the
39 tombs are painted with scenes of daily life and
important biographical texts.

The governors of the nome, whose capital was Menat Khufu,

administered the eastern desert. The tomb of one,
Khnumhotep II, contains a scene showing
Semitic Bedouin merchants in richly coloured garments
entering Egypt. Speos Artemidos, a rock-cut shrine originally
dedicated to the local lion-headed goddess Pakhet, built by
Queen Hatshepsut and Thutmose III of the 18th dynasty, lies
one mile south in an ancient quarry, with a smaller shrine of
Alexander II nearby.
Tombs at Beni Hasan (2,130-1,785 B.C.)
Deir el-Bahri is deep embayment in the cliffs on the west bank at
Thebes, a natural amphitheatre almost directly along the main
axis of the Karnak Temple. The great pyramidal mountain peak
known as al-Qurn (‘the horn’) towers above it and adds to an
already dramatic setting. The area was traditionally connected
with the local cult of Hathor, associating the king with that most-
important Mother-Goddess (the ‘House of Horus’). It became an
important focus of religious attention during the Middle and
New Kingdom periods and is the site of two of the most
impressive temples on the west bank. These belonged to the
great Twelfth Dynasty pharaoh, Mentuhotep I (2060-2010 BC)
who reunited the country after centuries of disorder and was
considered its second found, and to Hatshepsut (1498-1483 BC),
the great woman pharaoh.
Mentuhotep II, Eleventh Dynasty king who reunited
Egypt at the beginning of the Middle Kingdom, built a
very unusual funerary complex. His mortuary temple
was built on several levels in the great bay at Deir el-
Bahari. It was approached by a 16-metre-wide (150-ft)
causeway leading from a valley temple which no longer
exists.
The mortuary temple itself consists of a forecourt,
enclosed by walls on three sides, and a terrace on
which stands a large square structure that may
represent the primeval mound that arose from the
waters of chaos. As the temple faces east, the structure
is likely to be connected with the sun cult of Rê and the
resurrection of the king.
Tomb of Mentuhetep II, Deir el-Bahari (2065 B.C.)
 Tomb of Mentuhutep II, Deir el-Bahari (2065 B.C.)

• The solid pyramid on a podium is surrounded by a walled hypostyle hall, which has double
colonnades outside it
• A pillared hall at the back of the temple has a pillared hall recessed into the rock face, preceded by an
open court with a ramp at the center leading to Mentuhutep’s 152.5-meter-long corridor tomb
 Mortuary Temple of Hatshepsut (1,520 B.C.)

• The complex is 3 levels of terraces approached by ramps; upper terrace is a walled court
lined with double colonnade flanked by the Queen’s mortuary chapel and altar court
dedicated to the sun god, Re
A daughter of King Thutmose I, Hatshepsut became queen
of Egypt when she married her half-brother, Thutmose II,
around the age of 12. Upon his death, she began acting
as regent for her stepson, the infant Thutmose III, but later
took on the full powers of a pharaoh, becoming co-ruler of
Egypt around 1473 B.C. As pharaoh, Hatshepsut extended
Egyptian trade and oversaw ambitious building projects,
most notably the Temple of Deir el-Bahri, located in
western Thebes, where she would be buried. Depicted
(at her own orders) as a male in many contemporary
images and sculptures, Hatshepsut remained largely
unknown to scholars until the 19th century.
Hatshepsut was only the third woman to become pharaoh
in 3,000 years of ancient Egyptian history, and the first to
attain the full power of the position. Cleopatra, who also
exercised such power, would rule some 14 centuries
later.
HATSHEPSUT AS PHARAOH
Knowing that her power grab was highly controversial, Hatshepsut
fought to defend its legitimacy, pointing to her royal lineage and
claiming that her father had appointed her his successor. She sought
to reinvent her image, and in statues and paintings of that time, she
ordered that she be portrayed as a male pharaoh, with a beard and
large muscles. In other images, however, she appeared in traditional
female regalia. Hatshepsut surrounded herself with supporters in key
positions in government, including Senenmut, her chief minister. Some
have suggested Senenmut might also have been Hatshepsut’s lover, but
little evidence exists to support this claim.

As pharaoh, Hatshepsut undertook ambitious building projects,

particularly in the area around Thebes. Her greatest achievement
was the enormous memorial temple at Deir el-Bahri, considered one
of the architectural wonders of ancient Egypt. Another great
achievement of her reign was a trading expedition she authorized that
brought back vast riches–including ivory, ebony, gold, leopard skins and
incense–to Egypt from a distant land known as Punt (possibly modern-
day Eritrea)
 Rock-cut Tomb

• Chief sanctuary lies axially in the Inner Court

rear of upper court, cut deep in
the rock
• Sanctuaries for Hathor and
Anubis located at the sides of the
middle terrace
Middle Terrace
• Wall reliefs in the temple depicts
the Queen’s expedition to Punt
and her allegedly divine birth

First Terrace
 Rock-cut Tomb

Inner Court

Middle Terrace

Wall reliefs insideFirst

the temple
Terracedepicts
Hatshepsut’s trade expeditions and allegedly
divine birth

Synthesis of architecture and

sculpture
The Abu Simbel temples are two massive rock temples at Abu Simbel ( ‫أبو سمبل‬in
Arabic), a village in Nubia, southern Egypt, near the border with Sudan. They are
situated on the western bank of Lake Nasser, about 230 km southwest
of Aswan (about 300 km by road). The complex is part of the UNESCO World Heritage
Site known as the "Nubian Monuments,"[1] which run from Abu Simbel downriver
to Philae (near Aswan). The twin temples were originally carved out of the
mountainside during the reign of Pharaoh Ramesses II in the 13th century BC, as a
lasting monument to himself and his queen Nefertari, to commemorate his victory at
the Battle of Kadesh.
The complex was relocated in its entirety in 1968, on an artificial hill made
from a domed structure, high above the Aswan High Dam reservoir. The
relocation of the temples was necessary to avoid their being submerged
during the creation of Lake Nasser, the massive artificial water reservoir
formed after the building of the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River.
 Mortuary Temple of Ramses II,
Abu Simbel (1,301 B.C.)

• Entrance forecourt leads to the imposing facade , 36 m. wide and 32 m. high with four 20-
meter-high seated statues of Ramses II
Mortuary Temple of Ramses II,
Abu Simbel (1,301 B.C.)
 Mortuary Temple of Ramses II,
Abu Simbel (1,301 B.C.)
• Corridor from entrance is flanked
by a line of 20-meter-high gigantic
figures of the pharaoh, served as
columns, cut from the rock
• Interior reliefs depicted Ramses’
stature as a god
• Sanctuary lies 60 meters inside
the mountain has statues of Ptah,
Amun, Ramses, Re-Harakti
 Mortuary Temple of Nefertari, Abu Simbel

• Facade (27.4m. wide and 12.2m. high) had four (4) statues of Ramses and two (2) of Nefertari, standing at
the same height (10m.)
• Entrance door leads to a vestibule and a 10.4 X 8.2-meter hall with six (6) pillars bearing the sculptured head
of Hathor
• Temple depicts the divinity of the queen (deified as Hathor)
 Cult Temple: Typical Layout
Enclosure Wall Colossal
Statues of
Pharaoh

Hypostyle Court Avenue of

Sanctuary
Hall Sphinxes

Obelisks
Pylon
The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (/ˈkɑr.næk/[1]),
comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings.
Building at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle
Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, although most of the extant
buildings date from the New Kingdom. The area around Karnak was the ancient
Egyptian Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places") and the main place of worship of the
eighteenth dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the
monumental city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and
partly surrounded, modern village of El-Karnak, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) north
of Luxor.
 Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak (1,300 B.C.)

• Considered as the grandest of all Egyptian temples owing its magnificence to the work of many kings
• Originally consisted of a shrine built during the Middle Kingdom (about 2,000 B.C.)
• First considerable enlargement was done by Thutmose I (1530 BC)
 Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak
SHRINE

• Occupies a site of 1,200 x

360 feet placed in an CENTRAL COURT

immense enclosure along

with other temples and a HYPOSTYLE HALL

sacred lake surrounded by a

TEMPLE OF
20-30-feet thick wall RAMSES III

• Connected by an avenue of GREAT COURT

sphinxes with the Temple at
Luxor
 Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak
• Had 6 pairs of pylons with
various courts and halls
leading to a large ceremonial
hall by Thutmose II in the rear
• A great court (338 X 275 ft.
Deep) gives entrance to a vast
hypostyle hall by Seti I and
Ramses II
Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak

Columns with reliefs at the Hypostyle Hall

• Hypostyle hall is composed of 122 (10-meter-tall)

columns and 12 (21-meter-tall) columns with
over 3 meters in diameter
Temple of Amon-Re, Karnak

• Hypostyle hall is composed of

122 (10-meter-tall) columns and
12 (21-meter-tall) columns with
over 3 meters in diameter
• Stone roof of enormous slabs
were supported by 134 columns
in 16 rows
Temple of Amon-Mut, Luxor
(1390-1290 BC)
• The temple is located in Luxor,
which has always been a sacred
site since the days of pagan Egypt
• During the 18th dynasty, a road ,
lined with sphinxes was built to
link Karnak and Luxor
• Works by Amenhotep III & Ramses
II added a great forecourt with 24-
meter-high pylons
 Temple of Amon-Mut, Luxor (1390-1290 BC)

• Temple is dedicated to the Theban

Triad: Ammon, Mut and Khons
• Has forecourt with 12.8-meter-high
columns with papyrus bud capitals
and a seated colossus of Ramses
connected by twin colonnades, 53
feet long to a lesser court
 Temple of Amon-Mut, Luxor
Pylon (Back portion)

Amenhotep’s Hypostyle Hall

Peristyle Court
 Temple of Amon-Mut, Luxor

Hypostyle hall with 4 rows of 8 bundled

papyrus columns

Great Sun Court

Amenhotep’s Hypostyle Hall

 Temple of Amon-Mut, Luxor
Main sanctuary area

Hypostyle hall with 4 rows of 8

bundled papyrus columns