Karnak Temples Secrets

The Karnak Temple is considered one of the most important ancient Egyptian temples due to its huge size and the events recorded on its walls.

Those events include victories, battles, and other important accidents in the ancient Egyptian history.

The temple was called by this name in relation to the city of Karnak.

It is a modern name that is distorted from the Arabic word "Khawranq", which means a fortified village.

That name had been applied to many temples in the region during that period.

The Karnak Temple was known at first as "Bir Amoun" meaning the Temple of God Amun or the House of Amun.

During the Middle Kingdom era of Ancient Egypt, it was called the "Apt Suit", which means the most chosen from the chosen places or the chosen spot. This name was found on the walls of Senusret I's compartment in the third edifice of the temple.

The construction of the temple began with a small monastery established during the reign of King Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom. Additions to the temple continued until the Ptolemaic period.

That long period witnessed the rule of 30 pharaohs who contributed to expansions of the temple.

The total acreage of the temple encompasses 30 hectares( more than 75 Egyptian acres).

Each part marked by its own features that belongs to various epochs of the Egypt history.

It includes a large group of minor temples that form a religious complex. The temple was known in the past as "Br-Amun", meaning the House of Amun.

In the days of the Middle Kingdom, the area surrounding the Karnak Temple, was called "Epit-Esot", that means the most chosen because it was the main place of worship of the god Amun.

The place has many other names such as Nisut - Tawy, that means the King of the Two Lands,

Following the Muslim conquest of Egypt in the 7th century, the name of the temple was distorted to Karnak.

These names came because the ancient Egyptians believed that "Thebes" was the first city founded on the plateau which emerged from water at the beginning of the formation of earth.

They also believed that the plateau rose a terra firma so the god "Ptah" could stand on it.

That god was known as the god "Atum" which means the"perfect" deity that presides over the ninth Pantheon in Heliopolis, until creation begins.

There was a belief that Karnak was an ancient observatory where the god "Amun" interacted directly with the population of the earth.

The Karnak Temple is the second largest ancient religious complex in the world. It comes second after the "Angkor Wat" temple in Cambodia.

It is the second most visited historical site in Egypt, after the Pyramids of Giza.

The Karnak Temple consists of four main parts: the Courtyard of "Amun Ra", the province of Mut, the deity of knowledge , "Mento" district and the dismantled Temple of Amenhotep IV.

A number of small temples and sanctuaries linking the Province of Mut, the Temple of Amun-Ra, and the Temple of Luxor. The "Rams Road" leads to the main gate of the temple.

Two rows of statues of rams were installed on the two sides of the road.

It used to be called "Wat Nath" road, extending for a distance of 2.7 kilometers, and its width is 76 meters.

On its sides there are 1200 statues in the shape of a sphinx with a ram's head.

That head symbolizes the god Amun, placed in this way as a kind of protection for the temple.

At the end of the other end of the rams’ road there is another great monument, which is the Luxor Temple.

The Karnak Temple houses more than one temple, among them was the temple of the god "Amun Ra", the god of the sun, wind and fertility which is one of the main deities in religion of Ancient Egyptian, and his name means the hidden.

The Karnak Temple also houses the compartment of the goddess Mut, the wife of the god "Amun Ra" and the mother of the god "Khonsu", whose name means the "mother" goddess.

That compartment was built for orders of Queen "Hatshepsut" in the era of the 18th dynasty.

Although the Hyksos ransacked this province, one of its obelisks is still standing as tallest one on the face of the earth.

Also there is the temple of the god "Mentu", the god of war in ancient Egypt.

It was represented in the form of a man with a falcon's head which is a crown of two feathers, between them a disc of the sun.

That god usually appears at the bottom left of scrolls written in the hieroglyphic language, in the form of "M - n - t – and w.The Karnack Temple also houses a temple for the god "Ptah", the god "Khonsu" the god of youth and the moon.

It also contains an early temple built by King "Amenhotep IV" who was historically known as "Akhenaten", who ruled Egypt in the middle of the fourteenth century BC,.

He built this temple inside Thebes before preaching to the One God "Aten". In the center of the Karnak Temple is the "Holy Lake". That lake is still considered as a mystery of the Pharaohs. Its water is fixed at unchangeable level in the course of the year.

It doesn’t dry throughout the year, despite its distance from the Nile River despite of 3 thousand years have passed since its existence.

It was excavated during the reign of the legendary King, "Thutmose III, the Sixth Pharaohs of the 18th Dynasty.

The lake doesn’t dry out despite the factors of loss, evaporation and leakage, so that the women of Luxor have come to it as they believe in its sanctity, and they go to it to bless them.

Contributed by Ahmed Moamar