On the western side of Luxor, in Wadi al-Hitman, two colossi of Memnon stand alone. These two worn sculptures of people watching watch over the entrance cemetery. What you see now is all that is left of the temple of Amenhotep III, which was the most prominent tomb temple in the Necropolis.
It ran from the Ramesseum to Medina Habu. Now, things will be different because the temple, protected by the spans, is slowly coming out of the shadows for the first time since an earthquake destroyed it 3200 years ago. The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III project may make it possible to restore the lost temple.
The once-majestic temple of Pharaoh Amenhotep III is now just a bunch of stones, sculptures, and pieces spread out over the land in humps and valleys. Statues and stelae that used to be in the temple’s many courtyards are gone, but three of the original towers are still there.
During the pharaoh’s rule in the first half of the 14th century BC, it took 38 years to build the temple. About 150 years later, in about 1200 BC, it was destroyed by an earthquake. After the area was used as a quarry, most of the blocks and decorative pieces were reused in temples and buildings nearby. Alluvial deposits from the Nile eventually covered the ruins of the temple.
Many statues of pharaohs, statues of lesser gods, and the goddess Sekhmet were found at the site by collectors in the 19th century. Around the turn of the 20th century, the Egyptian Antiquities Service was the first to look at the area.
In 1964 and 1970, more work was done in the area with the help of the Swiss Institute. Since the temple was left empty, the site has become flooded, overgrown with plants, and at risk of being stolen from or damaged.
New giant:
In 1998, a rescue mission was set up to put the broken monuments back where they belonged inside the temple walls. Throughout more than 16 archaeological seasons, the found monuments were dug up and kept safe. The structure of the beautiful temple slowly became apparent. In 2014, more discoveries were made public. Near the second temple tower, 100 meters west of the Memnon colossi, tourists saw the first newly discovered colossus.
The statue of Amenhotep III shows him sitting on a throne with his hands on his knees. It is made of red quartzite. The colossus wears a kilt folded around his waist and held in place with a zigzag-patterned belt. Queen Taya, the pharaoh’s wife, is shown to the right of the king’s statue.
She is dressed in long, tight clothes and has a big wig. Near his left foot, a statue of his mother, King Simatawa, has gone missing. Pictures of Upper and Lower Egypt are coming together on both sides of the throne.
After being fixed up, the 250-ton statue’s body was put back in its original place, but this time on new reinforced concrete bases. The 16-ton head of the colossus was lifted and bolted to the statue’s shoulders. This was the last step in a three-year process in which other parts of the monument were put into the statue’s new body. The vast building is supported by bases that are 1.5 meters high.
A 14-meter-tall alabaster monolith colossus of Amenhotep III sitting at the temple’s third pylon’s gate is still being fixed up to the west, past the second temple courtyard. The pharaoh is shown on his knees in front of his throne in this picture. Between his legs stands a 1.7-meter-tall statue of his daughter Iset. She is wearing a long, tight dress and a round wig. Her hands are tightly together, and her right hand is on the necklace.
Her face is a little bit hurt from erosion, and both of her legs are still gone. The statue was found next to an alabaster head that many people think belonged to the twin northern colossus of Amenhotep III. His facial features, like his nose, eyes, and ears, are still there. You can even see some signs of repair work done in the past.
Only the head and one foot of the northern colossus were left behind after restoration. The body and head were not with the throne when it was found in the south.
The Red Granite Statue:
In 2006, the top half of a red granite statue was found in the southeast corner of the peristyle courtyard of the temple. The 1.3-meter-tall head is of a pharaoh wearing an Upper Egyptian crown and holding symbols of royalty in his hands. Soon, the charge will be attached to the body.
This will make the statue eight meters tall. This figure and one like it used to stand between the papyrus-shaped columns on the south side of the courtyard. In 1816, spies working for the British consul in Egypt stole a similar piece from a temple and sent it to the Louvre in Paris, where it is now on display.
Red quartzite-made monsters:
At the northern entrance of the temple, a red quartzite colossus and his twin were found. After many failed attempts to save them, they were put back where they were. The two giants were moved from the Gabal al-Ahmar quarries in ancient Heliopolis to their final resting place at the north entrance of Amenhotep III’s funeral temple in Thebes.
The colossi show the pharaoh walking forward while each hand holds a papyrus scroll with his name written on it. On top of his head, the pharaoh wears the white crown of Upper Egypt, and his kilt is held together by a wide belt with zigzags and a rectangular clasp with his name.
The belt hides a knife with a handle that looks like the head of a falcon. The pharaoh wears an oversized collar around his neck.
Huge finds have been made that were a surprise.
After an earthquake destroyed them in ancient times, the two colossi fell in a southeasterly direction, breaking into many pieces that stayed where they fell until 2014. The 13-meter-tall base of each giant is expected to make it weigh 100 tonnes.
The part that weighs the most is 44 tonnes. Archaeologists on the French expedition wrote about these titans for the first time in 1821. Later, Champollion, another French archaeologist, wrote about them in 1828, and Wilkinson, an English archaeologist, wrote about them in 1835. Ludwig Borchardt, a German archaeologist, found them in 1933 and asked his friend Mahmoud Darwish to dig them up in 1949.
In 1981, archaeologist Labib Habashi worked with the Swiss Institute to look at the partially dug-up colossi again and report his findings. Since then, the giants have stood still on private land.
In 2013, the MSA and CMATCP worked together to dig again and found 88 parts of the western colossus and 73 parts of the eastern giant. We used a crane to move all the parts to a safer place where we could count them and clean them. The east half of the statue is done, but the western half, which is missing more than half of it, was put up in the fall of 2014.
Five colossi of Memnon:
The world will soon know about five more colossi that Amenhotep III built, in addition to the two Colossi of Memnon. The tomb of King Amenhotep III is on the West Bank of Luxor. On February 16, 2014, pieces of the Colossi of Memnon were found there.
The European and Egyptian archaeologists found quartzite stones that were once part of the Memnon colossi, which stood at the entrance to Pharaoh Amenhotep III’s temple at Kom el-Khitan. These blocks are all part of the northern colossus. They are an arm, a painted belt, and a skirt.
Except for these two colossi, which used to stand guard at the temple’s main gate, all of these blocks have been lost to history after the earthquake that caused the temple to fall apart. During the trip, more pieces of the royal crown, the colossus’ base stone, and the vast 88 cm by 76 cm slabs were found.
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