Precinct of Amun-Ra, Karnak
About
Two thousand years of building stand on this one site, and none of it is Roman. The hypostyle hall alone carries a hundred and thirty-four columns, the tallest of them twenty-one metres, set so densely that the roof slabs need almost no span. Obelisks of Hatshepsut and Thutmose rise beyond it, and a sacred lake lies to the south. Amun-Ra has been worshipped here since the Middle Kingdom, and under Roman rule the priesthood carries on, funded and supervised from Alexandria. Emperors' names go on being cut into these walls in cartouches. In 117 CE Karnak is old, working, and the largest temple complex in the world.
What happened here
The building itself is a house for the god, and most people never go inside. Everything public happens on the steps and at the altar in front: an animal led up, examined, killed cleanly, its organs read, the meat divided and eaten. The priest covers his head and a flute player keeps up a noise so no ill-omened word is heard. Worshippers leave what they can afford — a terracotta figure, a coin, a model of the body part they want healed — and the accumulated clutter is periodically cleared and buried on site. On festival days the doors are opened and the cult statue is dressed, garlanded, and sometimes carried out through the streets. The temple also holds money, which is why towns keep their treasury in one.
In ancient writing
- Strabo, Geography 17.1.46
Thebes seen as a scatter of villages among enormous temples; Strabo measures the surviving avenues of sphinxes and the halls of columns.
Sources
Nearby
Roman Maps shows the empire frozen at 11 August 117 CE, the day Trajan died — its moment of greatest territorial extent. Explore the full map →