INTRODUCTION
This temple is one of the most significant temples on Luxor’s west bank; it is an excellent temple with information about ancient Egypt.
But all this information was still a mystery until 1822 when Jean Francois Champollion could decipher the signs of hieroglyphics.
This step did revolutionary actions in Egypt’s archeology and excavations campaigns in lower and upper Egypt; on 21 November 1828, Jean Francois Champollion arrived at this temple to be the first one to discover and reveal its value of this temple; he thought that his primary mission was to copy all these texts to papers to be available to all world. So I started to document the texts in tombs and temples – not alone- but with other accompanists and artists who had a considerable work to document all texts and scenes on the walls of tombs and temples.
But the text itself was not engraved to document Egyptian history but to glorify the role and position of the kings or for religious reasons, which made the expedition’s mission so complicated.
The temple is dedicated to the main god of Egypt during the reign of the new kingdom “Amon-Ra,” who had Luxor three temples: Karnak temple, Luxor temple, and on the other side of the Nile temple of madinet habu.
Like most gods in ancient Egypt, each one had various versions; the preliminary version was Amon of Luxor temple with his traide.
But according to the temple of madinet habu and the value of it is location, it is due to the legend of Heliopolis, which in brief assumes that; the world was created with eight gods, and all these gods went into the afterlife through this place of medinet habu and left one representative the master of air and hidness god “Amon” to handle the world and keep Nile flood annually.
God Amon was resident in Luxor in two places on the easter bank in Luxor temple and on the other side systematically opposite Luxor temple, he was also in medinet habu, and every year he had a feast sailing to the other side of the Nile during the valley feast to visit the afterlife world.
During this feast, amon was represented as a renewable god in the form of a snake since the ancient Egyptian noticed that the snake each period renewed his skin; in addition to this note, the snake could hide in holes and then appear again as if he went to the afterlife and then back to life.
The main temple in this location is the temple of king Ramses the third and the appendices of this temple. Like every temple in ancient Egypt, this one was surrounded by an enclosure wall from a mud-brick 18-meter height which isolated the temple from the other world.
The name of the temple
The temple was called this temple unified with eternity, and it was called hbu in ancient Egypt, which means the hidden and god mon was called amon hbu and then habu and till now is called the temple of madinet habu.
The temple is enormous according to capacity and measurements; 320 meters long and 200 meters wide; it was built by 3000 workers who got the raw material of stone to build this temple from the el silsila mountains.
Building the main temple was in 7 years, from the 5th year till the 12year of Ramses, the third reign in ancient Egypt.
Meanwhile, in this temple were 150 priests; four priests were seniors with the others working in their direction, plus 65 000 employees of the temple who worked all over Egypt to manage the temple’s properties, which reflects that it was a big organization.
The migdol
The feature of existing fortified towers in ancient Egypt started from the prehistoric era. Here, this temple lies on the eastern side, connected to an artificial canal from the river Nile to facilitate the connection of this temple to other cities so the inhabitants could easily visit this temple.
This fortified tower contained many scenes showing the king killing and dominating his enemies from Asia and Africa; it was a symbol of his power over his enemies and his power over evil, not permitting them to reach this temple.
However, other shreds of evidence confirm that it was not just symbolic, these towers were used to guard the temple, and already lots of soldiers had perfect places to guard the temple from Bedouin attacks. It was a perfect strategic place to protect the temple.
The first pylon
Like all pylons consisting of two towers connected with a ramp in the middle, the most noticeable difference is in crowns on both sides of the pylon; on the left side, the king has a double crown, while on the right, he had just lower Egypt’s crown.
And this reflects the ancient tradition of showing the domination over lower Egypt since the vast majority of kings were essentially from upper Egypt.
The pylon walls show the traditional action of holding his enemies and beating them before the presentation of gods; it was political propaganda to show his force and power over the enemies of Egypt. Under his hands, there are representations of cities under his domination; they are more than 190 cities for sure, there is a kind of exaggeration, the king hadn’t any battles with all of them to show his power.
On each tower, there are two niches to place the flags, which were used for religious reasons.
It was dedicated to four deities: Nephthys, Isis, Wadjet, and nekhbet.
The first court
The court was called an open court; traditionally, it is the most critical place in each temple. In full scenes, which are typical military, documenting the king’s battles over Syrian lebians and sea people, the king was always represented as the biggest one on the walls reflecting his position in Egypt, beating and attacking his enemies, which were always there represented under his control.
The artist had to show all these scenes in a perfect symbolic way to ensure the legitimation of the king over Egypt and to show his talents in these fields.
One of the most extraordinary scenes on the wall is the scene of captives who were caught after the battle and led to the king; in ancient times, they always cut their right hand, which held one-day military equipment and caused threatens over Egypt, and through their hands, they calculated the number of captives after the battle, under the scene of these captives there also a vulgar scene of penises cut, according to some archeologists these pansies where cut from the dead captives.
In this court, there are scenes of competitive sport behind the columns of papyrus, showing some sports in ancient Egypt it is older than the Olympic sports.
The second court
Opposite the first court, which contained just military scenes, the second court contained religious scenes for festivals in ancient Egypt; in this temple, we can see many gods in ancient Egypt on their holy barks.
The court entrance had a wooden gate that doesn’t exist now, but just each visitor could easily see the holes to locate the gate’s hinges.
The scenes also contained the purification of the king; some presentations of the king were erased when the court was turned into a church.
The first hall of columns
To this hall, it could be entered through an agate from the second open court; at the entrance, some texts ensure the purification of each one who enters this hall.
On the walls, there are scenes of purification of the king, and the king offers various offerings to deities in ancient Egypt, the incenses, wine, salat.
The second hall of columns
In this hall, we can find more scenes about offering wine and other offerings to various gods in ancient Egypt.
The third hall of columns
It’s very ruined, and the scenes in this hall are terrible.
The palace of the king
Near the temple next to the first temple, there are traces of the king’s temporary palace where the king spent his days in it during feasts in this temple; the palace was built from mud-brick, and till now still seen the toilet of the king.
Next to this palace, there was also the high priest’s house, who was the manger of this temple, and under his direction, there were 170 priests.
Other notes about Habu
One of the main features in this temple in the scenes of hunting, which was a royal sport in ancient Egypt, reflects the braveness and power of the king. Many scenes in this temple and other temples showed the king hunting, especially lions, to show the king’s power; also, it was mentioned that king Thutmose the third on the borders of Syria, hunted more than 120 elephants.
These scenes were not only for political reasons or making propaganda for the king but also for another crucial religious reason, which was represented through the role of the king to keep balance on earth by killing wild animals, which threatened peace and tolerance in the ancient world.
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