31 May - 6 June 2001
Issue No.536
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 31 May - 6 June 2001 Issue No.536 |
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New revelations in hundred-gated Thebes
Karnak temple has no equal. For more than 2,000 years it was a centre of worship, and it still outshines many of the world's greatest sites in attracting tourists from all over the globe. Nevine El-Aref toured the site to see archaeological work in progress
Through the ages, the huge and awe-inspiring Karnak temple and its famed Hypostyle Hall have drawn sightseers, artists and archaeologists. From the turn of the 20th century, when such scholars as Georges Legrain and Henri Chevrier worked there for the then Service des Antiquités, through to the present day excavations have continued and documentation and conservation have been carried out. In 1967, a French-Egyptian research centre for Karnak was established, the Centre Franco-Egyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak (CFEETK), and since then work on the site has continued unabated.
Final stage of restoring Hatshepsut's Red Chapel
The outdoor museum north of the great court has seen particularly strenuous activity. One focus of attention has been the reconstruction of Hatshepsut's Red Chapel which, after almost two years of study, assemblage, cleaning and reconstruction is scheduled to open on 1 October.
To inspect the final stages of the reconstruction of this exquisite granite monument and others in the compound, a high-ranking delegation led by Gaballa Ali Gaballa, general secretary of the Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA), together with Egyptian and French archaeologists, toured the site.
Despite the summer heat, the delegation entering the temple, with journalists and photographers in tow -- armed with hats, sun-glasses, and large bottles of water -- stepped into a hive of activity. Not only were there plenty of tourists, but the archaeological teams were still hard at work, oblivious of the heat and the visitors, both official and tourist. These, we learned, were the French restorers, archaeologists and associated workmen struggling to meet their deadline. Some were cleaning the outer wall of the chapel, others affixing newly-restored quartzite blocks, while a third group was cutting black granite blocks for the chapel's roof.
It was the first time I had seen the chapel, and I have to say it is a masterpiece. The blocks were first found by George Legrain in 1898, when a large part of the massive third pylon of Amenhotep III toppled in an earthquake. The huge blocks of stone fell apart, revealing that the core of the pylon was filled with dismantled monuments from earlier periods. Hatshepsut's red quartz chapel was one of them.
The chapel was left in place until 1937, when a French-Egyptian mission checking soil drainage to try and prevent the temple columns from crumbling brought out 315 blocks, which they secured on concrete slabs north of the Great Court. The blocks were in excellent condition and, placed as they were at eye level, it was possible to appreciate the exquisite low reliefs.
"Reconstructing this chapel was like collecting the pieces of a vast jigsaw puzzle and fitting them together," Gaballa said. "It wasn't too difficult to reconstruct the chapel, but putting the inscribed blocks at their correct position was a challenge."
Shawqi Nakhla, head of the restoration department at the SCA, said missing blocks had been replaced by plain blocks of the appropriate size and shape until such time as the originals were found.
We were next shown an area north of the museum compound, where piles of inscribed blocks of a portico built by Tuthmose IV are being assembled for reconstruction next year. We learned that French archaeologists have recently discovered the foundation stones of the portico on the northern side of the fourth pylon, and we were taken there by a short cut. I must admit that, as we walked along a sandy and deserted corridor, I temporarily lost my bearings, as one easily does at Karnak. It was only when I found myself among huge columns that I realised I was in the Hypostyle Hall, with its 134 massive inscribed columns arranged in 16 rows. We passed through the third pylon and then to the northern side of the fourth pylon, where we stopped at a large sandy pit.
Aurélia Masson and Marie Millet, the two young archaeologists responsible for the find, were there at the pit to tell us that the site had been excavated by Chevrier between 1930 and 1940, but that he had missed the traces of the foundations and had suggested there was nothing more to be found. "So the discovery was totally unexpected," Masson said.
She went on to say that they had also unearthed two more foundation deposits in the name of Tuthmose IV. Now the mission has succeeded in revealing three parts of the portico: the southeast, the northeast and the west. Also found in the same area were brick walls and ceramic fragments from the 18th dynasty.
We passed through the fifth pylon towards the sixth, where excavations are going on in a vast, sandy area. There some items have been found from the Second Intermediate Period. Here was what the archaeologists call the Osirian Zone, which houses small vaulted structures of mud brick, the Catacombs of Osiris, dating from the Saite period. "It includes three levels of niche burials. The top one is the most complete because it was closer to the outside ground level," team director François Leclère said.
Many small Osiride figurines were unearthed. They were made of sand and plaster in the shape of a wrapped body wearing the white crown. They are decorated with representations of the "four sons of Horus" and by a flat oval item near the head, probably a scarab.
"These catacombs are Osiris's symbolic tombs, where a yearly funerary ritual of the month of Khoiak was held," Leclère said. This was the month associated with the funeral rites commemorating the life, death and rebirth of Osiris.
CFEETK director François Larché said that approximately 40,000 painted limestone fragments and a few fragile pieces of gypsum had been collected from the site. "These [are] the most well-preserved decorations of the catacombs' southern corridor, and show the 77 guardian gods of the king's body after his death," he said.
A project to reassemble these fragments is now under way, and a great number have already been put together. After completion, which is expected to take another year, the relief will be reconstructed.
We walked beyond the sixth pylon with its Hall of Records, of which a characteristic feature is a pair of stately granite pillars. One bears the lotus of Upper Egypt, and the other the papyrus of Lower Egypt; together they symbolise unity between the two lands. To the rear lies a beautiful boat shrine, the inner sanctum of pink granite carved with fine reliefs. We bypassed this, taking another short cut south towards the sacred lake, passing a mud-brick settlement belonging to the priests of the first millennium BC. These houses are being restored by the French mission.
By the time we reached the ninth and tenth pylons, which were undergoing cleaning and documentation, it was midday and we were exhausted. While we rested and downed some water, the subject of subterranean water was raised. A Swedish company, in collaboration with the Egyptian Research Centre for Subterranean Water, is currently carrying out a project to find a solution to this problem.
Sabri Abdel-Aziz, director of antiquities of Upper Egypt, said there were three causes of the rising water table. The first was the cultivation of sugar cane beside the temple, and the second was the heightened level of the Nile in July and August. "The third," he said, "is the weak drainage system of the slum areas behind Karnak."
Hydrologists are concentrating on how to prevent the water from infiltrating the monuments. Hisham Faheed, the chief inspector of the Karnak antiquities, said the next stage, pumping water out of the temple and removing salts from some monuments, would start immediately after the completion of a UNESCO feasibility study.
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