Temple of Aménophis IV

The Temple of Aménophis V , devoted to the god Aton, is a whole of sanctuaries with Karnak. It was built during the first four years of reign of Akhénaton, whereas this last still bore the name of Aménophis. The place, now hidden under a remains accumulation, was the theater of the radical changes which led to the “revolution amarnienne”.

Solarization of Karnak

It is probable that as of Thoutmôsis {{IV}} a new solar axis had been born with Karnak, when this king set up the large obelisk of his grandfather Thoutmôsis {{III}}, with an aim of identifying a little more still Thèbes with Héliopolis. In hadn't a dream, Thoutmôsis V been chosen by the large Hor-EM-Akhet, “the Horus in the Horizon”, Greek Harmakhis, whose Sphinx of Gizeh was the incarnation? It continued the solarization of Karnak thus that Hatchepsout had inaugurated before him by raising Obélisque S inside even of the temple and in the east of this one. This solarization, Thoutmôsis V wanted it still more imposing by the erection of its single obelisk, symbol of the solar, at that time still indissociable divinity of Amon, the dynastic god.

It is necessary to then imagine Karnak as a vast religious complex which started on the level of the {{IVe}} pylon, having received since Thoutmôsis {{Ier}} six obelisks, without counting those which Hatchepsout added. This whole of ten large monoliths was supplemented by the obelisk that Thoutmôsis V made draw up in the Eastern axis of the temple, which gave to the sanctuary the aspect of the temple of Re héliopolitain. It is understood that from this Thèbes time was described as Héliopolis South.

Amenhotep {{III}}, in its turn, arranged and increases still more the temple of Amon-Re, contributing to the development of the solar worship that his/her son will make exclusive thereafter. Indeed, one can suppose that Amenhotep marked to him also its print the Eastern axis of Karnak, because large the solar courses that this king made arrange with Louxor in the temple of Amon-Min and in its funerary temple on western bank testify to the new interpretation of the dynastic god. One found in Karnak a colossal beetle besides, symbol of one of the aspects of the god sun, Khépri, going back to his reign. It is installed beside the Lac crowned, but came certainly from a sanctuary dedicated to the god Re.

In spite of the increasingly marked solarization of the site, there was undoubtedly no yet conflict open between rival clergies cohabiting to Karnak. Indeed, a scene of the 3rd pylon, built by Amenhotep {{III}} and decorated during the first years with the reign of Amenhotep {{IV}}, probably then corégent of his/her father, represents the king in front of Amon, in the traditional attitude of Pharaon embanking the enemies of the Egypt. Another element of decoration of the same period represents the young sovereign, this time still in a perfectly orthodoxe style, officiating in front of Horakhty, one of the shapes of the god Re. This last element probably belonged to the gate giving access to the one of the Eastern sanctuaries dedicated to the various shapes of the god sun, one of the many Re shapes being the visible solar disk by all, Aton. Thus, a whole of solar sanctuaries was to be next to the enclosure is temple of Amon, but none remained, following the eagerness with which the successors of Akhénaton erased any trace of its religious reform.

Deification of Pharaon and rupture with the clergy thébain

A temple of the obelisk, a temple of Horakhty, a sanctuary dedicated to Khépri, a temple of Aton, a whole solar city had undoubtedly developed beyond the Eastern enclosure of the temple of Amon. It is obvious that could not have been done without the support of a powerful clergy and an deliberate intention of the royal court, in.liaison.with a deification of Pharaon, true sun king, alive Hypostase of a god who was about to absorb all the worships of the valley by syncretism.

Thus, Amenhotep, at the end of its life, was the setting Sun, the Re-Atoum of Héliopolis, Amenhotep V his/her son Shou. On the probable assumption of a corégence between Amenhotep and Amenhotep V, the growing old father would thus have reigned since Western bank in his palate of Malquata, the such setting sun ready to join the kingdom of Osiris, while the son would have reigned since Eastern bank, in the east of Karnak, within a whole of sanctuaries dedicated to the solar star incipient. Karnak and its god Amon-Re would have been the hyphen between the two sovereigns in a royal theology copied on the model héliopolitain. The death of the first broke this balance and called in question theological architecture and its temporal translation. Amenhotep V changed its name of crowning into Akhénaton, “That which is useful to Aton”. It will be henceforth the terrestrial image of the single god “Horakhty who is delighted in the horizon on his behalf by Light which is in Aton”, thus concluding his the evolution in progress .

In year 5 of its reign, Akhénaton founded a new capital, Akhetaton, giving up Thèbes and its clergy of Amon which had had to resist the rise of the solar worship more and more. Indeed, Amenhotep V become Akhénaton would have been in hillock with the conservatism and the increasing hostility of the priests of Amon who since two generations saw little by little their primacy disappearing with the profit from a solar theology which had continued more and more openly since Thoutmôsis {{IV}}.

Temples of Aton with Karnak

The excavations revealed several vast structures having undergone fires and destruction. One there found in fact, in what would have been a large court with gantries, the famous colossi with the image of the young sovereign, appeared upright, in position osirienne, carrying various crowns of which one, that of the god Shou, attaches it directly to the solar god.

These sanctuaries were built apart from the enclosure of Amon-Re, in the east. The principal temple was named Gempaaten ( gm pȝ jtn ), which means “Aton is found”. The others were called Hout benben ( ḥwt bnbn , “the Castle of Pierre Benben”), direct reference to the sanctuary of Héliopolis, Roud-menou ( rwd mnw N jtn R nḥḥ , “Solids for Eternity are the Monuments of Aton”) and Teni-menou ( tnj mnw N jtn R nḥḥ , “Exaltés for Eternity are the Monuments of Aton”). Gempaaten does not seem to have had ceiling, so that the tables where the offerings were deposited were directly exposed to the rays of Aton.

The unit was built as of the first years of the reign by means of blocks out of sandstone of small size which the archeologists call “Talatate S”. Far however indicating a hasty and not very neat realization, the walls of the temples of Aton which were reconstituted submit us a refined decoration and scenes illustrating the life to the royal court of the time. These representations prove that the religious reform was elaborate in Karnak even, in the middle of the solar temples, in this oriental party of the town of Thèbes where the sovereign resided in the middle of the priests and of a court entirely devoted to his divine person.

The walls of Teni-menou were employed again in the 9th pylon. They since were indexed and gathered like a gigantic puzzle. Partly exposed to the Musée of Louxor, they enable us to discover a new aspect of Thèbes of then, with its residential districts, administrative and royal, its solar temples and jubilaires, theater of a first Festival-Sed, that Akhénaton probably made celebrate at the same time as his/her father, and to which the queen-mother Tiyi assisted. One indeed sees it returning visit to his son, crossing the city on a sedan-chair, preceded color-bearer and by flabellifères, and followed by all his intendance as well as princesses, sisters of the young regent. These extraordinary scenes underline the determining role of the royal court in the development of this solar ideology which assimilated, as under, Pharaon with the god sun. It is obvious that at that time nobody still openly disputed the divinity of the young king, worthy heir to large the Amenhotep {{III}}. Only its distance of Thèbes and the events which will follow the first years of the reign, in particular the threat hittite at the Asian markets of the empire, will be right of what one called the experiment amarnienne which, with many regards, seems the logical result of a sacralization of the royal person, incarnation and single prophet of the solar star.

The anarchy which settled outwards and inside Egypt during the reign of the “king heretic” caused the fall of. Horemheb closed walk; after the death of Aÿ, it seized the power while being pressed on an army which its predecessors had made as powerful as the clergy thébain and which only could defend the country against the Hittites coveting the vassal kingdoms of Pharaon. Occupied to defend the empire, Horemheb, then after him Ramsès {{Ier}} and its son Séthi {{Ier}}, let the ancestral clergies find their capacity of formerly. This “restoration” resulted in the systematic destruction of the monuments of Akhénaton, in Karnak and elsewhere. They were dismantled and employed again in constructions of Horemheb and the Ramsès. Thus, one wanted to make disappear forever any trace from a sovereign who had marked Karnak as ever no other sovereign had done it before him.

Random links: