Karnak, a village in Upper Egypt, was built in honor of Amon. Recent excavations have pushed back the site date to around 3200 B.C. The ruins of Karnak cover a considerable area, though nothing remains of the houses, palaces or gardens that must have surrounded the temple in ancient times. The most northerly temple is the Temple of Mont, the god of war. Little remains of this temple but its foundation. The southern temple, which has a horseshoe-shaped lake, was devoted to the goddess Mut, wife of Amon. Between these two temples lay the largest of all Egyptian temples, and one of the largest in the world, the great metropolitan temple of Amon. It is not one complete temple, but rather was built by many different pharaohs, over a great amount of time, making the site a record of Egyptian history.
Many of the main roads which lead to the temples of Karnak used to be lined with sphinxes. The sphinxes which line the entrance to the First Pylon of Karnak combine the body of a lion with the head of a ram. The ram was a symbol of the god Amon for whom the temple was built. Each sphinx protects, between its forelegs, a standing statue of the king-- Ramesses II Standing in the shadow of the First Pylon of the Temple of Amon at Karnak (in Luxor, Egypt), one is struck by the length of its east-west axis and the colossal size of its columns. There are no fewer than 10 pylons, separated by courts and halls. And, like all other temples in Egypt, this one symbolizes the mound of the original creation. The ground rises ever so gradually from the entrance toward the sanctuary. The columns are stone replicas of the vegetation which was growing in the the marshy land around the mound of creation.
In the center of this first court are the ruins of the kiosk of Taharqa (690-664 B.C.) Beyond the kiosk before the Second Pylon are two standing statues of Ramesses II (c.1279-1213 B.C.) After the Second Pylon, the The Great Hypostyle Hall of the Karnak Temple was built by Ramses I, but much of it was decorated by Seti I and Ramses II, both of whom are credited with building it although the actual project began earlier. The north-south axis of the hall provides views which reveal not only the immensity but also the practicality of the architecture. The central row of 12 columns on the east-west axis are 69 feet (21meters) in height, about 33 feet (10 meters) in circumference, and have open papyrus capitals. The 122 columns in the side aisles are 43 feet (13 meters) in height, 27.5 feet (8.4 meters) in circumference, and have closed papyrus-bud capitals. The area of the vast hall is 5,800 yards.
The whole of this hall was roofed with stone slabs, and the interior was quite dark. The difference in height between the central and the side aisle columns was used to provide natural light through clerestory windows which have vertical stone slats. Historical reliefs on the outer walls show the victories of Seti I in Palestine and Ramses defeating the Hittites in the Battle of Kadesh.
Within the Great Temple of Amon are included a number of other notable small shrines and temples. A temple to Ptah, on the north side of the site, was built by Hatshetsut and Tutmose III. Ramesses dedicated a temple in the south to Khons, the moon god, and a temple to Opet.
