In the heart of Karnak Temple, Thutmosis III, Egypt’s pharaoh from 1479 to 1425 B.C. and successor of Queen Hatshepsut, replaced Hatshepsut’s shrine with his own, and built the sixth pylon of the temple and a vast courtyard between the pylon and the chapel. (...)
In the heart of Karnak Temple, Thutmosis III, Egypt’s pharaoh from 1479 to 1425 B.C. and successor of Queen Hatshepsut, replaced Hatshepsut’s shrine with his own, and built the sixth pylon of the temple and a vast courtyard between the pylon and the chapel. Later he divided the courtyard into three sections, building two parallel walls decorated with texts from his Annals, the most detailed military record to survive from ancient Egypt. Of particular note, these texts chronicle the military campaigns of Thutmosis in Syria and Palestine. Two centuries later Seti II dismantled this wall and rebuilt it, partly reusing the blocks with the Annals’ inscriptions, but hiding the decorated portions in the masonry and sculpting new motifs on the previously blank surfaces. Seti II kept the diorite gate that Thutmosis had retained from Hatshepsut’s chapel, but over time, it disappeared after the abandonment of the temple. As a result of excavations of the area in the late-nineteenth century, this gap in the courtyard wall, renamed “the accidental arch,” was consolidated by the archaeologist Georges Legrain at the beginning of the twentieth century by placing a steel bar on top of the wall, kept in place by iron bars inserted vertically into the stone blocks. Over the last several decades, changes in agricultural practice and population shifts have contributed to the rising water table in the area, which affected the base of this wall and the deterioration of the stones necessitated a radical intervention to avoid a catastrophic collapse.
