As the first posts in this series (Part 1 and Part 2) focused on some rather large aspects of Karnak, I want to bring out some of the other details as well. In all honesty, I wish I had another 5-6 hours at the complex to delve deeper into some of these details.
The first one is a stela that is placed in the entrance walk on the left hand side. This might get little attention among all those ram-headed sphinxes…
This stela speaks of the offerings made by Seti II to Amun-Re. Part of what interests me in this are the various king names given on the stela as well as the offerings themselves. I will need to spend a bit of time working on the translation!
The second detail I want to draw attention to is a cartouche you’ll see in many places…
Of course, Ramses II’s throne name cartouche is ubiquitous, but if you think this cartouche sounds anything like Ramses, you may be surprised. The cartouche is prefaced by sꜢ-rꜤ [sa-re] which translates to ‘Son of Ra’. In the cartouche we can transliterate to wsr-mꜢꜤt-rꜤ stp.n-rꜤ [usr-maat-ra stp.n-ra]. This translates to ‘The justice of Ra is powerful, chosen of Ra’. This is a great conversation starter during your next cocktail party!
Wandering around the site, there were lots of interesting items. Here’s one that seemed underrepresented…
This mighty, and lucky Scarab sits atop an oval red granite plinth. It is likely that this was part of Amenhotep III’s mortuary temple on the western bank in Thebes. It was moved to a location near the Sacred Lake at Karnak at a later time (likely by Taharqo – 690-664 BCE). It’s not often that we run across a dung beetle of this size!
The last item that I would like to point out is that all the wonderful archaeologists and egyptologists must love solving puzzles! Here are some pieces found around the site…
What caught my attention on this piece is the exquisite detail of the foot in the sandal. Also, it makes me wonder where the rest of this relief might be. Here’s another puzzle piece…
This piece appears to have sheared off a larger section. It again makes one wonder where the rest might be. Of course, a lot of the sites that we visited had to be reassembled over the years, as sand, creative re-use of material by many generations and natural forces didn’t preserve all these monuments in their original state.
Hats off to all the people who have worked over time to bring us these monuments and a view into antiquity. It truly helps us connect across the millennia!
