Beyond the south gate of the Karnak precinct a ruined avenue of
sphinxes leads the visitor through Karnak village to the Temple of
Mut, the consort of Amun, which has for some time been undergoing
restoration. The Mut Temple was built by Amenhotep III but has had
other New Kingdom, Late Period and Ptolemaic additions. Before
entering the temple precinct, on the western side of the avenue of
sphinxes is a ruined temple of Amun-kamutef, an ithyphallic god whose
name means 'Bull of his Mother', and on the eastern side was a barque
shrine built by Tuthmose III and Hatshepsut.
Today the temple precinct is a wilderness of long grass and cracked
paving, but there are many interesting remains to be seen, including a
great number of beautiful statues of the lion-headed goddess Sekhmet
scattered around its courts, thought perhaps to have been brought from
the mortuary temple of Amenhotep III on the West Bank. Near the
northern wall of the precinct was a small temple of Khonsu, the son of
Amun and Mut. The remains of birth scenes and a fragment of an unusual
circumcision scene can be seen on the north wall. In the remains of
the entrance pylon to the Mut Temple, built by Seti II, there is a
relief of the dwarf-god Bes and Ptolemaic texts of a Hymn to Mut. |
To the south of the temple there are remains of a crescent-shaped
sacred lake, now overgrown, and to the west of this a small temple of
Rameses III still has two ruined colossal statues of the king with his
queen at its entrance.
From the Temple of Mut, if the visitor walks west towards Luxor, a
secondary avenue of sphinxes has been restored. This would have been
part of the processional way from Karnak to Luxor Temple, although
part of the avenue is still under the modern town buildings of Luxor.
You can get a good view of this restored avenue from the bridge over
the canal leading to Karnak village (Sharia Maabad el-Karnak or Karnak
Temple Street). |
