Sheshat the Goddess of Cosmic intuition and the Mistress Architect of the Temples

On  the back of Rameses sitting statue in the first courtyard of Luxor Temple the Goddess Sheshat and her husband the God Thoth are engraved. Every Egyptian temple was created as an image of the cosmos and therefore to build a temple or   add a new section became an act of creation.

The pharaoh would consult the goddess Sheshat who embodied the essence of cosmic intuition, She was the Mistress of Architects, and with the pharaoh she would hold a foundation ritual known as ‘The stretching of the cord’ to measure and lay plans for the temples axis by aid of the stars. Sheshat also kept important records of the   king’s life and recorded the time that had been allocated to him by the gods for his stay on earth. Her instructions came from the cosmos and Amon; she is shown here writing down the years Ramses will rule.

The Feast of the Opet at Luxor Temple

I feel that Luxor temple is a unique temple as it is not the home of a god, nor is it a mortuary temple; this temple was created to celebrate Birth, and rejuvenation. Every year a wonderful celebration was held here known as the Opet Festival, when the king led the sacred barques of the God Amun his wife Mut and their son Khonsu, during the celebrations the king and Egypt was symbolically reborn every year, the king would disappear from the festival and re-emerge seven days later from the birth room, so when I think of Luxor temple I imagine it as a living womb, and when it was time for the birth the festival and ceremony of the birth was enacted.  Luxor temple was connected to Karnack temple by a long umbilical cord, or avenue  of sphinx, over the centuries the sphinx have been buried beneath the sand and the ties of energy between the two temples have been trampled on but these last few years the area around the temple has been cleared and more of the sphinx have been found and released from the sand, it is my hope that one day people will be able to walk the whole avenue once more following in the footsteps of the King and the priests from Karnack temple to Luxor
rejuvenating the link between these temples  and offering new life and energy to Egypt once more.

Walking through Luxor Temple I feel that you can sense an aura as you stand in the dust of time with the fire of the sun baking the earth in the open courtyard. Stand quietly as the history of the ancients and the wisdom of the sages engulf you with their dedications to the gods, then your heart will lift as the blood pumps faster through your veins. Imagine this; you are now stood on the same ground as Ramses ‘The Great’ of the 19th Dynasty of the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt.



There are a small  suite of rooms that represent the bedroom of Amun where the Opet festival rituals took place, and the pharaoh  retired to the Birth Room, from which he would later  emerge symbolically re-born and restored. The statues of the king’s ka were no longer on display because the ka was now believed to have taken residence in the pharaoh’s body.  Reliefs in the birth room represent Amun choosing the Queen Mutemweje to give birth to his son. He sent Thoth with the message to the queen and ordered Khnum to create an image of himself on his potter’s wheel. The boy child Amenhotep was born into the world created by Amun and then crowned as the King. I realized the similarity of this sequence of events of this ancient Egyptian relief as it compares to our Christmas story of the angel coming to visit Mary to tell her that she will give birth to the son of God.    As the Royal scribe Ani said; ‘God reveals himself in millions of forms’

The Obelisk of Hatshepsut's Hieroglyphic Inscription

The inscription written on the obelisk from Hatshepsut in Karnack Temple expresses her devotion to Amon Ra:

'I have created this work with a heart full of love for Amon

Initiated into his secrets of origin

Instructed through his beneficial power

I have not forgotten what he has ordained

My Majesty recognizes his Divinity

I have acted on his orders

It is he who has guided me

I have never slept because I was pre-occupied with his temple

I have never turned away from what he has commanded,

My heart moved intuitively with The Father

I have entered intimately into the plans of his heart

I have never turned my back on the Master of totality

But rather I have turned my face towards him

The White chapel of Sensuret 1 in the Open Air Museum in The precints of Karnack Temple

As I walked around the bend in path that weaved its way to the Open air museum my eyes were drawn to the pale cream elegant chapel in the shade of the trees that dark green leaves overhung in this quiet corner of Karnack. To my delight I had found the exquisite White Chapel originally created during the Middle Kingdom for Sensuret1 of the 12th Dynasty to celebrate his Sed- festival.

This elegant little chapel in Tura limestone is thought to be one of the earliest structures created in Karnack and we are so blessed that our eyes can admire it once again. It was re- constructed by Henri Chevrier.

Two ramps lead up into a small rectangular chapel from its base facing each other. Twelve external square pillars and four internal pillars support the ceiling; these have the finest cut delicate inscriptions and show Sensuret embracing the gods Amen Ptah Atum and Horus each god is placed at one of the four cardinal points of the earth.  The beams of sunlight flood through the square pillars and highlight the intricate relief’s they touch

An inscription on the North corner pillar of the chapel reads: ‘Come in peace, O Sensuret, that thou mayest see thy father Amun Ra who loves thee, that he may give thee kingship of the two lands’ Sensuret came to the throne as co-regent with his father Amenemhet 1 during the 20th year of his fathers reign. During these early years Sensuret went on many campaigns to Syria and Nubia, unfortunately whilst he was on campaign in Libya he received news that his father had been assassinated. Sensuret then became the sole king of Egypt and he ruled for 34 years. Three years before he died he elevated his own son Amenemhet 11 as his co-regent, and finally he was buried in the pyramid he had built a mile from his fathers at El Lisht.

The Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in the Open Air Museum in Karnack Temple

I followed the path towards the exciting Red Chapel of Hatshepsut in the Open Air Museum
In the precincts of Karnack Temple and my expectations increased because here was a queen who was obviously determined to out due the works of all previous kings and create the most beautiful and unusual gifts for Amun. I was not disappointed as I arrived at Hatshepsut’s creation.

Walking around the base there is a grey diorite frieze that is divided into squares each one representing a Nome of ancient Egypt .The nomes were divided into capital towns, cultivated lands, marshes and canals, the frieze shows male and female engravings bringing gifts of all things pure for Amon, the male is the god Hapi with his flabby tummy, some of the engravings still show signs of gold paint in their hollows.

I
Walking away from the Red Chapel of Hatshepsut I reflected on the beauty of all the individual barque chapels, the elegance of the White Chapel the cool calm of the alabaster chapels and the larger  imposing chapel of Hatshepsut with its burning warm red bricks and then it occurred  to me the symbolism of  why Hatshepsut had  possibly deviated from traditional materials and chosen  instead  to use this unusual red quartzite, it was simple,  a heart  of a man is deep warm red it pumps the warm blood through the body and sustains the life, and this chapel was ‘The Heart of Amun.’

The Hoope bird in Karnack Temple

Walking through this wondrous Lotus forest of columns in the Hypostle Hall at Karnack Temple one afternoon, a vibrant orange and black  stripped Hoopoe bird flew down and landed at the side of me, then its headdress similar to that of an American Red Indian chief neatly closed up as the bird  settled a few feet from me, I froze so as not to frighten it,  and as I stood quietly observing it, I almost felt that it was speaking to me and telling me that the Hall was as I had imagined it, the columns were  real live trees, and the temple was alive and accepted by the bird as part of creation.  I have never thought of myself as strange, although others have doubted my sanity on occasions, but I must admit even I was really surprised when I went to collect my photographs from the shop on the Corniche, when looking through them a very excited man in the shop told me that this bird was sacred to the Moslems and was written about in the Koran, the bird was a messenger who spoke to Sulliman informing him of the land that he had flown to and the heathen religion of the Queen of Sheba. I concluded that god is everywhere and speaks to us whenever we are touched by the divine as I had been in this amazing forest of stone within the Hypostyle hall of Karnack Temple

The Most Amazing Hypostyle Hall in Karnack Temple

Tourism began in Egypt during the 19th Century when Thomas Cook first arranged luxury Dahabiya cruises from Cairo to Aswan for wealthy Victorians, in this image we can see a group of Victorian tourists having a meal inside the hypostyle hall, of Karnack Temple, something that would not  be allowed today

After passing through the portal between the pylons, I entered the most amazing Hypostyle hall in the center of Karnack Temple, it is the reception area of the gods, its awesome lotus columns represent the plants that came into being on the mound of creation. The lotus columns are a symbolism of Horus who was born on the waters of creation, the lotus plant represents the first sunrise on the day of creation. Each evening the lotus submerges beneath the waters, and at dawn it rises symbolically to worship the sun again, it encompasses all the forces of nature and lives in all the four elements, its roots are bound to the earth and its stem rises through water, it flourishes in the  air and blooms in the sunlight.  Standing in this incredible hall you are overpowered by 134 of these gigantic columns, 122 are in the open papyrus bud style, and another 12 in the central isle are closed.  I had a dream once that I closed my 

eyes and I was carried on the wind across the oceans to that magical forest of Redwoods in America where the trees seem to touch the sky, it must be one of the most natural heavenly places on earth, I never came close to that forest but I found the forest of my dreams in Karnack temple, but Instead of bark texture  I saw hieroglyphs all the way up these gigantic stone forest columns.

This image of a group of Egyptian women carrying water bottles on their heads was taken in 1870, during this period there was a lot of damage to the temple, but gradually over the last hundred years the temples have been restored to their former glory. In 1899, eleven of the massive columns of the Great Hypostyle Hall collapsed in a chain reaction, because their foundations were undermined by ground water. Georges Legrain, who was then the chief archaeologist in the area, supervised the rebuilding that was completed in May 1902. Later, similar work had to continue in order to strengthen the rest of the columns of the Temple..

The Hypostyle hall was originally created by Seti 1, and was finished after his death by his son Ramses the Great during the 19th Dynasty. Karnak was known in ancient times as 'The Most Select of Places' (Ipet-isut ) The Hypostyle hall is awesome and the thousands of visitors never fail to be astonished by this vast forest of giant columns, they crane their necks and look up to the dizzying heights of the column capitals, I think that you would probably need ten people holding hands to surround a column, it is surrounded with walls, and the mammoth window grilles and architraves of the clerestory roof. When the hall was originally built it had a roof, but damage to the columns have caused the roof to collapse

On this column we can see Ramses 11 offering the God    

Amun min lettuce, which was considered to be an aphrodisiac 

as it gave white milk, it was eaten by men in an effort 

to achieve potency. Amun Min was represented in 

many different forms, but was most often

represented in male human form, shown with an 

erect penis which he holds in his left hand and an upheld right arm holding a flail. As a god of male sexual potency, he was honoured during the coronation rites of the New Kingdom, when the Pharaoh was expected to sow his seed—generally thought to have been plant seeds, although there have been controversial suggestions that the Pharaoh was expected to demonstrate that he could ejaculate—and thus ensure the annual flooding of the Nile. Amun Min, was the  Lord of the Processions, God of the High Plumes, the great of love, the Son of Osiris and Isis.