A New Pharaoh was discovered, The Royal name of the 17th Dynasty at Karnak Temple

During his visit yesterday to Karnak temple, Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim(Minister state of Antiquities) announced the discovery of a new pharaoh’s name from the 17^th dynasty that was not known to Egyptologists which helps in revealing the chronological order of the Kings of this dynasty.

 Christophe Thiers (Photo Courtesy IFAO)

 It was the IFAO mission headed by Christophe Thiers that found a limestone door at the north of Amon’s temple dated back to 17^th dynasty with hieroglyphics inscriptions and a royal cartouche bears the name of a King that didn’t appear before in ancient Egyptian history and the name is “Sen Nakht N’ Ra”

The Minister confirmed that this discovery is the first of this Pharaoh’s work as the text mentioned that he established buildings for God Amon in Karnak with the limestone he quarried from Tora,near Cairo and demanded the work to continue in the area in order to reveal more architecture elements that had been established by this King.

This discovery will add a new King to the 17^th dynasty which witnesses the Hyksos occupation.

The International Research Conference “In Search for New Concepts and Technologies for Conservation and Preservation of The Colossi of Memnon & The Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III”

The conference is hosted at Luxor Museum from Saturday 3^rd to Monday 5^th March, 2012

After the site visit on west bank Dr. Mohamed Ibrahim, Minister State of Antiquities gave a short speech for the opening of the conference and he apologised as he had to go to Karnak temple.

After the Minister left, there were attempts to get the projector to work but it looked like the remote control was not working so one of the attendance volunteered to try and switch it on manually.

Thankfully he managed to get it to work and the conference began with Mr. Mohamed El-Bialy(Head of the Antiquities of Upper Egypt) who talked about the general background of the history of excavation of the site of Kom El Hetan referring to the work of Labib Habashi in 1949 then he said “we know that great work has been done and i am sure after the conference there will be many papers will be submitted and we are looking forward to the future progress.”

Then Dr. Hourig Sourouzian (Director of the Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III temple conservation Project) spoke and started by saying “It is difficult to summerise all the work in 10 minutes but I will try to show you briefly slides from before and after of the site which my collegues from the Louvre called it a football field.” 

What Dr. Hourig focused on and which we could point as the mission’s goal as she stated “For centuries the temple was dismantled and robbed and we believe it is the time to preserve and conserve the remains in situ.”

Then she explained how was the operation of re-erecting the statue was accomplished as stated before.

  After Dr. Hourig speech, Dr. Rainer Stadelmann (Director Emeritus of the German Archaeological Institute in Cairo- Responsible for the work on the Colossi of Memnon) talked on the History of the Colossi of Memnon, Documentation and preservation since 1998, Conservation project of the Colossi and Quartzite monuments on site.

Then Nairy Hampikian (Architect on site) with so much energy talked about “A perspective for site protection and management of the temple precinct”

After the lunch break

3D-Documentation in building preservation sciences: objectives, methods and perspectives by Rainer Drewello (Chair for Restoration science in preservation of Built Historical Monuments, Institute of Archaeology, Heritage studies and Art History, University of Bamberg)

 Followed by Nils Wetter and Jasmin Badr on “3D-Scanning of fragments of Colossal statues of Kom El Hettan: First results” then Miguel Angel Lopez Marcos (stone conservator of the project) took the stage to talk about “Conservation of the Quartzite Colossi in the temple of Amenhotep III at Kom El Hettan”

The last speaker of the first day of the conference was Christian Perzlmeier on “Using air cushions to move and lift colossal statues and blocks”

Revealing the newly re-erected colossal statue of Amenhotep III in the Funerary Temple of the King on west bank

A colossal statue of Amenhotep III in quartzite newly raised in the funerary temple of the King on west bank, Luxor.

A colossal statue of Amenhotep III in quartzite has been raised at its original place by the members of “The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III temple conservation project”, an Egyptian-European team working for the conservation of the funerary temple of Amenhotep III in Luxor since 1998.

The colossus represents Amenhotep III seated on a decorated throne, and accompanied by a beautiful and very well preserved statue of Queen Tiye standing near the right leg of the King.

The colossus was found lying within the ruins of the funerary temple of Amenhotep III. It is the Northern one of a pair of royal colossi in quartzite once stood at the gate of the second pylon of the temple, 100 meters behind the famous Memnon Colossi which represent the same King at the entrance of his prestigious temple.

The temple was destroyed by a very heavy earthquake around 1200 BC, and the two colossi had collapsed and remained broken in front of the second pylon.

The North colossus was half buried under Nile alluvia and was surrounded by the project since 2002, lifted 3.90 meters out of the muddy and salty water layer in 2004, and transported 9.5 meters on solid ground for study and conservation, in 2005, after its foundation was consolidated with armed cement, the colossus was brought back near its pedestal in 2011. The raising operation started on 6^th February 2012, and was successfully achieved on 13^th February.

After that first step of the operation, the right foot of the King resting on a decorated base and other blocks belong to this base were placed on the pedestal.

The knee, the chest and the head will be joined to the colossus in the forthcoming season.

The colossus is a masterpiece of Ancient Egyptian royal sculpture, hewn in a very hard block of quartzite which was transported from the quarries of Gebel El-Ahmar in Cairo. It is extremely well sculpted and smoothly polished.

This is the first time that such a monumental sculpture is raised by methods combining the Pharaonic ways and modern technique of lifting with air-cushions.

In spring 2013, the team will also lift at its original location the lower part of the south colossus, which was unknown and lay completely buried under the ground of the temple. It was discovered by the project director in 2003 and was treated by the conservation team.