Photo: CNRS-CFEETK / J.F. Gout
The early temple of
Ptah at Karnak
The area of the Ptah
Recent excavations in the temple of Ptah at Karnak confirm the temple at Karnak
under study.
existence of an earlier mud-brick sanctuary. Guillaume Charloux and
Christophe Thiers unveil the irst elements of the discovery.
The temple of Ptah, built by Thutmose III One of the objectives set by the archae-
(1479–1425 BC, Eighteenth Dynasty), is located ologists of the P tah Temple Study and
at the northern limit of the religious domain Restoration Programme, undertaken since
of Karnak (see Egyptian Archeology 38). The 2008 by the French-Egyptian Centre for the
existence of an earlier temple – the date of Study of the Karnak Temples, was to investigate
which remains unknown – is recorded in two the lower levels of the sandstone monument
inscriptions of the present temple and on a of Thutmose III and attempt to conirm this
stela erected by Thutmose III and restored epigraphic information.
later by Seti I (1290–1279 BC) (Catalogue Before the installation of a modern pavement,
général des antiquités égyptiennes du Musée the basements of the three chapels of the
du Caire, GC 34013): sanctuary were explored in 2010–11, followed
by the courtyard and temple entrance during
(…) My majesty found this temple built of mud the next two campaigns. A study of the area
brick, its columns and its doors in wood, which surrounding the monument, under taken
went to ruin. My majesty ordered to stretch the between 2014 and 2016, culminated in the
line for the temple again, edifying it in perfect excavation of the temple’s foundation pit in
white sandstone, the walls protecting it being the east and south, and of four perpendicular
made of bricks in durable work for eternity (…) trenches. Unfortunately, the archaeological
(transl. after S. Biston-Moulin) levels beneath and around the temple were
EGYPTIAN ARCHAEOLOGY ISSUE NO 50 SPRING 2017 11
