Position 76 - Looking North To The Mortuary Temple Of Sethos I At Thebes

We have already visited the tomb of Sethos I in the great valley of royal tombs, and we are now looking at the remains of the chapel of that tomb. We face almost due north, with the river on our right and the cliffs on our left (Map 9). Behind us is the western plain of Thebes, for this is the northernmost of the mortuary temples, and our next visit will be to the southernmost of these temples, the one at Medinet Habu.

As Sethos I's father, Ramses I, whose tomb door we saw beside that of his son in the valley, had evidently died without having been able to construct such a temple for himself, Sethos I shared his own temple with his father, as we shall see. But Sethos I died before he finished it, and his son, Ramses II, the builder of the Ramesseum, completed the work and appropriated a part of this building for himself. Thus it is really a composite chapel for the kings of three generations.

This colonnade before us formed the rear of the second court. The two pylons in front of the two courts have utterly perished. Thus we have preserved to-day only the rear of the temple from the back of the second court on. The colonnade is built of clustered papyrus bud columns, of which there were originally ten, but only eight, you see, have survived. In the wall behind these columns are three doors; you can see the one in the middle, and the one at this end, but the door at the other end is concealed by the columns.

This first door leads to the chapel of the grandfather, Ramses I; the middle door to the main sanctuary, that of the father, Sethos I; while the furthest door, which we cannot see, leads to the hall of the grandson, Ramses II, who completed the building. The main sanctuary is also sacred to Amon, as all these mortuary chapels were dedicated both to the dead king and to Amon, the state god. This temple marks for us the beginning of the 19th Dynasty, in the middle of the 14th century B. C.

At the other or southern end of the line of western temples, we shall find that of Medinet Habu, which belongs at the beginning of the 20th Dynasty, early in the 12th century B. C. Thus we have at the two ends of the temple line, the two buildings which mark the beginning and end of the nearly two hundred years, lying between the 14th and the early 12th centuries B. C.; while the temples of the preceding two hundred and thirty years, that is, of the 18th Dynasty, are grouped in the middle of the line.

We shall return now to our former position, 68. See Map 9.