Built on the bank of the Nile along the northern edge of the city of Luxor, the Temple of Karnak was dedicated to the worship of one of Egypt’s oldest and most storied deities: Amun-Re. Though initially worshipped as the primeval god of the wind and air, Amun-Re increased in favor from the 11th Dynasty onwards, eventually ascending to the forefront of the Egyptian pantheon and becoming endowed with the attributes of an all-powerful sun god.

It was this incarnation of Amun-Re – envisioned initially by a powerful cult in ancient Thebes - that led Egypt’s masterful builders to construct the Temple of Karnak sometime between 1500 and 1350 BC - though, in essence, construction never truly ended on the ominous complex. Every ruler from the New Kingdom on saw fit to add their own embellishments, until the temple grew to cover the five acres that we associate it with today.

Access to the temple is granted through a sequence of six monumental gateways, each of which was eventually taken on a pet project by many a particular pharaoh during their respective reigns. For instance, the second gateway, started by Rameses I, leads to the so-called “hypostyle hall” - a secretive enclave that only the pharaoh and temple priests were allowed to enter. The meeting space of hall is surrounded on all sides by 122 columns divided into seven, symbolically meaningfully rows. An earlier pharaoh, Amenhotep III, chose a different tact by inlaying his third gateway with gold and silver, though all of his decorative addition has been lost to looters in the interceding centuries.

The six gateways eventually led onto Karnak’s inner temple – the highest and darkest point in the entire complex. Even today, it is remains clad in the pink granite grafted onto the original structure around 330 BC by Philip Arridaeus, brother of Alexander the Great. The inner sanctum was focused on a stone dais that once bore ceremonial boat dedicated to Amun-Re, as well a large statue of the god – the latter of which occupied the center of temple life for the high priest of the temple and the Egyptian king alike. On feast days, the statue be hoisted onto the ceremonial boat, and then carried around the temple perimeter. Natives of the surrounding towns and encampments, believing the statue to be gifted with powers of prophecy, would shout questions at the procession as it passed. As the boat rounded the temple, it would rock from side to side; a tilt to one side or another was seen by temple devotees as being indicative as a yes or no answer to their queries.

Ancient Egypt Store Bust of King Akhenaton Isis Protecting Osiris Statue King Akhenaton Standing with Crook and Flail Statue Amun-Ra Statue

The Karnak complex also included smaller outcroppings devoted to the worship of Montu, war god and son of Amun-Re and an installation by the monotheistic pharaoh, Akenaten (Amenhotep IV) that was subsequently dismantled, along with the rest of the king’s works, following his death in 1334 BC. Worship of Amun-Re and use of his temple at Karnak eventually subsided as the influence of Thebes waned; his cult was later driven south and went on to thrive in Ethiopia.

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For over two thousand years, the secrets of the ancient Egyptians were lost to history. All the tombs, trinkets, statues and cenotaphs were pretty but indecipherable, covered as they were in a pictographic script that had no meaning. It wasn’t decades of research, the intricate technologies of archaeology or the explanation of some ancient king risen from the dead that unlocked the lost language of the ancient Egyptians. In fact, it was the accidental discovery of some half buried rock that came to be known as the Rosetta stone, by a French soldier that would change the face of Egyptology and provide a much needed window into the language and belief systems of the most celebrated ancient culture.

It was 1799 and Napoleon’s troops were preparing to defend against the encroaching Ottoman Army as they grew closer and closer to the city of Rosetta on Egypt’s West bank just miles from the sea.  As they cleared away rocks to improve their fortifications, a small group of soldier engineers led by 28 year old Lieutenant Bouchard discovered a large polished rock with a dark surface and what seemed to be some engraved text.

On closer inspection, Bouchard noticed three separate texts on the rock: hieroglyphs at the top, an unknown text in the middle and Greek at the bottom.  It was not just the middle text that didn’t make sense; it was the stone’s location inside an Arab fort far from the ancient tombs in Luxor’s Valley of the Kings. Speculation as to possible ancient structures below the fort were quickly dismissed and the stone sent to Cairo for further research by Napoleon’s famed Commission of Arts and Sciences.

The stone was almost a meter high with missing pieces at the top and bottom right. After a thorough cleaning the group of French scholars was able to read the Greek inscription. It was nothing sensational, just an inscription of an anniversary. That was until they read the last sentence.

“This decree shall be inscribed on stelae of hard rock, in sacred characters, both native and Greek, and they shall be erected in each of the temples of the first, second and third category, next to the image of the king living eternally.”

The realization that what was written in Greek was also written in hieroglyphics was a revelation. Finally, here was the chance to understand what the ancients had been whispering for all these centuries.  A group of notable scholars and archeologists gathered in Cairo to work on the stone, including trying to figure out what the middle language on the Rosetta stone actually was.

Disappointedly the Egyptian elite had little interest in the stone, perhaps due to the constant influx of Greeks, French and British in their country with every new ‘discovery’ of the ancient Egyptian world. For Islamic Egyptians, pyramids were pagan relics of the past with little bearing on their advanced culture.

Copyists went to work, reproducing the text on the stone and disseminating it to colleagues around the world. Although other texts had been discovered, the connecting language, the middle language on the stone, remained a mystery. It wasn’t Aramaic and it wasn’t Coptic. And in 1801, the British stole the stone making its middle text even more elusive for its French discoverers.  

By 1802, the Rosetta stone would find its permanent, if not definitely legal, home in the British Museum. It would be another thirty years before hieroglyphics would be understood enough for full decipherment and the middle text would be designated as hieratic, a simple version of the hieroglyphs. Through the dedicated efforts of Jean Francois Champollion, a French scholar who was only nine years old when the stone was first discovered by Bouchard, the text and dictionary of ancient Egyptian

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languages was first published. His work showed that the ancient text didn’t contain vowels and used pictures to represent both sounds and statements.

To this day, the Rosetta stone sits in the British Museum, a highlight of the Egyptian collection and a testament to perseverance and scholarship.  The ability to read hieroglyphics helped archaeologists and Egyptologists to understand the succession of dynasties, the religion and cults of the dead, the ancient gods and their followers and of course, the secret world of one history’s most fascinating cultures - Ancient Egypt.

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The story of King Tut is filled with intrigue, lost tombs, forgotten bloodlines and ancient curses.  The historical facts are a little less dramatic but no less entertaining.  Because when the young Mr. Carter found the tomb, lost for three thousand years to the Egyptian sands, he sparked an interest in Egyptology and all things Egyptian which have not left us till this day.

“At first I could see nothing, the hot air escaping from the chamber causing the candle flame to flicker, but presently, as my eyes grew accustomed to the light, details of the room within emerged slowly from the mist, strange animals, statues, and gold - everywhere the glint of gold.”-Howard Carter

It was Theodore Davis, an American tourist and archeology enthusiast that first found clues to Tut-Ankh-Amun’s existence. Stolen goods from the lost tomb showed up among other funerary objects and were marked with Tut’s seal.  Tutankhamen’s name sparked the interest of Davis’s assistant Howard Carter. Carter, little more than a glorified copyist of Ancient Egyptian objects at the time, decided further investigation was necessary.

Many fruitless digging seasons would pass before Carter would find the prize of a lifetime. The sponsor of his investigations, the Earl of Carnarvon, was growing tired with the lack of progress in the search for Tut’s tomb. Carter had one more chance to find the lost royal.

It was late November in 1922, 13 years after Tut’s name first began showing up on the Egyptology circuit, that Carter broke through the plaster that hid the wonder of Tutankhamen’s final resting place. The find was one of the richest and most intact ancient Egyptian artifacts ever discovered, making headlines across the world. That day led to decades of study and speculation, inspired the art deco movement, improved archeological techniques and inspired a post war generation weary of strife and conflict.

Despite being robbed at least twice in ancient times, the cramped quarters were filled to the brim with funerary objects, canopic jars, treasure chests, golden furniture, pottery, jewelry; even a chariot or two. It would take a decade to fully catalog the items which still make onlookers gasp in awe.  The discovery would be Carter’s first and last as he spent the remainder of his days studying his findings and collecting more art and artifacts of that inspiring time of human history.

The name Tutankhamen means the living embodiment of Amun. Amun was known as the king of the Gods and King Tut adopted this name after he became ruler of Egypt in 1334 BCE. His given name was Tutankhaten. At nine years old, already married, Tut would begin his reign of approximately nine years with guardians and overseers interfering with the running of his kingdom.

Adding greatly to the architecture of the temples at both Karnak and Luxor, Tutankhamen was a lover of fine things, art and hunting. It was a peaceful reign. At the tender age of 18, Tut was dead. Whether from the hands of an enemy (or ally) or as the result of an accident, a broken leg and a piece of bone in his brain caused the demise of the king. Usurpers and jealous Egyptians erased much of Tut’s existence from the pages of history. Fortunately they left just enough to ensure his immortality.

Ancient Egypt Store King Tutankhamun Hunting Statue King Tutankhamun & Wife Ankhesenamun Large coffin of King Tutankhamun with small King Tut inside Set of Canopic Jars

Even today, the boy king lies ever in state, resting comfortably inside his original tomb in the Valley of the Kings. Visitors are ushered into the small compartment to view the casket and pay respects by the reverend locals, keepers of the tomb. His gold outer casket and the fineries of Carter’s find are on semi-permanent display at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, many hundreds of mile to the North. But the mummified remains stay close to home paying homage to the rich past of ancient Egypt and providing Luxor, the modern Mecca of history its crowning attraction.

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The great events in history are those where, upon special occasions, a man or a people have made a stand against tyranny, and have preserved or advanced freedom for the people. Sometimes tyranny has taken the form of the oppression of the many by the few in the same nation, and sometimes it has been the oppression of a weak nation by a stronger one. The successful revolt against tyranny, the terrible conflict resulting in the emancipation of a people, has always been the favorite theme of the historian, marking as it does a step in the progress of mankind from a savage to a civilized state.

One of the earliest as well as most notable of these conflicts of which we have an authentic account took place in Greece twenty-four hundred years ago, or five hundred years before the Christian era. At that time nearly all of Europe was inhabited by rude barbarous tribes. In all that broad land the arts and sciences which denote civilization had made their appearance only in the small and apparently insignificant peninsula of Greece, lying on the extreme southeast
border adjoining Asia.

At a period before authentic history begins, it is probable that roving tribes of shepherds from the north took possession of the hills and valleys of Greece. Shut off on the north by mountain ranges, and on all other sides surrounded by the sea, these tribes were able to maintain a sturdy independence for many hundred years. The numerous harbors and bays which subdivide Greece invited to a maritime life, and at a very early time, the descendants of the original shepherds became skillful navigators and courageous adventurers.

The voyages of Aeneas and Ulysses in the siege of Troy, and those of Jason in search of the golden fleece, and of Perseus to the court of King Minos, are the mythological accounts, embellished by imagination and distorted by time, of what were real voyages. Crossing the Mediterranean, Grecian adventurers became acquainted with the Egyptians, then the most civilized people of the world; and from Egypt they took back to their native country the germs of the arts and sciences which afterward made Greece so famous.

Thence improvements went forward with rapid strides. Hints received from Egypt were reproduced in higher forms. Massive temples became light and airy, rude sculpture became beautiful by conforming to natural forms, and hieroglyphics developed into the letters which Cadmus invented or improved. Schools were established, athletic sports were encouraged, aesthetic taste was developed, until in the arts, in philosophy, in science, and in literature the Greeks took the lead of all peoples.

As population increased, colonies went out, settling upon the adjacent coasts of Asia and upon the islands farther west. In Asia the Greek colonists were subject to the Persian Empire, which then extended its rule over all Western Asia, and claimed dominion over Africa and Eastern Europe. The Greeks, fresh from the freedom of their native land, could not patiently endure the extortions of the Persian government, to which their own people submitted without question;
hence conflicts arose which finally culminated in Persia taking complete possession of the Asiatic Greek cities.

But the ties of kinship were strong, and the people of Greece keenly resented the tyranny which had been exercised over their countrymen, and an irrepressible conflict arose between the two nations. The Persian king, Darius, determined to put an end to all annoyance by invading and subjugating Greece. Before the final march of his army, Darius sent heralds throughout Greece demanding soil and water as an acknowledgment of the supremacy of Persia, but Herodotus says that at Sparta, when this impudent demand was made, the heralds were thrown into wells and told to help themselves to all the earth and water they liked.

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After a long preparation, in 490 B.C., an army of one hundred thousand men or more,
under the command of Artaphernes, convoyed by a formidable fleet, invaded Greece.
For a long time it met with little opposition, and city after city submitted to the
overwhelming hosts of the Persian king. The approach to Athens was regarded as the
final turning point of the war.

Next Article in Series:
The Greco-Persian Wars Part II: Battle of Marathon
The Greco-Persian Wars Part III: The Battle of Thermopylae
The Greco-Persian Wars Part IV: Battle of Salamis
The Greco-Persian Wars Part V: Battle of Plataea
Source: Ten Great Events in History, James Johonnot, 1887.

Tags: 490 B.C., Aeneas, ancient egypt, Ancient Greek History, Ancient History, Ancient Persian History, Ancient Sparta, Artaphernes, Battle of Marathon, Corinthian Helmet, Darius The Great of Persia, Golden Fleece, Greco-Persian Wars, Greek City States, Greek Mythology, Herodotus, Jason and the Argonauts, King Minos, King of Persia, Persian Empire, Persian invasion of Greece, Persius, Siege of Troy, Trojan War, Ulysses