 To the south of the girdle wall of Ramesses II at the
Temple
of Amun at Karnak in ancient
Thebes (modern
Luxor) is a
rectangular Sacred Lake, dug by Tuthmosis
III. It is the
largest of its kind, that we know of, and is lined with
stone and provided with stairways descending into the water.
It measures some 120 meters (393 feet) by 77 meters (252
feet). We believe that most temple precincts included a sacred
lake. Water from the lake, filled with groundwater, was used
by the priests for ritual ablutions and other temple needs,
and was also home to the sacred geese of Amun. However, it was
symbolically important in the ancient Egyptian's concept of
creation, representing the primeval waters from which life
arose. Like all the monuments at Karnak, according to Legrain,
it to has its legend:
"On certain nights, a golden barque
emerges from the waters of the lake, as resplendent as in
days of yore, and the king who steers it is in pure gold,
and his sailors are of silver. And when the moon shines, the
barque sails, leaving behind a long wake of precious stones.
At times it comes to the dock, as well, and then if some
brave soul with a heart thrice bound in bronze comes forth
to dare the great adventure, he climbs aboard the phantom
ship, then, victorious, returns to his home laden with
fabulous treasure; but everyone knows that if he makes the
slightest sound, the merest sigh, the fairy barque, the gold
king, and the silver sailors will sink immediately below the
waves of the lake, which will engulf the foolhardy one
forever....
However, the appearances of the mysterious boat are
becoming more and more rare; for more than thirty years no
one can boast of truly seeing it... It is not, alas! soon to
reappear, for my storyteller added that it would not be seen
again until there was no longer a liar or a thief within the
country."
 At the northern corner of the lake between it and the
Osirian Temple of Taharqa was located a huge granite statue of
a scarab dedicated by Amenhotep III and, according to A.
Varille, brought from his West
Bank mortuary
temple. However,
others believe that it actually came from Kom el-Heitan, where
another funerary temple of Amenhotep III was built. The front
face of the cylindrical pedestal on which the scarab rests has
been flattened to form a stela, and is carved entirely in sunk
relief. On it, the kneeling king makes an offering of two nu
vessels to Atum of
Heliopolis. The solar disk set between the
two extended wings that crown the text forms part of the name
of Nebmaatre that is inscribed in the vertical axis of this
stela. The text carved on the side of the stela explicitly
states that it concerns "Khepri who rises from the
earth".
 Among the most significant restoration projects, and being
achieved totally by Egyptian restorers, is the consolidation
and removal of Amenhotep III's red granite scarab, which has
now been relocated to the lake's western side in order to make
more space for the influx of tourists inside the temple.
Before the removal comprehensive consolidation and cleaning
took place. As a side note to this structure, the local guides
tell tourists that if one walks around the scarab seven times,
he or she will never again have love problems. So it is common
to see the tourists making laps around the scarab.
The lake's rough-hewn stone edging is punctuated on the
southern side by the opening of a stone tunnel through which
the domestic geese of Amun were released into the lake from
the fowl-yards a little further to the south. However, geese
were not the only birds that adorned the surface of this lake,
for a variety of ducks were also included in the aviary.
On the sacred lake is also the remains of the priests'
homes, which now lie beneath the seating erected for the sound
and light show. These ruins are located on the eastern side of
the lake, and have been the subject of excavations since the
1970s. Recently, archaeologists have discovered  here a number
of ceramic fragments, tokens, seal imprints and coins dating
from the reign of Shoshenq I of the
22nd Dynasty, as well as
clay pots from the 26th and
27th Dynasties. Silver
ingots and two silver coins, originally from northern Greece
and dating from about the 27th Dynasty, were found at house
number five. "This new discovery puts the emphasis on the
wealth of its owner, and is much appreciated as giving a
chronological fix, given that it places this treasure in
history at the moment of the Persian debacle," Abdel-Aziz
said. He added that the excavations revealed that the
inhabitants of the houses were without doubt of high rank.
Various titles of priests have been found, among them the
priest in charge of opening the golden naos (shrine) of Amun.
The priests of
Karnak probably did not purify themselves in
the water of the sacred lake directly, because its waters were
not pure enough for this purpose. Rather, the water was
probably itself purified before being used by the
priests.
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See also:
Resources:
| Title |
Author |
Date |
Publisher |
Reference Number |
|
Ancient Egypt The Great Discoveries (A Year-by-Year Chronicle) |
Reeves, Nicholas |
2000 |
Thmes & Hudson, Ltd |
ISBN 0-500-05105-4 |
|
Dictionary of Ancient Egypt, The |
Shaw, Ian; Nicholson, Paul |
1995 |
Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers |
ISBN 0-8109-3225-3 |
|
Egyptian Treasures from the Egyptian Museum in Cairo |
Tiradritti, Francesco, Editor |
1999 |
Harry N. Abrams, Inc. |
ISBN 0-8109-3276-8 |
|
Oxford Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, The |
Redford, Donald B. (Editor) |
2001 |
American University in Cairo Press, The |
ISBN 977 424 581 4 |
|
Temples of Karnak, The |
de :Lubicz, R. A. Schwaller |
1999 |
Inner Tradition |
ISBN 0-89281-712-7 |
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