Precinct of Amun-Re

Feel the ground first. Under your shoes is packed sand and worn stone, warm even in the early hours. Ahead, a double line of stone rams rests on low plinths, their curled horns facing the path. Somewhere behind the great gateway, a pigeon claps its wings, and the sound echoes off walls built more than three thousand years ago. You are standing at the edge of the Precinct of Amun-Re, the heart of the vast temple complex at Karnak.

The ancient Egyptians had a name for this place. They called it Ipet-sut, which is often translated as the most select of places. It was the home on earth of Amun-Re, the king of the gods. Amun-Re was a joining of two ideas: Amun, a hidden and invisible force, and Re, the sun. For centuries, Thebes, the city we now call Luxor, served as a religious capital, and this precinct sat at its centre.

Here is the first surprise. No single pharaoh built this temple. Construction and rebuilding went on for close to two thousand years, from the Middle Kingdom down to the time of the Ptolemies, the Greek-speaking dynasty founded after Alexander the Great. Each ruler added a gate, a hall, a chapel, or an obelisk. Some also took down the work of earlier kings and reused the blocks. So what you see is not one plan. It is many plans, layered one on top of another.

Look at the ram-headed sphinxes along the approach. The ram was a sacred animal of Amun. Between the front paws of many of these figures, a small statue of a king stands under the ram's chin, as if protected by the god. Lines of sphinxes like this once connected Karnak with Luxor Temple, about three kilometres to the south. During the Opet Festival, priests carried the god's image along that route in a sacred boat, while crowds watched from the sides.

Now face the First Pylon, the massive gateway in front of you. A pylon is a pair of sloping towers with a doorway between them. In Egyptian thought it echoed the hieroglyph for horizon, the place where the sun rises between two hills. This pylon is one of the later additions to the precinct, and it was never finished. The stone faces were never smoothed or carved. Its rough surface shows you a building site that simply stopped.

And there is a second surprise behind it. Once you pass through, look back at the inner face of the pylon. Traces of a ramp made of mud brick remain against the stone. Many scholars believe ramps like this one helped workers lift blocks into place as the towers grew. Very few construction ramps survive anywhere in Egypt. Here, the scaffolding of an ancient project still leans against the wall it was meant to build.

Walk on, and the light changes. You are entering the Great Hypostyle Hall. Hypostyle simply means a roof held up by columns, and here there are 134 of them, packed so closely that the hall feels like a forest of stone. The work is mainly linked to Seti the First and his son, Ramesses the Second. The twelve central columns are the tallest, roughly twenty metres high, with tops carved like open papyrus flowers.

Stand between those central columns and tilt your head back. High above, on the undersides of the stone beams and on the column tops, you can still see colour: blues, reds, and ochre yellows. Once the whole hall was painted. Look also for tall window openings near the top of the central aisle, filled with stone grilles. Light fell through those slits into a hall that was mostly in shadow. Imagine thin bars of sun moving slowly across the floor through the day.

The outer walls of this hall carry a different kind of story. On the north side, reliefs show Seti the First at war, riding a chariot and striking down enemies. On the south side, the carvings belong to Ramesses the Second. Nearby on these southern walls, scholars have identified the Egyptian text of the peace treaty between Ramesses and the Hittites, a rival empire in what is now Turkey. It is one of the oldest known peace treaties in the world.

Further inside, the precinct opens up, and two needles of granite rise against the sky. One standing obelisk belongs to Thutmose the First. Beyond it rises a taller one raised for Hatshepsut, one of the few women to rule Egypt as pharaoh. Each obelisk was cut from a single piece of pink granite from Aswan, far to the south, and moved down the Nile by boat. The tip of a fallen companion now lies near the Sacred Lake.

Past the main sanctuary, look for the festival hall of Thutmose the Third, known as the Akh-menu. In one of its side rooms, the walls are carved with plants and animals that the king is said to have brought back from campaigns in the Near East. Visitors often call it the botanical garden. Some species are easy to recognise. Others still puzzle experts. It is a small, quiet room, and many people walk straight past it.

Now head toward the Sacred Lake, a large rectangular pool lined with stone. Priests used its water for daily purification before entering the temple. Beside it sits a large stone scarab beetle on a tall base, linked to Amenhotep the Third. The scarab was a symbol of the rising sun. Local guides say that if you walk around it several times, you will have good luck, or even find love. It is a modern custom, not an ancient one, but it is fun to watch.

Before you leave, pause by the lake for a moment. Listen to the water birds, the low voices of guides in many languages, the scrape of shoes on old stone. Look back at the pylons and the tops of the columns, pale gold in the sun. Every block around you was placed by human hands, by generation after generation who believed a god lived here. As you walk out between the rams, notice how small you feel... and how close the past still is.