Old Mummication Museum lectures 9th pylon Karnak

Excavations in the court of 9th Pylon Prof Charles Van Siclen
Last Thursdays lecture was one of the most complex ones I have attended and I am not sure I can give it justice without the excellent slides.
Prof Siclen had been working on the Temple Amenhotep II and his aim was to reproduce where it was originally. However this excavation uncovered a bag of worms as the court of the 9th pylon was about the most complex and reproduces the whole history of Karnak. With the aid of line drawings Prof. Siclen showed us the development of the area from Middle Kingdom until late Byzantine times and the presence of Coptic buildings.

In his description of the Middle Kingdom view of this area he placed for us several reconstructed edifices from the open air museum such the bark shrine and the lintel of Senusert I. The Nile was much closer at those times as well as the ground being much lower. This Middle kingdom area was damaged in Ancient Times and as a consequence a later tower was put at an oblique angle. As Prof. Siclen went through his slides he showed his line drawings and then pictures of the actual mud brick that proved his superstition. This area of the temple was outside the main Amun temple for the early part of its life. The complexity of the various eras was shown in mud brick and stone foundations and it was impressive how he made sense of the maze of remnants. I would like to give you more but honestly notes without the slides do not make sense. I did ask him but he doesn’t have a web site so anyone wanting more detail is going to have to wait until he publishes.