THE GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL IN THE TEMPLE OF AMUN AT KARNAK Volume I, Part 2: TRANSLATION AND COMMENTARY By: Peter J. Brand and William J. Murnane† INTRODUCTION In this volume, we will treat the reliefs copied by Nelson in an order somewhat different from that adopted in his volume of plates,1 which divided the Hall into southern and northern sectors and treated all elements in each area in a generally counter-clockwise sequence. In this work, scenes that lie on related architectural elements—specifically, the western portal (GHHK I.1, pls. 1-4, 131-134) and the eastern vestibule (ibid., pls. 110-118, 233-257)—will be grouped together, even when the different parts were decorated at separate periods. A few notes on translation: the reader will notice that we have translated some commonly occuring words and phrases differently from how they are traditionally rendered in English. Thus we translate nsw- bi.ty as “dual king” rather than “king of Upper and Lower Egypt” because these terms are frequently used independently of each other in a manner that does not suggest that they were geographically restrictive. Thus kings may be referred collectively as bit.yw with the connotation of “ancestral kings” or “kings of old.” Likewise, the term nsw used independently to refer to the king is so common as a designation of the general office of kingship that it seems unlike that it is to be restricted to Upper Egypt alone. Instead, nsw and bi.ty connote two different aspects of kingship, hence the translation “dual king.” Another common term refering to the king is Hm=f, traditionally translated as “his majesty.” We firmly believe, however, that Hm indicates the bodily form or incarnation of a divine being (including the king).2 As a result, the admittedly awkward “his person” is prefered while Hm used by itself becomes “incarnation.” 1 Harold H. Nelson, The Great Hypostyle Hall in the Temple of Amun at Karnak, vol. I, part 1, The Wall Reliefs, OIP 106 (Chicago, 1981). Hereafter GHHK I.1. 2 More work remains to be done with the term Hm, but see now J. Spiegel, “Die Grundbedeutung des Stammes Hm,” ZÄS 75 (1939), pp. 112-121. 1 Plan of the Hypostyle Hall showing the main architectural divsions containing wall scenes. 2 WEST WALL, PORTAL (Plates 1-4, 41 left, 131-134, 262) Scenes inscribed on the façade of this doorway were recarved over the original sunk relief decoration on the eastern gateway of the Second Pylon, a structure built by Horemheb and decorated under him and his successor, Ramesses I. Horemheb, who inscribed the façade and interior of the Second Pylon’s vestibule, may also have carved the earliest sunk relief decoration on the east face of the pylon, including the east facing jambs of the gate.3 This is not entirely certain, as Ramesses I inscribed a decorative frieze of his cartouche names on the now missing top of the pylon towers (just below the torus molding).4 We now know that Ramesses I also decorated the eastern end of the passage leading through the Second Pylon,5 and it is no doubt for this reason that Sety I chose to recognize his father when he reinscribed the doorway of his new columned hall.6 As first carved under Sety, the doorjambs featured both kings, officiating in alternating scenes.7 Ramesses II would later usurp the cartouches in all these tableaux, and he would also convert Sety I’s raised work on the southern jamb to sunk relief (plan 1). This was in keeping with his practice elsewhere in the Hall’s southern half, where he sought to homogenize his earlier work with the incised carvings of his later periods.8 Today, the gateway is preserved to a level slightly below its missing lintel that had not only bridged both sides of the door, but also the towers of the Second Pylon. The top of each jamb survives, although only part of a frieze that once surmounted them remains (north: GHHK I.1, pl. 262; south: ibid. pl. 41 left). This frieze’s design is a standard one, with cartouches arranged in pairs—the king’s prenomen and nomen alternating—each crowned by a solar disk and resting on a .9 Cobras flank the prenomen cartouches on either side, facing away from the cartouche between them. Each serpent wears a sun disk on its head, and its tail flows through . 3 See Keith C. Seele, The Coregency of Ramses II with Seti I and the Date of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak, SAOC 19 (Chicago, 1940), pp. 12-22; Peter J. Brand, Monuments of Seti I: Epigraphic, Historical and Art Historical Analysis, Probleme der Ägyptolgie 16 (Leiden, 2000), pp. 4-5. 4 Dozens of unpublished blocks from this frieze—later suppressed and reinscribed by Ramesses II—remain in the block yards between the main temple and that of Khonsu to the south. 5 To be published by the expedition of the University of Memphis’ Institute of Egyptian Art and Archaeology: for a preliminary report see William J. Murnane, “Egyptian Monuments and Historical Memory: New Light on the Ancients’ ‘Uses of the Past’ from the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak,” KMT (Fall 1994), pp. 15-24, 88; William J. Murnane et al., “The Karnak Hypostyle Hall Project: (1992-2002), ASAE 78 (2004), pp. 98-102 and figs. 7-10, 46-55. 6 As well as several scenes on the top register of the north wing of the west wall proper. See below commentary to pls. 138, 140-142. 7 William J. Murnane, “Ramesses I and the Building of the Great Hypostyle Hall at Karnak Revisited.” in Iubilate Conlegae: Egyptological Studies in Memory of A. A. Sadek, ed. C.C. Van Siclen, VA 10.2-3 (1995), pp. 163-168; Murnane et al., ASAE 78 (2004), p. 101 and fig. 17. 8 Seele, Coregency, pp. 53-60. See above, chapter 2.3.1 and 2.5. 9 Similar friezes are found in various contemporary Theban temples. So in the Gurnah temple hypostyle hall and at the top of the piers in the Ramesseum’s second court, both with the prenomen flanked by uraei. In the vestibule to the Ramesses I suite at Gurnah, however, the nomen is flanked by the uraei. Moreover, in all these examples, the cartouches sit atop -signs, not on -basket as on the West gateway. 3 Sety I inscribed this face of the doorway in raised relief, and on the jambs, he alternated scenes in his own name (GHHK I.1, pls. 2, 4, 132, 134) with others carved in the name of his deceased father Ramesses I (ibid., pls. 1, 3, 131, 133).10 Ultimately, Ramesses II usurped the royal names of his father and grandfather in sunk relief. On the north jamb (ibid., pls. 131-134), he only recarved hieroglyphic signs within the royal cartouche rings and Horus-name serekh (ibid., pl. 133) as sunken relief. Otherwise, Ramesses II left Sety’s raised relief decoration on this jamb intact. However, on the south jamb (ibid., pls. 1-4) of the doorway, Ramesses II also converted Sety’s raised relief into sunk, as he did with the rest of Sety’s decoration carved in that medium south of the central axis along with his own early bas reliefs there. When Ramesses II replaced the names of his forbearers with his own on the jambs of this gateway, he used the nomen Ra-ms-s everywhere except in the upper two uppermost scenes from the north jamb and in the top frieze just above them (GHHK I.1, pls. 131-132), where Ra-ms-sw occurs. Ra-ms-sw, as can be observed in the southern part of the Great Hall, was occasionally Ramesses’ spelling of his personal name prior to his second regnal year when it coexisted with Ra-ms-s. But when he changed his prenomen to its final form, Wsr-mAa.t-Ra-stp.n.Ra, he altered the spelling of his nomen to Ra-ms-s and continued to write it thus until after the twenty-first year of his reign, from which point the nomen was always written Ra-ms-sw.11 The situation is puzzling,12 however there are rare instances elsewhere in which the two nomen orthographies appear to coexist after year two and before year 21 in the Luxor Temple forecourt.13 Sety I left a space corresponding to the height of a full register uncarved beneath the lowest scene on each jamb. This emptiness is most striking on the north side of the door, where a limestone dyad, dating to the late Eighteenth Dynasty and portraying Amun and a king, now stands.14 On the south side of the portal, 10 See Murnane, VA 10 (1994), pp. 166-168; Brand, Monuments of Seti I, pp. 208, 215. 11 Kenneth A. Kitchen, “Aspects of Ramesside Egypt,” in Actes du premier congrès international d’égyptologie. 2–10 octobre 1976, ed. W. F. Reineke, Schriften zur Geschichte und Kulture des Alten Orients 14, (Berlin, 1979), pp. 383-387. 12 One might expect that Ramesses made all these usurpations at the same time rather than at widely separated intervals. His conversions of raised relief on the south jamb would have been done fairly early in the reign while his nomen was still Ra-ms-s, as with replacements of Sety’s raised relief on the south half of the west wall (see our commentary to GHHK I.1, pls. 31-33 below). Ramesses II’s usurpations and additions of new decoration in the northern half of the building were done sometime after his year 21 when the nomen was Ra-ms-sw.