A few meters west of the scarab and obelisk, a small doorway leads through a north-south wall into a courtyard that marks the start of the Temple of Amen’s second building axis. That axis runs at roughly a right angle to the axis of the First through Sixth Pylons. It extends from the Seventh Pylon through the Tenth and on to the Temple of Mut. The new axis was actually established by Queen Hatshepsut when she erected the Eighth Pylon, one of the earliest pylons to be built at Karnak.
Earlier New Kingdom temples and shrines already stood in the area when Hatshepsut ordered work here, and the new axis was intended to provide a processional connection between them, the Temple of Amen, and the Temple of Mut. Shortly after ascending the throne, Thutmes III built a Seventh Pylon in front of the Eighth.
The courtyard created between the Seventh Pylon and the Great Hypostyle Hall is known by Egyptologists as the Cour de la Cachette. It was the place where ancient priests buried temple paraphernalia they no longer required, a repository similar to what in other religions is called a “favissa” or a “genizah.” Such house cleanings may have taken place regularly as old statues and furniture were discarded to make way for the scores of new statues and shrines constantly being produced in temple workshops. (These workshops were overseen by such officials as Neferrenpet, whose Theban tomb, TT 178, contains scenes of the many crafts projects they undertook.)
Between 1902 and 1909, the French archaeologist Georges Legrain cleared a huge pit that had been dug in the Cour de la Cachette in the Ptolemaic Period. Using thirty-two shadufs— local Egyptian water-lifting devices with a bucket on a counter-balanced pole—he was able to dig 14 meters (46 feet) into the ancient pit before ground water forced him to stop. In the pit, Legrain uncovered 780 larger-than-life-size stone statues, 17,000 bronze statuettes, and hundreds of architectural fragments that had been buried here by temple priests around 300 BC. It is one of largest caches of statuary ever discovered. The objects are now in the Egyptian Museum, Cairo.
Legrain could not recover all of the statues buried here, and undoubtedly many more will one day be found. the north wall of the First Court, which is also the south wall of the Great Hypostyle Hall, was decorated for Rameses II in the hasty manner typical of his reign, but its texts have considerable historical interest. They include a copy of the peace treaty Egypt signed with the Hittite ruler, Hatusilis III, in regnal year 21.
Among its clauses, it declares that, “The Great Ruler of Hatti shall never trespass against the land of Egypt, to takeanything from it. And [Rameses II], the Great Ruler of Egypt, shall never trespass against the land [of Hatti, to take anything fromit.]” Then it quaintly states that the signing of the treaty was witnessed by “thousands of gods, male and female,” and by “the mountains and the rivers of the land of Egypt; the sky, the earth, the great sea, the winds, and the clouds.” The lawyers had thought of everything. The Seventh Pylon has seven statues in front of it: four of Thutmes III (at left), two of Second Intermediate Period kings (on the right),and one of Amenhetep II. They are not in their original positions.
There is also a fragment of an obelisk carved for Thutmes III; its twin, which originally stood before the pylon’s west (right) tower, is now in Istanbul. Between the Seventh and Eighth Pylons, in the left (east) wall of the Second Court, an alabaster shrine was built by Thutmes III.Hatshepsut’s Eighth Pylon is carved with a text written by her, but which she falsely attributed to Thutmes I, that offers a justification for her ascendancy to the throne of Egypt. The pylon was reinscribed by Thutmes III, defaced by Amenhetep IV/ Akhenaten, and restored by Sety I. On the north face of its left (east) tower, Sety I offers to the gods.
In an earlier scene here, Thutmes II walked forward with the lion-headed goddess Werethekau and the goddess Hathor. On the right (west) tower, Sety I walks with the falconheaded god Montu and priests who carry a sacred bark. On the rear (south) face of the pylon, Amenhetep II grasps foreign captives in the presence of Amen. It is rare that such prisoners are depicted standing, as they are here, instead of kneeling.
On the Ninth Pylon, Horemheb is shown in procession with a sacred bark. The Ninth Pylon is currently being restored after sixty thousand blocks, taken by Horemheb from buildings of Amenhetep IV, (Akhenaten) and used as fill, were removed by archaeologists. A Sed-festival temple for Amenhetep II was built on the left (east) side of the Fourth Court between the Ninth and Tenth Pylons, and scenes of Rameses II and Horemheb cover its walls and the faces of the pylons. Sety I undertook extensive restoration in this part of the Central Enclosure. Beyond the Tenth Pylon, an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes continues to the Temple of Mut.
From" The Illustrated Guide to Luxor" by kent R.Weeks ,published by the American University in Cairo Press. Copyright © 2005 White Star S.p.a