The Quay of Amen is the landing stage where the great boats bearing statues of Amen and his entourage docked on festival occasions. It is a sandstone platform, 13 by 15 meters, reached today by a wooden bridge that crosses the eastern end of the ancient T-shaped basin. Two four-meter (13 feet) high obelisks once stood at the northeast and southeast corners of the platform and one of them, carved for Sety II (Dynasty 19), stands there today.
A granite pedestal in the center of the quay was used during ceremonies to hold a model bark bearing the god’s statue. When the lower part of the quay was recently cleared, texts of the Third Intermediate Period were found that recorded the heights of annual Nile floods. The occurred in the sixth year of the reign of Taharqa (684 BC) and flooded the Hypostyle Hall in the Temple of Amen with 84 centimeters (33 inches) of water. Such floods continued until a drainage canal was dug around Karnak in 1925.
Southeast of the quay(slightly to its right) near the First Pylon stands a chapel of Acoris, a king of Dynasty 29. It is one of several way stations where priests carrying statues of the god could pause for prayers during processions to and from the Temple of Amen. The statues were brought forth from their temple sanctuaries in gilded shrines on model boats borne on the shoulders of priests. From the quay they were sent off on great barges on ceremonial visits to various Upper Egyptian temples.
Two such boats were called Merit-Amen and Userhet and were made of cedar wood, decorated with sheets of gold and elaborately woven fabrics. Musicians and dancers performed age-old rituals and offering bearers carried inlaid boxes filled with gold and jewels and finest linen. Priests, dignitaries, and local villagers watched in awe as the statue of the god passed by. Before the First Pylon was built, these processions would have passed through an area in front of the First Pylon filled with lush gardens and ponds of papyrus and lotus flowers. We have paintings of these gardens in several private tombs at Thebes (for example in TT 49, the tomb of Neferhetep from the end of Dynasty 18, and TT 161, the tomb of Nakht from the reign of Amenhetep III). From these sources, we know that royal palaces were built north of the quay and were surrounded by gardens of date palms and pomegranate trees.
Vegetables and flowers grew in profusion, many of them used in offerings made to the god. On the east side of the quay, a ramp slopes down to an avenue of sphinxes called the Way of Offerings, which leads to the First Pylon. The figures are criosphinxes, bodies of lions with the heads of rams, symbols of the god Amen. Small figures of King Rameses II in the pose of Osiris stand between their paws. It was once thought the sphinxes were the work of Rameses II, but in fact they were carved for Amenhetep III and Thutmes IV in Dynasty 18 and installed at Luxor Temple. They were usurped by Rameses II and moved here only later.
Forty criosphinxes line the avenue today, but before the First Pylon was erected, when the Avenue of Sphinxes extended to the Second Pylon, there were 124. After the First Pylon was built, 84sphinxes were moved alongside the walls of the First Court. They were to have been taken to another site, but that did not happen and so they stand here even today.
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