17679744 Chapel Rouge Karnak

La chapelle rouge: le sanctuaire de barque d’hatshepsut. Centre franco-égyptien d’étude des temples des Karnak Publisher: Paris CultureFrance, éditions recherché sur les civilization, 2006 - authors: Burgas, Franck Larché, François Arnaudiès, Alain

Translation by Kim Morgan of Mandrake (Draft) www.mandrake.uk.net When the queen Hatshepsut undertook the enterprise to edify the resting place for the divine barque of Amon Ra in the temple of Karnak, she could not have imagined the tribulations that were awaiting this monument to piety. She thought to complete in a harmonious manner the monumental ensemble which she had erected on a vast podium near the heart of the original temple, just to the east of the edifices of her husband and his predecessors. Had the gods given her more time, as they did for her successor Thutmose III, without doubt she would have pursued this endeavour in rebuilding these final monuments. Since they [the Thutmose] had taken the reigns of the country, in effect they had attached themselves to the aura of the temple, its dynastic god, in effect the Heliopolis of the south. It has got to be said that the entire temple had suffered mainly during the difficult time of the Hiksos domination. The Theban priests had less means to look after the fabric of the temple, than those resources of the state of ancient times. Thebes was far from Avaris, the capital of the new masters in the eastern Delta, and Amoun Ra was far too dangerous a national flag carrier. Hatshepsut was one of the great restorators of sanctuaries neglected and more or less fallen into disuse, during middle and high Egypt. In Karnac she followed in the steps of the builders from the beginning of the second millennium, developing probably some project of the greatest of those Sesostris I. No one can say today if she again took for her barque sanctuary the place of the one that existed in the twelfth dynasty. It is probable but nobody can prove such a thing. The recent discovery of the Franco Egyptian centre of Studies of the Temples of Karnak show, in effect that the temple spread in the Middle Kingdom much more to the West of the said courtyard of the Middle Kingdom, as recent unproved theories had contended. However this resting barque sanctuary was probably one of the last works of the Queen, which she probably never saw finished. With the crowning the Thutmose III starts the adventure of this monument, which would bring it towards us, nearly intact. At his accession Thutmose III seems to have been torn between the two desires; following of the work of his predecessor as the tradition required; and getting away from the memory of the over long dominance of the Queen. The second brought him to start officially his reign 22 years earlier. The first to terminate piously the foundations she who had preceded him in the royal charge. He finished the decoration and elevated the west façade in order to inscribe the scenes of his crowning. He also

ordered the closing of the lateral north passage and commissioned a door to command the lateral south passage. The analysis of the pigments affected area by the researchers of the Egyptian centre of Studies of the Temples of Karnak had even revealed several pictorial layers probably corresponding to the several successive stages of decoration until the last. This finding is now without raising the question of the so-called proscription of the defunct queen by her successor which is easily presented and in a manner however a bit romantic as grinding, left in inertia while waiting for the death of Hatshepsut. Then getting angry and raising mayhem against her memory. If there had been any re-use of monuments its only later during the new kingdom that the queen disappeared from the King List. However the excavation and the architectural study of the sanctuary zone of the barque led by François Larché during this last five years have confirmed the position of the Chapel Rouge as thought already by H Chevrier and and P Lacau at the place by which Thutmose III replaced it. And then on which in his turn Philip Affhideaeus, much later, reproduced, on a larger scale the monument of Thutmose III. It has been verified that this chapel belonged to a vast project initiated by her architect Senmut, a project which included heraldic pillars, as well as the rooms of Hatshepsut, the sixth pylon, with its porticoed courtyard and their chapels. The foundation deposit, the names of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, discovered in April 2005 by Romain Mensan under the foundation of the South Chapel, the most easterly and under the south mole of the sixth pylon; put in evidence the architectural continuity between the architectural construction of Hatshepsut and those of Thutmose III. At the beginning of his effective reign Thutmose III modified the west façade, and the monument of Hatshepsut. More exactly and more probably he allowed the chapel to be finished. But, at the same time from the year 23 year was born another project: to remodel this essential part of the temple, the last step of the royal accession towards the sanctuary, renovating the work of Sesostris I. The text of construction left by Thutmose III says in an explicit manner, confirmed by archaeology. He transposed in the stone the edifices made of brick from the first Thutmosides, remodelled the interpretation that was given to Hatshesput for the Wadjit to the east in the forth pylon and created his own wadjit even more in the east, encapsulating the chapel of the queen and replacing its heart, completely encasing the sanctuary of the barque, the goal is describe the divine service to Amon Ra which is put in place to restore the ancient splendour of the temple. A vast ensemble of texts shares the two halves of the space – in the north part the military annals of the reign of years 23 to 42 describe the bringing of tributes. The south part exposes the pious foundations and the calendar of offerings. This project is only completed shortly before the end of the reign. But it is now clear that Thutmose III wishing to dispose of the ensemble carried his mark for the year 30. He started very early the vast ensemble of Akhmenou and most probably at the same time had the Red Chapel pulled apart. This rapid disassembling seems very well confirmed by the fact that the representations of the queen have not been chiselled off at this moment but much later at the time of the proscription. Blocks have been discovered underneath the foundation of the temple of Ptah, which was built very early in the reign of Thutmose

III! Whatever he retakes the foundation of the Chapel Rouge to erect his own, decorating the two heraldic pillars, which from now command the walkway (periptere) by the west on which the date of his jubilee was found. The heraldic pillars have been effect built in front of the CR to hold the cover of the access stairway; they are certainly part of the project conceived at the beginning by Senmut. Their decoration date, probably of their erection, that is to say just after the death of the Queen. This axial orientation of the chapel was already chosen by Hatshepsut; it stays from then it has remained until today. Taken apart the RC waits for better days. It is not actually possible to say which was the place where its blocks have been deposited after its disassembling. It is possible that their storehouse must have been relatively close by to the original site, very probably in the north of the constructions of the West/East axis; the rehabilitation of the North/S axis, initiated without doubt after the dissembling of the CR, the one by sacred lake and of the zone where the habitat of the priests, no other localisation is practical. The fact that Amenhope III hasn’t used all the blocks of CR because some have been found to have been reused in the constructions of Ramose II and Ramose III, is proof in favour of such a storehouse for dissembled monuments waiting re-use. The hypothesis of a storehouse organised without doubt less efficiently that those of CFEETK construct today outside the zones built in the heart of premises but proceeding with the same intention to preserve and catalogue these element of architecture, which serve also as a model for the artist. Which also lies on the fact that these blocks were preserves with care. Very rare were in effect the scratches other than those due to be disassembled. Talking about the reliefs the state of preservations speaks for itself. It is of this material (gisement) substance that Amenhotep III will source part of the filling of the northern mole of the 3rd pylon, which he built immediately in the western zone of the court of the peristyle of Thutmose IV, transforming the equilibrium of the location to give it an aspect close to the one that we know today. The monument known then after a long sleep of nearly three and half millennium until George Legrain dissembled the third pylon at the beginning of the 20th century of our era. The history of the reconstruction starts then. It will last more than a century. -----------Since their discovery, George Legrain and Edouard Naville, then Georges Pillet, published these reports of this monument, until Pierre Lacau attached himself to his Egyptological reconstitution. He makes a complete photographic survey of the blocks, which he studies in his course at the College of France between 1943 and 1944, and starts the publication in association with Henry Chevrier, which does the architectural study. Unfortunately Pierre Lacau died and we must wait until the beginning of the 1970s for the publication that his death had left unfinished, thanks to the team reunited by Michel Gitton. Since the 1930s the blocks of the Chapel Rouge had found in the Open Air Museum of the temple, a place which seems definitive. But the story doesn’t stop here.

In the beginning of the 1990s the idea had germinated to start an anastylosis of this monument on which most of the meaning had not been said. Thus we attach ourself to Francois Larché himself, to analyse this project; we disposed of a percentage reasonably sufficient of the assembly of the edifice and we could use the support of the excellent study of its decoration done by Pierre Lacau, which publication assured that the greatest part of the reconstitutions which had the advantage to underline the weak point of these. However the Centre for franco-egyptien Studies of the Temple of Karnak deployed a team of restorators and stone-cutters of which the competency and observation weren’t lacking and which brought a lot to this anastylosis . In November 1995 in Karnak, the anastylosis project of the Chapel Rouge was explained to Paul Dubrule, co-founder of the group ACCOR, by Alain Fouquet-Abrial and Francois Larché, in front of the blocks decorated in quartzite and diorite exposed on shelves (banquettes) in the Open Air Museum. Each shelf supported a still incomplete layer (assise) in the chapel in which the plan was to be reconstituted according to the form on these shelves. The 21st January 1996 in Fontainebleau, Beatrice Dubrule and Alain Fouquet-Abrial, both passionate about Egyptology, convinced Paul Dubrule to associate the ACCOR group with the financing of the reconstruction of the Chapel Rouge. Ahmed Maghrabi, then minister of tourism and president of the Egyptian Hotels of the ACCOR group, was the general business manager, whilst Jean-Marc Espaliou, president of ACCOR, came to visit and encourage the project in progress and Jean Robert Reznik contacted the media. The new stone floor in quartzite, the new cornices and jambs of the eastern door in black granite was provided by the Egyptian Antiquities Service, which came from the Aswan quarries. Since 2001 the Chapel Rouge of Hatshepsut is erected in the Open Air Museum of Karnak. The anastylosis has permitted to find the exact dimension and its original placing in the centre of the rooms of Hatshepsut . This reconstitution has also benefited from the indispensable support of the foundation. Michela Schiff Giorgini and Madame Gilberte Beaux, which had reunited the monetary gift of many other philanthropists. Some like Mark Rudkin, , the Princess Amenah F S al-Sabah and Claude Picasso had very kindly donated to the reconstruction of the chapel, others had financed the realisation of the drawings and this publication. It’s about French people like Louis Gallois, president of the SNCR, Madame Messine, secretary of state for tourism, and Claude Sarrazin, and Swiss such as Jean Louis Domercq and Hans R Spillmann, of Belgium like Paul-Emmanuel and Daniel Janssen and Albert de Limburg-Stirum, of Italian like Barbara Burgerhout, Nanni Benazzo, Eduado Ferrero and Gregorio Rossi and of an amercian Andrew C Ware. This is because of the support of the ministry of foreign affairs that this volume was published, edited by Hina Descat, responsible for d’ere a l’adpf.

The facsimile were copied on transparent film by Pascale Goudet and Amelie Gourand before being verified by Luc Gabolde. There were reduced to 70% of the original, these facsimile were then redrawn on polyester film. The drawings have then been corrected and completed by Helena Zacharias-Delaporte, Marine Estrangin, Magaku Cortijo and Francois Larché. The decorated faces and the vertical joints and the beds were photographed at the same scale, (1250 shots) by Antoine Chene and Romain Perrot. Then the makette of the proofs showing the faces of all the blocks were prepared by Philippe Groscaux. The putting together of the blocks was photographed by Bastien Poulin. The blocks that were put together were photographed by Gauthier Bancel and Gael Pollin. Antoine Chene directed the whole design and the drawing and photographs of each scene. The provisional assembly proposed by Lacau and Chevrier served as a base to Franck Burgos, who with the help of 300 prints at 1/5th scale of the decorated faces, has been able to recompose this puzzle and thus reconstitute the external and internal elevations of both facades, the medium wall and the two long sides. These elevations show that 60% of the walls are preserved. Janusz Karkowsky and Luc Gabolde proposed the assemblage of the block of the second layer (assise), on which is engraved the long oracular text in columns. Cecile Laberenne and Olivier Perraguin have made at 1/10th scale the plans of the resting beds and of the eight layers (assises) superimposed as well as the ten elevations of the walls. Laurent Baque had vectorised these architectural drawings to be able to realise of the restitution of Francois Larché, in three dimensions the views of the chapel in the middle of the rooms of Hatshepsut. Thanks to the drawings of the resting beds, the position of the staples, have permitted to change the layers in the hypothesis of the Pierre Lacau and Henri Chevrier, 19 blocks. These same staples were equally permitted to reposition in same layer 16 blocks. Finally Alain Arnaudies developed a specific database, which included description of more than 300 blocks of the Chapel Rouge and 1800 shots preserved in our archives. This database reprises the different iconographic indexes established by Piere Lacau of the different scenes. ----------The reconstitution was directed by Franck Burgos who had equally assured the size of the new blocks in quartzite and black granite was correct, with the aid of Damien Remiot, Cyril Deleporte, Christopher Chini and Guillaume Boisanfray. The consolidation and cleaning of the blocks colour pigments were realised by Pascal Maritaux with the aid of Hubert Lafore, Helene Delaunay and Christie Douet. “The favourite place of Amoun”, because such is the name of the Chapel Rouge – the name that Thutmose III will keep – occupies a strategic position in the temple. Placed on “The stairway of Amoun”, this is to mean the platform erected by Hatshepsut as a foundation of the assemble of the mechanism (dispositif) that she had constituted (which is today improperly called the “Palace of Maat”), it is in the heart of the apparatus of the royal offering. This is this offering that Thutmose III started to describe in the vast assemble of his annals, which encloses as a jewel box in the Chapel of the Sacred Bark.

The scenes which decorate the sides of the Chapel Rouge explain its role, while expressing, by their extraordinary finesse the precious unique character, of this monument. Chiselled with precision in the quartzite so hard, they are a testimony of the grace and elegance of the parietal art, that knew with Hatshepsut a blossoming which crescendos until the reign of Amenhotep III. This decoration responds to the usual rules of a divine monument: the exterior sides are turned towards the world in which is inscribed the chapel; the interior described its cultural functioning. On the first layer of the four sides, all around, figures the geographical traditional procession (p 15 – 29); while of the second layer of the long sides is engraved in retrograde columns, an historical text (p. 30 – 42). Then come, from the 3rd to 8th layer, the great processions of the sacred barque. On the south side, the procession of the feast of Opet towards Luxor (p. 43 – 54). The offerings of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (p. 55 – 58), the return of the procession of the feast of Opet towards karnak (p. 59 – 65), the offerings of Hatshepsut and T3 (p. 67 – 73), the conscrecration of the obelisks and the crowning of H (p. 75 – 84), finally, the dedication of Thutmose III and the discourse of Amoun to the Ennead (p. 85 – 93). On the north side, the procession of the feast of the Valley towards Dier el Bahri (p. 95 – 99), the offerings of Hatshepsut and T3 (p 101 – 107), the return of the procession of the feast of Valley towards Karnak (p. 108 –114), the offerings of H and T3 to the Enneads (p. 115 – 121), then finally, the crowning of Hatshepsut (p. 123 – 128). The two facades are dedicated to Amoun and Amoun-Min and evoke the crowning of the two sovereigns. The west façade represents the offerings of H to Amoun and Amoun-Min (p. 132-137), the crowning of H (p. 138 – 139), the one of T3 (p. 140 – 141), the offerings of T3 to A and AM (p. 142 – 143); The east façade, the offerings of H and T3 to Amoun and AM (p. 150 –153), the crowning of H (p. 154), the offering of T3 to Amoun (p. 155). The decoration of the interior describes the role and utilization of the chapel. The vestibule this presents, to the north above a freeze the wings (vanneaux) in adoration (p. 159 – 161), the foundation of the chapel (p. 162), then the offerings of Hatshepsut (p. 163-166), of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (p. 167-169), of Thutmose III (p. 170 – 172). To the south, these are the offerings of Hatshepsut (p. 172 - 185), Thutmose III (p. 186-187). To the west and to the east, there are equally offerings of Hatshepsut and Thutmose III (p. 188-195). The sanctuary is exclusively consecrated to offerings: of Hatshepsut (p. 198 – 200 and 202 – 205; 208 – 228 and 234 – 254), and of Thutmose III on the last layer (p. 201; 229, 230 and 255 – 258). In total it has certainly needed at least a year to erect this monument, which the duration of life doesn’t exceed ten years, after less than a century fallow (jachere), the elements are reutilise as filling of a monument which, itself, it still standing; a century

of research, finally, three millennia and half later permit to reconstitute in its first splendour. We are grateful to ADPF-erc editions to have allowed us to known this documentation, so unique and so exciting. A volume of study, reusing the first publication of the monument, augmented with technical chapters and of historical syntheses, will come to complete this work.