Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III — Attraction in New Al Qarnh City

Statues of Memnon, or Giants of Memnon, are two monumental statues, established around the year 1350 BC which is all that remains of a temple in memory of the pharaoh (Amenhotep III), located in Thebes, Western Egypt. They are for King Amenhotep the Third, one of the kings of the Eighteenth Dynasty, and it is the most powerful ruling family in ancient Egyptian history.

The statue's height reaches 19 meters and a third of the meter, and the Greeks called (Memnon) upon them when the eastern statue cracked from them and produced a voice similar to the legendary hero (Memnon) who was killed in the wars of his parcels and was calling his mother (Ayus) the goddess of dawn every morning, and she was crying over him Her tears were dew.

تمثالا ممنون،أو عملاقا ممنون،عبارة عن تمثالين ضخمين، تم إنشاءهما حوالي سنة 1350 ق م وهو كل ما تبقى من معبد تخليدا لذكرى الفرعون (امنحتب الثالث)، يقع في طيبة الغربية بمصر. وهما للملك امنحوتب الثالث أحد ملوك الاسرة الثامنة عشرة وهى اقوى اسرة حاكمة في التاريخ المصرى القديم.

يصل ارتفاع التمثال منهما إلى 19 مترا وثلث المتر، وقد أطلق الإغريق اسم (ممنون) عليهما عندما تصدع التمثال الشرقي منهما وأخرج صوتا شبهوه بالبطل الأسطوري (ممنون) الذي قتل في حروب طراووده وكان ينادي أمه (أيوس) إلهة الفجر كل صباح، فكانت تبكي عليه وكانت...

In the vast plain that stretches out around western Thebes, between the Nile and the Valley of the Kings, are the remains of the monumental road which led to the mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III. The colossi of Memnon are all that remain of what was once the largest mortuary temple on the west bank of Luxor. The temple, unfortunately, has disappeared – probably from a high flood, and further devastated by Ramses II and his son Merenptah, who used the fallen blocks to build their own temples – commonly known by the names of Colossi of Memnon. These two gigantic statues are 18 meters high and weigh about 750 tons each. They were cut in monolithic blocks of quartzite sandstone was which quarried at Gabal Al-Hamar near Cairo; represent the pharaoh seated on a throne, with his hands resting on his knees. The southern colossus is considerably damaged but is in slightly better shape than the other, of which a legend recounts how in 27 BC a terrible earthquake seriously damaged almost all the monuments of Thebes and opened on enormous crack on the colossus from the top half to the ground before it...

The Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III, also known as Kom el-Hettân, was built by the main architect Amenhotep, son of Habu, for the Pharaoh Amenhotep III (or Amenhetep III) during the 18th Dynasty in the New Kingdom (Kozloff and Bryan). The mortuary temple is located on the Western bank of the Nile river, across from the Eastern bank city of Luxor (Kozloff and Bryan). During its time, the Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III was the largest funerary complex in Thebes that was built (Kozloff and Bryan).

Currently, only parts of the mortuary temple's layout remains, as well as the Colossi of Memnon, which are two large stone statues placed at the entrance measuring 18 meters (59 feet) high (Wilkinson). Because the mortuary temple was built relatively close to the river, the annual flooding caused the site to decay at a more rapid rate over time. The Colossi of Memnon and Amenhotep III Temple Project have helped conserve the site as well as possible...