The third colosus

Got sent this picture of the third colossus at the temple of Amenhotep III, fantastic.

Moving the Northern colossal statues of Amenhotep III

At last night’s lecture Mansour announced that they would be moving the northern colossus today and visitors were welcome. These two colossus were standing at the Northern gate of the funerary temple of Amenhotep III. They had fallen in an earthquake approx 1200BC and had been lying there ever since. Known about since 1821 they had waited funds, compulsory purchase of the land and the will to have them moved. A joint Egyptian-European mission directed by Mohammed Abdelmaqsoud and Hourig Sourouzian. Once moved they will be conserved and studied.

So arriving on site at 10am the actual dignitaries arrived at 11am. They attempted to move the large piece but their initial estimate of it size proved to be incorrect. They thought it was 35 tons, the crane could take 100 tons and the cables 40 tons but they quickly found it was more like 47 tons and more cables would be need. I was also told that it was raising at an angle so that might be adjusted too before they had another go. In the mean while the crane was used to remove other pieces from the low loader.

The location is between Sheikh Ali and the Ramasseum very slightly south of the German House.

Review of the Amenhotep III Symposium

The public part of the Amenhotep III symposium has just finished and what a great set of lectures we had. No notes I am afraid, no light to take them by but also without the slides they would make no sense.

After a challenging start (no projector) Hourig Sourouzian gave an overall presentation followed by Rainer Stadelmann giving the history of the project. Some of the before and after photos were just stunning, made you realise just how much the team have done. The next lecture was the most impressive for me personally, the most enthusiastic and knowledgeable young lady Nairy Hampikian gave a presentation about their hopes and dreams for the site management. She told me this has been published in the Annals. The idea is to stop the colossus being seen in isolation and to bring it into context. That is a massive over simplification of a lecture that was chock a block with ideas, projections and diagrams.

There were two lectures about 3-d scanning which I can see being standard techniques in 10 years on all digs(presuming funds). Rainer Drewello, Jasmin Badr and Nils Wetter presented these. The possibilities in the world of reconstruction and documentation are endless.

The lecture by Arkadi Karakhanyan on Archaeo-seismological ought to have been awful as he didn’t speak English but with an excellent translator, descriptive slides and simple but extremely affective little demos everybody totally understood. I certainly know a lot more about earthquakes than I did last week.

The second day put the temple into context with lectures on other achievements of Amenhotep III in Luxor. Mansour Boraik on Sphinx Alley, Betsy Bryan on the Mut Temple, Ray Johnson on Luxor Temple and Peter Lacovara on Malkata. A big treat.

The third day was about site maintenance Horst Jaritz talked about the temple of Merenptah both from the historical and site management points of view. John Sherman on the work of ARCE in Luxor and the training of SCA personal, Gaetano Palumbo from the World Monuments Fund about the responsibility all the world must take for historical monuments and lastly Julien Rathle about the challenges that the extremes of temperature make to site management

PS I am so jealous of the speakers who got to visit his tomb and attending the opening ceremony of the third colossus.

Conference in Luxor this weekend open to the public

In Search for New Concepts and Technologies for Conservation and Preservation of the Colossi of Memnon & The Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III

To be held at LUXOR MUSEUM.
On Saturday 3rd March the public lectures will be 10am until 5pm with a lunch break 2 - 3pm. These will be opened by HE Mohamed Ibrahim Ali, Minister of State for Antiquities (MSA)
On Sunday 4th March the public lectures will be from 3 - 5pm
On Monday 5th March the public lectures will be 10am to 5pm with a lunch break 12 - 3pm

The schedule for Saturday 3rd March may vary according to the Minister's Schedule. So watch this space for changes.

Having read the full list of speakers and topics, I think this is going to be very interesting.

via Barry Budd

New Colossus of Memnon

Lots on the news about the new colossus being assembled at the Amenhotep III temple so as I was driving past I took some photos on my mobile.

Although almost every tourist goes to the Colossus of Memnon few notice the extensive work going on behind the two statues. So if you go past please have a look, you will be surprised.

Amenhotep III temple safe from flooding

Just picked this up on Facebook via Robin Young

From Dr. Hourig Sourouzian, director of the Amenhotep III Mortuary Temple Project,

"As you guessed, the news about the flooding concern the north gate of the temple of Amenhotep III , where the SCA was working, and it was irrigation water.
The part of the temple where we work is safe and the monuments untouched."
Knowing that the lower part of the temple is part of the West Bank dewatering project funded by USAID thru a grant to the American Research Center in Egypt, which has successfully lowered groundwater there, I asked Hourig if this was a breach in a dike from one of the local farms irrigation channels. Her response is as above.

Keep in mind too, while reacting, that the Temple was regularly flooded by the inundation thru the mid 1950's. I was on site the day they discovered the lowest course of intact mud brick in the foundations: still good after 5,000 years. There are some who think the temple was designed to be inundated as part of the restoration of life ritual of the mortuary cult. Bad as the current water may be, probably no lasting damage.......