- Time needed
- 15–30 minutes
- Heat exposure
- Medium
- Shade
- Low
- Stairs
- Confirm the current path and kerbs between drop-off and the permitted viewing area.
Think of the statues as a doorway into a much larger story. Amenhotep III’s temple was one of the great royal temple complexes of the west bank; excavation and conservation have recovered more of its sculpture and layout.
- 1The small figures at the king’s legs
Beside the lower legs of each colossus, and on the sides of both thrones
- 2Tourist graffiti in Greek and Latin
The lower legs, feet and base of the northern colossus
- 3The temple in the field behind them
Look west, past the two statues, into the open ground
1The small figures at the king’s legs
Standing female figures that barely reach the king’s shin — his wife Tiye and his mother Mutemwia. On the sides of the thrones, two Nile gods pull the papyrus and the lily together around a central sign, knotting Lower and Upper Egypt into one.
Fact — the figures and their identification. Interpretation — what Tiye’s prominence on royal monuments means.
2Tourist graffiti in Greek and Latin
Inscriptions cut and scratched into the stone — names, official titles, dates, and short poems, including verses composed by a woman named Julia Balbilla for the visit of the emperor Hadrian.
Fact — the inscriptions, their languages and their content. Tradition — that the sound began after an earthquake in 27 BCE and stopped after a Roman repair; both are reported by ancient authors rather than established by evidence on the statue.
3The temple in the field behind them
Low walls, blocks laid out in rows, re-erected colossi standing further back on the axis, and ranks of black granite statues of a lioness-headed goddess. The flat ground between them is the level the temple floor sat at.
Level, immediately beside the road — compacted ground and some loose sand between the road and the statues Confirm the current path and kerbs between drop-off and the permitted viewing area.
Visit mode keeps the sequence, the details and the facilities. The history, the figures and the related reading are in plan mode.