Medinet Habu

Colour survives exactly where the roof did

The roofed areas and the shaded, deep-cut reliefs — look up under the surviving ceilings

Medinet Habu keeps more original pigment than almost anywhere else in Thebes — and it is not evenly spread. Look up under the surviving ceilings and into the deep-cut reliefs. Three thousand years of sun did the rest.

Surviving pigment helps you imagine a more colourful temple setting. It does not show that every surface elsewhere used the same colours or programme.

A sea battle, on the outside of the north wall

The exterior of the temple’s north wall — walk round the outside rather than through the courts

Egyptian ships with lion-headed prows among enemy ships with duck-headed prows, boats capsized, men falling into the water, archers shooting from the shore, and rows of bound prisoners in feathered headdresses being counted in front of the king.

Fact — the reliefs, their subject and their date. Uncertain — who the Sea Peoples actually were, where they came from, and how much of the account is accurate.

These reliefs are important evidence for how Ramesses III presented warfare and kingship. Read them alongside inscriptions and archaeological evidence from elsewhere; a royal victory scene is not a neutral report of the wider upheavals of the period.

A gatehouse built to look like a frontier fort

The tall stone gate you pass through on the way in, at the east side of the enclosure

A high tower gate with battered, sloping walls and windows in its upper storeys, built on the model of the fortified gates of Egypt’s Asiatic empire. The upper rooms were decorated with the king among the women of the household rather than with gods.

Fact — the gate, its form and its decoration. Interpretation — that the military form was chosen for what it said rather than for what it could do.

Nothing else in Egyptian temple architecture looks like this. Whether the form was ever meant to be defended is argued about; what is not in doubt is that it is a foreign military shape, imported deliberately, on the front door of a temple.

Carving deep enough to read from a distance

The first pylon and the outer faces of the temple walls

The figures are sunk so far into the sandstone that the strokes are wide enough to put a hand into, and the edges hold a hard shadow from morning to evening.

Fact — the depth of the carving and how it weathers. Interpretation — the intent behind choosing it.

Compare the deep cuts with the raised relief in the northern half of Karnak’s Hypostyle Hall (a roofed hall supported by rows of columns). Light catches the edges differently: here, shadows inside the carving help define the figures on an exposed wall.