- Time needed
- 1–1.5 hours
- Heat exposure
- High
- Shade
- Low
- Stairs
- The three terraces are linked by long central ramps rather than by stairs, which is unusual and helpful; there are steps at the sides and within the chapels
Three terraces and long colonnades rise towards the cliffs, linked by ramps. Chapels, courts and sanctuaries make this more than an open architectural backdrop: the temple served several connected cults (the worship and rituals devoted to a deity or royal figure), including Amun, Hathor, Anubis and the royal cult. Some sacred spaces extend into the rock.
- 1A name cut out of the wall
Throughout the temple; easiest to find on the middle-terrace colonnades, in the offering scenes
- 2The Punt reliefs, which read like a report
Middle terrace, the south colonnade
- 3Columns with a face on all four sides
The south end of the middle terrace — the chapel of Hathor
- 4The older temple next door
Look south from the lower or middle terrace, over the wall
1A name cut out of the wall
Clean, deliberate hollows where a figure or a name used to be — sometimes a neatly emptied oval where a cartouche (an oval frame containing a royal name) sat, sometimes a standing figure hacked back to its outline — with the scene around it left completely untouched.
Fact — the erasure, and its thoroughness. Uncertain — the motive. Specialists disagree, and the evidence for when the work was done argues against the familiar personal explanation.
2The Punt reliefs, which read like a report
In the Punt reliefs, look for ships, incense trees and houses raised on supports. These images present the expedition through the conventions and priorities of a royal monument.
Fact — the reliefs and what they depict. Uncertain — where Punt actually was; the location is still debated.
3Columns with a face on all four sides
Columns whose capitals are carved as a woman’s face with cow’s ears, repeated on each of the four faces, standing in front of a small dark chapel cut into the rock behind them.
Fact — the chapel and the Hathor capitals. Interpretation — the reasoning behind placing it here.
4The older temple next door
A lower, far more ruined terraced building with a forest of column stumps and a broad ramp: the mortuary complex of Mentuhotep II, five hundred years older than the temple you are standing on.
Fact — both buildings, their form and their dates. Interpretation — that the earlier one was the model for the later.
Level and mostly firm — paving, compacted stone and dust — with a long open approach from the car park before the temple itself The three terraces are linked by long central ramps rather than by stairs, which is unusual and helpful; there are steps at the sides and within the chapels
Visit mode keeps the sequence, the details and the facilities. The history, the figures and the related reading are in plan mode.