Luxor - Court of the Temple - The Government Corn Stores

View of the peristyle court of Amenhotep III (1390-1352 BC) at the temple of Amun-Kamutef at Luxor. The area is still filled with sand and only the top half of the columns can be seen. The temple was a religious site founded during the reign of Amenhotep III and enlarged by successive pharaohs, notably Rameses II (1279-1213 BC). The main function of the complex was to offer the setting for the Festival of Opet, centred on the annual ceremonial procession of the cult statue of the god Amun from his temple at Karnak to this at Luxor, linked by an avenue of sphinxes. At the time the photograph was taken, a whole village had been built on the layers of sand and silt accumulated over the centuries. The image shows modern mudbricks walls built between the columns to create storage areas used by the local government. The layers of sand and silt started to get removed in the 1880s by Gaston Maspero (1846-1916) but the village mosque, the Mosque of Abu al-Haggag, was left intact and still stands today.