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La chapelle rouge: le sanctuaire de barque d’hatshepsut.Centre franco-égyptien d’étude des temples des Karnak Publisher: Paris CultureFrance, éditions recherché sur les civilization, 2006 - <2008>authors:Burgas, Franck Larché, FrançoisArnaudiès, AlainTranslation by Kim Morgan of Mandrake (Draft)www.mandrake.uk.netWhen the queen Hatshepsut undertook the enterprise to edify the resting place for thedivine barque of Amon Ra in the temple of Karnak, she could not have imagined thetribulations that were awaiting this monument to piety. She thought to complete in aharmonious manner the monumental ensemble which she had erected on a vast podium near the heart of the original temple, just to the east of the edifices of her husband and his predecessors. Had the gods given her more time, as they did for her successor Thutmose III, without doubt she would have pursued this endeavour inrebuilding these final monuments. Since they [the Thutmose] had taken the reigns of the country, in effect they had attached themselves to the aura of the temple, itsdynastic god, in effect the Heliopolis of the south.It has got to be said that the entire temple had suffered mainly during the difficult timeof the Hiksos domination. The Theban priests had less means to look after the fabricof the temple, than those resources of the state of ancient times. Thebes was far fromAvaris, the capital of the new masters in the eastern Delta, and Amoun Ra was far toodangerous a national flag carrier. Hatshepsut was one of the great restorators of sanctuaries neglected and more or less fallen into disuse, during middle and highEgypt. In Karnac she followed in the steps of the builders from the beginning of thesecond millennium, developing probably some project of the greatest of thoseSesostris I. No one can say today if she again took for her barque sanctuary the placeof the one that existed in the twelfth dynasty. It is probable but nobody can prove sucha thing. The recent discovery of the Franco Egyptian centre of Studies of the Templesof Karnak show, in effect that the temple spread in the Middle Kingdom much moreto the West of the said courtyard of the Middle Kingdom, as recent unproved theorieshad contended. However this resting barque sanctuary was probably one of the lastworks of the Queen, which she probably never saw finished. With the crowning theThutmose III starts the adventure of this monument, which would bring it towards us,nearly intact.At his accession Thutmose III seems to have been torn between the two desires;following of the work of his predecessor as the tradition required; and getting awayfrom the memory of the over long dominance of the Queen. The second brought himto start officially his reign 22 years earlier. The first to terminate piously thefoundations she who had preceded him in the royal charge. He finished the decorationand elevated the west façade in order to inscribe the scenes of his crowning. He also
 
ordered the closing of the lateral north passage and commissioned a door to commandthe lateral south passage. The analysis of the pigments affected area by the researchersof the Egyptian centre of Studies of the Temples of Karnak had even revealed several pictorial layers probably corresponding to the several successive stages of decorationuntil the last.This finding is now without raising the question of the so-called proscription of thedefunct queen by her successor which is easily presented and in a manner however a bit romantic as grinding, left in inertia while waiting for the death of Hatshepsut. Thengetting angry and raising mayhem against her memory. If there had been any re-use of monuments its only later during the new kingdom that the queen disappeared from theKing List.However the excavation and the architectural study of the sanctuary zone of the barque led by François Larché during this last five years have confirmed the positionof the Chapel Rouge as thought already by H Chevrier and and P Lacau at the place by which Thutmose III replaced it. And then on which in his turn Philip Affhideaeus,much later, reproduced, on a larger scale the monument of Thutmose III. It has beenverified that this chapel belonged to a vast project initiated by her architect Senmut, a project which included heraldic pillars, as well as the rooms of Hatshepsut, the sixth pylon, with its porticoed courtyard and their chapels. The foundation deposit, thenames of Thutmose III and Hatshepsut, discovered in April 2005 by Romain Mensanunder the foundation of the South Chapel, the most easterly and under the south moleof the sixth pylon; put in evidence the architectural continuity between thearchitectural construction of Hatshepsut and those of Thutmose III. At the beginningof his effective reign Thutmose III modified the west façade, and the monument of Hatshepsut. More exactly and more probably he allowed the chapel to be finished.But, at the same time from the year 23 year was born another project: to remodel thisessential part of the temple, the last step of the royal accession towards the sanctuary,renovating the work of Sesostris I.The text of construction left by Thutmose III says in an explicit manner, confirmed byarchaeology. He transposed in the stone the edifices made of brick from the firstThutmosides, remodelled the interpretation that was given to Hatshesput for theWadjit to the east in the forth pylon and created his own wadjit even more in the east,encapsulating the chapel of the queen and replacing its heart, completely encasing thesanctuary of the barque, the goal is describe the divine service to Amon Ra which is put in place to restore the ancient splendour of the temple. A vast ensemble of textsshares the two halves of the space – in the north part the military annals of the reign of years 23 to 42 describe the bringing of tributes. The south part exposes the piousfoundations and the calendar of offerings. This project is only completed shortly before the end of the reign. But it is now clear that Thutmose III wishing to dispose of the ensemble carried his mark for the year 30. He started very early the vast ensembleof Akhmenou and most probably at the same time had the Red Chapel pulled apart.This rapid disassembling seems very well confirmed by the fact that therepresentations of the queen have not been chiselled off at this moment but much later at the time of the proscription. Blocks have been discovered underneath thefoundation of the temple of Ptah, which was built very early in the reign of Thutmose
 
III! Whatever he retakes the foundation of the Chapel Rouge to erect his own,decorating the two heraldic pillars, which from now command the walkway(periptere) by the west on which the date of his jubilee was found. The heraldic pillarshave been effect built in front of the CR to hold the cover of the access stairway; theyare certainly part of the project conceived at the beginning by Senmut. Their decoration date, probably of their erection, that is to say just after the death of theQueen. This axial orientation of the chapel was already chosen by Hatshepsut; it staysfrom then it has remained until today.Taken apart the RC waits for better days. It is not actually possible to say which wasthe place where its blocks have been deposited after its disassembling. It is possiblethat their storehouse must have been relatively close by to the original site, very probably in the north of the constructions of the West/East axis; the rehabilitation of the North/S axis, initiated without doubt after the dissembling of the CR, the one bysacred lake and of the zone where the habitat of the priests, no other localisation is practical. The fact that Amenhope III hasn’t used all the blocks of CR because somehave been found to have been reused in the constructions of Ramose II and RamoseIII, is proof in favour of such a storehouse for dissembled monuments waiting re-use.The hypothesis of a storehouse organised without doubt less efficiently that those of CFEETK construct today outside the zones built in the heart of premises but proceeding with the same intention to preserve and catalogue these element of architecture, which serve also as a model for the artist. Which also lies on the fact thatthese blocks were preserves with care. Very rare were in effect the scratches other than those due to be disassembled. Talking about the reliefs the state of preservationsspeaks for itself.It is of this material (gisement) substance that Amenhotep III will source part of thefilling of the northern mole of the 3
rd
pylon, which he built immediately in the westernzone of the court of the peristyle of Thutmose IV, transforming the equilibrium of thelocation to give it an aspect close to the one that we know today.The monument known then after a long sleep of nearly three and half millenniumuntil George Legrain dissembled the third pylon at the beginning of the 20th centuryof our era. The history of the reconstruction starts then. It will last more than acentury.------------Since their discovery, George Legrain and Edouard Naville, then Georges Pillet, published these reports of this monument, until Pierre Lacau attached himself to hisEgyptological reconstitution. He makes a complete photographic survey of the blocks,which he studies in his course at the College of France between 1943 and 1944, andstarts the publication in association with Henry Chevrier, which does the architecturalstudy. Unfortunately Pierre Lacau died and we must wait until the beginning of the1970s for the publication that his death had left unfinished, thanks to the teamreunited by Michel Gitton.Since the 1930s the blocks of the Chapel Rouge had found in the Open Air Museumof the temple, a place which seems definitive. But the story doesn’t stop here.
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