History of the Karnak Temple complex

The city does not appear to have been of any significance before the Eleventh Dynasty, and any temple building here would have been relatively small and unimportant, with any shrines being dedicated to the early god of Thebes, Montu.

[1] The ancient name for Karnak, Ipet-Isut (usually translated as 'most select of places') only really refers to the central core structures of the Precinct of Amun-Re, and was in use as early as the 11th Dynasty, again implying the presence of some form of temple before the Middle Kingdom expansion.

Merenptah commemorated his victories over the Sea Peoples on the walls of the Cachette Court, the start of the processional route to the Luxor Temple.

[8] Merenptah's son Seti II added 2 small obelisks in front of the Second Pylon, and a triple bark-shrine to the north of the processional avenue in the same area.

The Temple of Khonsu was also built and then expanded during this period under Ramesses III and IV, and a large barque station was added in front of the Second pylon.

The northern kings seem to have constructed nothing and added little to the complex, but the High Priests continued to decorate the Temple of Khonsu, especially Herihor and Pinedjem I.

Despite this, several European authors of the 15th and 16th century, who visited only Lower Egypt and published their travel accounts, like Joos van Ghistele and André Thevet, put Thebes in or close to Memphis.

This account, housed in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze, is unique, in that it is the first known European mention, since the ancient Greek and Roman writers, of a whole range of monuments in Upper Egypt and Nubia, including Karnak, Luxor temple, the Colossi of Memnon, Esna, Edfu, Kom Ombo, Philae and others.

Karnak ("Carnac") as a village name, and name of the complex, is first attested in 1668, when two Capuchin missionary brothers, Protais and Charles François d'Orléans, travelled though the area.

Protais' writing about their travel was published by Melchisédech Thévenot (Relations de divers voyages curieux, 1670s–1696 editions) and Johann Michael Vansleb (The Present State of Egypt, 1678).

Karnak was visited and described in succession by Claude Sicard and his travel companion Pierre Laurent Pincia (1718 and 1720–21), Granger (1731), Frederick Louis Norden (1737–38), Richard Pococke (1738), James Bruce (1769), Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt (1777), William George Browne (1792–93), and finally by a number of scientists of the Napoleon expedition, including Vivant Denon, during 1798–1799.

Claude-Étienne Savary describes the complex in rather great detail in his work of 1785; especially in light of the fact that it is a fictional account of a pretend journey to Upper Egypt, composed out of information from other travellers.

In April 2018, the Egyptian Ministry of Antiquities announced the discovery of the shrine of god Osiris- Ptah Neb, dating back to the 25th dynasty.