iMalqata Project update - Everything Amenhotep

iMalqata Project 

With some useful links.

2012 is turning out to be the year of Amenhotep III. In addition to our work at his jubilee palace-city at Malqata, excavations and restoration projects are going on in the king’s mortuary temple, his tomb in the West Valley of the Kings, and at the tomb of his Steward, Nefersekheru who was probably in charge of all the goings-on at Malqata.

The walls of Amenhotep’s immense mortuary temple disappeared long ago, but what visitors to Egypt know as the Colossi of Memnon, are, in fact, two seated statues of the king that originally flanked the entrance to this temple. At over 700 meters in length (more than 2200 feet) this was the largest single temple ever built in Egypt (Karnak is, of course, much larger, but it consists of several temple buildings, and the main temple was added to over some 2000 years).

Much of the stone of Amenhotep’s mortuary temple was used later for other building projects, and the remains of the temple were eventually covered by a deep deposit of mud from the Nile’s annual inundation. By the 20th Century, little remained above ground save for the two colossi.