The Top 5 Best-Preserved Egyptian Temples

I don't usually make top 5 videos, but I decided to try something new, and so today, we are going to explore the top 5 most amazingly well-preserved, small, ancient Egyptian temples. Temples are some of the most magnificently imposing monuments the ancient Egyptians left behind for us, and they could become enormous, but some of the most beautifully preserved ancient Egyptian temples are pretty small, at least in comparison to the more gigantic temples. So, those are what we're going to look at today. In case you want to hear about their larger counterparts, my next video is going to be about the top 5 well-preserved, large ancient Egyptian temples. I'm going to be ranking these temples using two simple criteria. First, how much of the original paint job is left, because I'm always completely wowed by reliefs carved 2 or even 3,000 plus years ago that still retain most of their original color. It's as if we're being allowed a glimpse through time to right when the temple had been set up, and sometimes they really do look as if whoever painted them had just walked away. Second, how much of the original temple remains intact. There are lots of examples of ancient Egyptian temples that were once huge and lavish, but now basically don't exist. But all the temples on this list are ones that are still pretty similar to how they would have originally looked. So, basically, if you were to walk through the temples on this list, you'd be walking through pretty much the same setting the priests there would have been walking through when the temple was complete. For whatever reason, I also really like when these temples have the same roofs that they had originally, and when you can actually walk under the same roofs ancient Egyptians did. So, all the temples on this list are places where you can do that. So, without further ado, let's begin. Hibis Temple is the largest and most well-preserved temple in Karga Oasis, which sits parallel to Upper Egypt in Egypt's Western Desert. As such, it's about 125 miles away from the Nile Valley. The temple was originally part of the city of Hebet, meaning the Plough, also known as Hibitopolis, meaning the City of the Plough. Most of it lies under modern cultivation, but its temple is still standing within a palm grove two kilometers north of the modern town of Karga. It was dedicated to the so-called Theban Triad, the powerful god Amun, his consort Mut, and their child Khonsu. It's probably the site of an earlier temple, perhaps built during the New Kingdom. This current version of it may have been established during the 25th or 26th dynasties, but its inner core was decorated by Darius the Great, so it's generally assumed that he built it. And no, I didn't just make a mistake. Darius the Great, ruler of the Persian Empire, had this thing built, or at least decorated with reliefs. And in these reliefs, he's shown as just another pharaoh. Hibis also happens to be the best-preserved monument in Egypt from the period when it was first occupied by the Persians, stretching from 525 to 404 BC. This is when Herodotus visited Egypt. The temple's sanctuary also contains a stunning catalogue of every god in Egypt, and lists a total of 359 different deities. A hypostle hall, consisting of 12 columns made to resemble palm trees, was built right in front of what Darius built by Hakor, pharaoh of the 29th dynasty. By in front of, I also mean to the east, since this temple was oriented east-west, as with most other ancient Egyptian temples. In front of the hypostle hall is a portico, which is a fancy term for porch, of 8 columns built by Nectanebo I and II of the 30th dynasty. Only decoration from Nectanebo II's reign remains, however. The Nectanebos also built a little enclosure wall surrounding the rest of the temple. As you've probably noticed by now, these temples were built from the inside out, in a way, in that the oldest parts are the furthest back, so keep that in mind. The Ptolemies, or the Romans, built a large gateway through a second enclosure wall, and when cargo oasis sat within the Roman Empire, the gateway was used as a sort of notice board, since a bunch of decrees were written on it, the earliest being from the year 49. Also, there's a sphinx-lined avenue connecting the temple to a quay on the lake that once existed near it. But ancient Egypt's pagan religion was soon overtaken by Christianity, and so pretty much right afterwards, a part of the temple, the northern side of the portico, was turned into a church. Nowadays, the site is threatened by the water table there rising as a result of nearby irrigation projects, and it turns out that the temple was built on unstable ground to begin with. Egypt's ministry of antiquities has worked to repair it, and was planning to actually move the temple to a nearby site, but the attempt failed, and it's been left where it is. I put this fascinating temple in the number 5 spot because a fair bit of its original paint is left, and it's pretty much intact, but unfortunately, it is in a state of decay. Before we move on to the next entry, make sure to like and subscribe. It really helps the channel grow. There's Amada Temple in Lower Nubia. Its incredibly well-preserved inner core was built by the warrior pharaohs Thutmose III and his son Amenhotep II of the mid-18th Dynasty, and the Apostle Hall in front of it was built by Amenhotep's son, Thutmose IV. The temple was dedicated to the composite gods Rehorekti and Amun-Re, who were very popular at the time, but that state of affairs changed right afterwards during the reign of the heretic pharaoh Akhenaten, and the temple was actually attacked by his Atenists. Soon afterwards, during the early 19th Dynasty, Seti I and his son Ramesses II fixed up the damage, but somewhat shoddily, or so it's been said. Seti I also added the pylon and sandstone gateway that fronts the temple. A lot of late 19th Dynasty notables also left little references to themselves here, who would go on to become one of Egypt's few female pharaohs. Aside from the outstanding amount of color it's retained, Amada is notable mainly for its historical significance. In Amenhotep II's third regnal year, a stela was added to the rear of the sanctuary, and it records him sailing down the Nile with the bodies of seven defeated Near Eastern princes hung onto its prow. What a nice sight that must have been. He stuck six of them onto the walls of Thebes, and the last one onto the walls of Nepata, a city also in Lower Nubia, in order to send a message to the local Nubians. There's another stela carved into the side of the front entrance from the fourth regnal year of Merenptah, Bramses II's successor, which details a Libyan invasion of Egypt that occurred that year. Two of the five total depictions of the viceroy Mesui in the temple, the two flanking the main entrance, are of particular interest, given that a royal Uraeus cobra may have been carved onto each of his brows. This has led to speculation that Mesui might have been identical to the late 19th Dynasty rebel pharaoh Amenmesi. In addition, the depiction of Queen Tosret on the door to the inner sanctuary is one of the only ones left. Look, it's even the main picture on her Wikipedia page! Long after this, early Christians transformed Amada into a church and plastered over its reliefs, which luckily wound up preserving them instead of destroying them. Due to the Aswan High Dam being scheduled to flood the location it was originally in, Amada was moved to a higher elevation 2.5 kilometers from its original site, and it's now the oldest surviving ancient temple along Lake Nasser, which the dam created. In case you can't visit it in person, you can actually tour it in 3D online, and the link to this is in the description. I put Amada at number 9 because the amount of color in its inner rooms is just extraordinary, and it's pretty much entirely intact. But I gotta say the Apostle Hall of Thelmos IV isn't in the best state, although I don't mean it isn't pretty well preserved compared to most other temples, because it is. We've finally arrived at Thebes, modern Luxor, which is deservedly famous for its many astonishing temples. There are mortuary temples on Luxor's west bank for dead kings and temples on the east bank for gods. The Temple of Khonsu is one such place, and it's located in the much, much larger Karnak Temple Complex, but we'll be treating it as its own thing. Khonsu was the son of the god Amun, which Karnak was dedicated to, and his consort Mut, whose temple was nearby. Khonsu was often depicted as a man with the head of a falcon, crowned by the full lunar disk, and apparently he's a major part of a new Marvel series, so he's got that going for him. His temple is an amazing example of a small but complete temple from the New Kingdom, Ancient Egypt's Golden Age. It was mainly constructed by Ramses III and his son Ramses IV of the 20th Dynasty, but it's on the site of an earlier temple, as evidenced by 18th Dynasty blocks found here. The temple starts with a 59-foot-high, 113-foot-long front pylon, which leads into an unroofed forecourt enclosed by a double peristyle of closed-bud papyrus columns. This court then leads into a small apostol hall, which then opens into a bark sanctuary, which once housed the bark which the god's cult statue was carried in during festivals. Behind this room is the suite of rooms used to house the cult statue itself, but this room also splits off into various chapels and features a staircase to the temple's roof. The vividness of the paint on the reliefs in some of these chapels is just jaw-dropping. They were hidden for centuries under smoke and grime, but were revealed through cleaning and conservation work conducted by the American Research Center in Egypt pretty recently, from 2006 to 2018. You can actually tour two of these online on Ars's website. The link is in the description. Ramses III and IV may have finished the construction of basically the whole temple, but a lack of decoration in some spots was taken advantage of by later rulers who added their own flair to the place. Among them were some powerful high priests of Amun, who at the very end of the New Kingdom and the beginning of the following Third Intermediate Period depicted themselves as pharaohs and ruled Upper Egypt in their own right. This temple serves as an invaluable insight into their reigns. Later in the Third Intermediate Period, Taharqo of the Kushite 25th Dynasty added a colonnade in front of the front pylon, which is basically gone nowadays. The Ptolemies and the Romans also added to the temple. For example, Ptolemy III added a huge gateway in front of the temple that's part of the enclosure wall surrounding the entirety of Karnak. This gateway leads to an avenue of ram-headed sphinxes that goes to the precinct of the temple of Mut and Luxor Temple. It's so impressive that it warranted its own name in Arabic, Bab el Amara. I put the temple of Khonsu third because although it's very well preserved and certain chapels really do look as if they were painted yesterday, the paint doesn't survive everywhere. Still though, it's a beautifully preserved monument. In second place, we have the Ptolemaic Temple of Opet, which is just to the west of the Temple of Khonsu and much smaller than it. It was nominally dedicated to the hippo goddess Opet, who was supposed to aid women giving birth, but it was also dedicated to the main god of thieves, Amun. In this temple, he shares a mythic resurrection cycle with the god of the underworld, Osiris. The beautifully preserved scenes on its walls demonstrate that Amun was thought to die as Osiris, enter the body of Opet, and then be reborn as his own son, Khonsu. So yeah, Egyptian mythology is pretty damn complicated. The temple is arrived at through another gateway in Karnak's enclosure wall, this time built by Nektanabo I, who also built the enclosure wall itself. Nektanabo I may have begun construction of the current temple, but the earliest surviving parts of it date to the reign of Taharqo. The current temple was probably preceded by a New Kingdom temple, though. From the gateway in the enclosure wall, it's entered through a small pylon and some kiosks. From the court created by the pylon, a ramp leads into the inner core of the temple. It needed a ramp because it's built on a 1.9 meter high podium, which is unusually high. But that's because large crypts are hidden underneath it, one of which served as Amun-Osiris's symbolic tomb. Despite how small the temple is, there are also numerous crypts hidden within its walls, which probably functioned as storage for the items used in the festivals celebrating Amun-Osiris's resurrection. The ramp leads into a tiny hypostyle hall, featuring four large high-up windows covered with grids. This hall then leads into the central sanctuary. The main cult statue of the temple would have stood in a niche in a chamber at its rear. A small shrine for Osiris's cult statue is located right behind this at the temple's eastern exterior. This can be accessed from outside the temple, and it sits directly across a door in the temple of Khonsu, indicating how closely linked the two temples were. The temple was partially decorated by Ptolemy II and Ptolemy III, who decorated the symbolic tomb of Osiris. But since most of it was decorated by the later Ptolemy VIII, it's assumed he built most of it and finished it. Afterwards, its exterior was decorated under the first Roman emperor, Augustus. This temple's well-preserved reliefs were blackened with smoke for a while, but fairly recent restoration work has allowed us an incredible view into this temple's original glory. I gave the fascinating little temple of Opet and Thieves the number two spot not just because it's close to Khonsu's temple, but because it's truly magnificent in its own right. Traveling over the river to the foothills of West Thebes, we reach the Ptolemaic temple of the goddess Hathor and Darel Medina. Darel Medina is probably most famous for being the site of the village which housed the workmen who created the royal tombs in the nearby Valley of the Kings. The village had been abandoned for the better part of a millennium when this temple was built here. The temple was built there anyways because several temples had already been built there while the village was inhabited and the sanctity of the site had somehow endured. The Ptolemaic complex is packed together with several earlier temple structures, including another similar temple dedicated to Hathor built by Seti I. Hathor was a goddess of fertility, dancing, and drunkenness, among other things. Here she is represented as a woman with cow's ears on something referred to as a Hathoric or sister form column, which is a type of column with her face on it meant to represent a sistrum, her sacred instrument. The Ptolemaic temple was built and decorated by Ptolemy IV and added to by later Ptolemies. They also surrounded the temple with a mud brick wall and added this nice stone gateway through it. Luckily for us, the temple is in almost perfect condition, to quote one of my sources. It's a pretty basic temple with a small columned hall opening into a vestibule that faces three shrines. The central one was for Hathor, the one on the right was for the composite deity Amun-Rei Osiris, and the one on the left was for another composite deity, Amun-Sokar Osiris. This shrine features a scene of Osiris' judgment in the afterlife that's normally reserved for tombs. Notably, the complex also featured chapels dedicated to two deified humans, Imhotep, architect of the Step Pyramid, and Amenhotep son of Hapu, a New Kingdom official. This complex actually wound up giving the whole site of Deir el-Medina its name, because it was later converted into a Coptic monastery, and Deir el-Medina translates to Monastery of the Town. I gave the small yet pristine Ptolemaic temple of Deir el-Medina first place, because although all the other temples on this list do certainly abide by the criteria I originally set out, this temple truly embodies them. That about wraps up the video, so thank you so much for watching, and stay tuned for the top five large ancient Egyptian temples. And they are truly enormous, let me tell ya. Goodbye.