1786.b.33, 1(39)

Genre: Archaeological Photography

View from the rear of the Amun Temple at Karnak, looking westwards along its axis, towards the Great Hypostyle Hall, with the two standing obelisks in the foreground and the upper half of a fallen one on the left. The inner face of the first pylon can be seen in the left background: 'The most imposing view of this gorgeous Temple is from the mounds, which partly conceal the Palace of Thothmes III in the rear of the granite shrine. From this the whole ruin lies spread out before the visitor in all its massive grandeur and simplicity, but displaying at the same time a picture of terrible desolation. Enormous granite Obelisks lie in pieces here and there; huge propylæa are overthrown, and form shapeless heaps of stone like mountains shattered into fragments; and what still stands, though equally betraying the lapse of ages, directs the mind in anticipation to ages yet more remote, when this monument will still exist and tell men of the power and wisdom of the Egyptians...' For a more distant view, but taken from roughly the same orientation by Maxime Du Camp a decade earlier, see shelfmark 1261.d.30, plate 31 (volume 2 in present binding).