The journal Antiquity published a geo-archaeological study that traced the origins of the Karnak Temple complex to Egypt’s Old Kingdom, roughly 2591-2152 BCE. The investigation was led by Angus Graham of Uppsala University and Ben Pennington of the University of Southampton.
“the most detailed geo-archaeological survey ever conducted at Karnak,” wrote Al Arabiya. The team extracted 61 sediment cores—some more than six meters deep—and examined tens of thousands of pottery fragments. Optically Stimulated Luminescence and ceramic typology anchored each layer in time. “a chronological constraint on Karnak’s earliest settlement and construction,” said Christian Strutt, according to La Razón.
The cores showed that the site shifted from an annually flooded island to a stable terrace shortly after 2520 BCE. “We concluded that an earlier date is impossible, and a later date is confirmed by evidence,” said Pennington, according to Oxuaz. Pottery from 2305-1980 BCE confirmed the first sustained human presence, indicating the terrace quickly became both habitable and sacred.
Samples also revealed a broad eastern Nile channel that survived for centuries. “We were surprised by the large size of the eastern channel and its continued existence for a long time,” said Pennington to Asharq Al-Awsat. The natural mound, the only high ground in the Luxor floodplain, echoed creation myths in which land emerged from primeval waters. “It’s tempting to suggest the Theban elites chose Karnak’s location for the dwelling place of a new form of the creator god, Ra-Amun, as it fitted the cosmogonical scene of high ground emerging from surrounding water,” said Pennington.
The study also documented how builders reshaped the river. “The river channels surrounding the site shaped how the temple could develop and where, with new construction taking place on top of old rivers as they silted up,” said Dominic Barker in a press release cited by National Geographic Historia. As both channels filled with sediment, rulers from the Middle Kingdom through the Ptolemaic era extended pylons, courts, and the Great Hypostyle Hall across former waterways.
What began as a small island terrace became one of ancient Egypt’s defining institutions. The Great Temple of Amun—known in antiquity as Ipet-Sut, “The Most Select Place”—dominated religious life in Thebes and later the wider kingdom after the rise of the syncretic god Amun-Ra.
Karnak now lies about 500 meters east of the modern Nile and has been on UNESCO’s World Heritage List since 1979. Egyptologist Sarah Parcak estimated that “we have only excavated 1%,” according to La Razón.
The research team gained permission to extend coring across the Luxor floodplain. “This new research provides an incredible number of details about the evolution of the Karnak Temple and offers an unprecedented understanding of how the physical environment conditioned three millennia of architectural and religious development in the Theban capital,” said Pennington in comments carried by Youm7. Future cores will probe the buried eastern channel to uncover earlier occupation and to clarify how the living river sculpted Egypt’s spiritual heart.
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