ARCHITECTURE

architecture, sect. "egyptian," with plan). inside and outside each of these enclosures there were a number of subsidiary temples and shrines, mostly erected by individual kings to special deities. the triad of thebes was formed by ammon, his wife mut and their son khons. the large temple of khons is in the enclosure of the ammon temple, and the temple of mut, as already stated, is connected with the latter by the avenue of rams. the mont temple, on the other hand, is isolated from the others and turned away from them; it is smaller than that of khons. mont, however, may perhaps be considered a special god of thebes; he certainly was a great god from very ancient times in the immediate neighbourhood, his seats being about 4 m. n.e. at medamot, the ancient madu, and about 10 m. s.w. on the west bank at hermonthis. it is probable that a temple of ammon existed at karnak under the old kingdom, if not in the prehistoric age; but it was unimportant, and no trace of it has been discovered. slight remains of a considerable temple of the middle kingdom survive behind the shrine of the great temple, and numbers of fine statues of the twelfth and later dynasties have been found; two of these were placed against the later seventh pylon, while a large number were buried in a great pit, in the area behind that pylon, which has yielded an enormous number of valuable and interesting monuments reaching to the age of the ptolemies. the axis of the early temple lay from e. to w., and was followed by the main line of the later growth; but at the beginning of the eighteenth dynasty, amenophis i. built a temple south of the west front of the old one, and at right angles to it, and thus started a new axis which was later developed in the series of pylons vii.-x., and the avenue to the temple of mut. the viiith pylon in particular was built by hatshepsut, probably as an approach to this temple of amenophis, but eventually tethmosis iii. cleared the latter away entirely. thebes was then the royal residence, and ammon of karnak was the great god of the state. tethmosis i. built a court round the temple of the middle kingdom, entered through a pylon (no. v.), and later added the pylon no. iv. with obelisks in front of it. hatshepsut placed two splendid obelisks between the pylons iv. and