Habu Temple

We present to you a series of historical temples around Luxor, in the service of readers to learn the history of the ancestors and the details and story of each of the great temples of Luxor that were built by the kings of the ancient Egyptian dynasties and became global archaeological sites visited by tourists coming from different countries of the world to enjoy those interesting stories from inside the temples.

The city of Qurna on the West Bank, which is the great temple of the city of Habu, which is called the house of millions of years, and it is the temple that King Ramses III built to perform funeral rituals and to worship the god Amun, according to what Nubi Gad, a tour guide from West Luxor, says, explaining that the city of Habu includes the temple of Ramses III, the Holy of Holies, and the halls of the three columns. Noby Gad added to “Youm7” that the city of Habu was designed in the style of the temples in the ancient Syrian region that Ramses III saw during his wars. It was built on an area of ​​10 acres, with a length of 400 meters and a width of 200 meters. He explained that the Temple of Habu is one of the largest and most important fortified temples in ancient Egypt, as the height of the outer wall of the temple is about 17.7 meters, which is characterized by two walls, one internal and the other external, and the latter has a giant gate called Al-Majdal. There are many drawings on the walls of the temple that tell the stories of King Ramses III’s wars and stories about the military campaigns he left Egypt with and the enemies he defeated. The colors of the city are still present on the columns, walls and ceilings despite the passage of thousands of years since its establishment. The tour guide, a native of Qurna, confirms that the city was built approximately 3,200 years ago, explaining that the temple contains 5 statues of Ramses III and his wives that were destroyed during the Roman era, and 16 statues of King Ramses III that were lost due to Roman destruction, and only the bases remain.

Why was the Temple of Habu named so?

The temple was named “Habu” after the city of Habu in Luxor, while some attribute the name Habu or Habu to a Christian monk called Habu, who used the second courtyard of the temple as a church for Christians in this area when Christianity entered.

Some information about the temple :

The Habu area had a special sanctity for the ancient Egyptians, as they believed that the eight gods of creation according to the Ashmunin doctrine had settled here in this area where the temple was built. This temple is called in ancient Egyptian “Hat Khnemet Heh”, perhaps meaning “Temple of the One United with Eternity”. This temple is located in the far south of a group of temples commemorating the pharaohs built on the edge of the desert near the cultivated lands in western Thebes. It seems that Ramses III ordered its construction in an area that had a certain sanctity, as evidenced by the temples and buildings found there dating back to different eras, starting from the Middle Kingdom to the Coptic era. The most important temple in this area is the temple dating back to the Eighteenth Dynasty, and its parts include buildings dating back to the reign of King Amenhotep I. Additions continued in the form of buildings and inscriptions until the Ptolemaic and Roman eras. It was started by Amenhotep I and completed by Thutmose I and II, and its construction and inscriptions were added by Hatshepsut and Thutmose III. In front of this temple there was a shrine dating back to the Middle Kingdom. Also in this sacred area there are the shrine tombs of the princesses of the Twenty-fifth and Twenty-sixth Dynasties, the most famous of which is Princess Amun-Ris, daughter of the Ethiopian King Kashta, as well as the great temple to immortalize the memory of King Ramses III with its various annexes.