Medinet Habu is located at an extreme south side of the “West Valley” (The Valley of the Death) vicinity, the sacred mountain west of ancient Thebes, where kings, queens, nobles and artisans were buried during the “new Egyptian Empire” this temple was visited by a barge that came from Thebes with the statue of Amon each ten Days.
Originally a temples or shrines complex dedicated to Amon-Ra the favored god of the “New Egyptian Empire” period. Also a thought to be the burial place of the primeval god’s that conform the Egyptian divine Ogdoad
Its construction period was started by Hatshepsut and Ramses II probably over previous structures, also by Tutankhamen, since two statues found in a temple that did belonged to Ay, resemble Tutankhamen. Most likely that temple was usurped by Ay, the last pharaoh of that dynasty; at the same time Ay was usurped in that temple and in the throne by Horemheb an Egyptian general that took over the eighteenth dynasty.
Horemheb is taken as the founder of the nineteenth dynasty but he did not have descendants, for that reason, Ramses I was chosen to succeed him, curiously the kingship continued as the nineteenth dynasty even so that it does not correspond to the same family.
Ramses I probably was an old man at that time since he died about one year later; It is possible that Ramses election was bases in the fact that he had a wise and capable son that succeeded him as Seti I. Seti I was a successful pharaoh and the father of well-known Ramses II.
Ramses III was not a direct descendant of the previous Ramses, came from a different family, as such he was the second pharaoh of the twentieth dynasty, matter of fact the last of the famous pharaohs of Egypt.
He did not expand frontiers but he had to put lots of effort defending them, but in the walls of this temple is represented the biggest battle of Egyptian history against the “Sea People”, invaders that came from the north to the northern-east frontier of Egypt, at that time around today Syria.
The aggressors were coming in ships and in oxen-drawn wagons destroying everything on their way. He fought by sea and land, the great maneuverability of the Egyptian ships and the skill of the archers bring to an end the invasion and brought back he stability to the frontier.
Medinet Habu temple “The Temple of Million Years” had some peculiarities different than other mortuary temples, it was also a palace; Ramses III built a surrounding wall to the whole temples complex and at the entrance also built a migdol a defensive tower that resembles an Asiatic fortification.
Ramses III died at this place, apparently he was victim of palace intrigue directed by one of his wives on matters of succession but apparently survived because he punished them in an exemplary form.
This temple was besieged during Ramses XI the last of the true Egyptian Pharaohs and from there it lost its influence, later at he end of the twentieth dynasty the artisans from Deir el Medina moved to this palace area.
20th dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses III Palace and Mortuary Temple
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