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Found immediately adjacent to the Ramesseum, the mortuary temple of Merneptah (the 13th son and eventual successor to the long-lived Ramesses II) was re-opened in 2002 as a new attraction after the careful and effective reconstruction of the temple foundations and lower courses by a Swiss archaeological team. (The temple was first excavated by the famous English Egyptologist Sir Flinders Petrie in 1904 and was the scene of his discovery of the so-called Israel Stela, featuring the earliest recorded mention of Israel in ancient sources, now to be seen in Cairo's Egyptian Museum). Although not featuring the inscribed wall reliefs and towering columns associated with many Egyptian temples, the Merneptah temple nonetheless now provides an unsurpassed impression of the layout of a 19th dynasty funerary temple with many interesting architectural details. A small partly-subterranean museum is also to be found on site, in which many of the magnificent painted reliefs and sculpture (many usurped by Merneptah from the nearby Mortuary Temple of Amenhotep III) are displayed. Sadly neglected by many visitors to the West Bank, the site and museum are nonetheless well worth a visit.
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Mortuary Temple of Ramses II - the Great
The site of the Ramesseum includes the fallen colossal statue of the pharaoh that inspired the sonnet Ozymandias by Shelley, now the focus of a major restoration project. It stood 17 m (69 ft) high, weighed in excess of 1,000 tons and was transported from Aswan in a single block. The pylons of the temple preserve depictions of the famed Battle of Qadesh waged by Egyptian forces under Ramses II against the Hittite Empire, the city of Qadesh lying in central Syria, then the contested boundary between the two great ancient empires. Behind the pylons, where visitors now enter the temple, the Second Court features a portico fronted by massive statues of Ramses II in the form of Osiris, the god of the underworld. A hypostyle hall occupies the centre of the temple, featuring a well-preserved and painted ceiling. The stone-built temple buildings are surrounded by the remains of a mud-brick royal palace and storage magazines.
Two massive stone statues of the Pharaoh Amenhotep III, who reigned in the 18th Dynasty.
Originally called Set Maat (the Place of Truth), the village was built to house the Royal tombs' workforce of literate priest-craftsmen (the "Servants in the Place of Truth"), on the reign of Amenhotep I, the community's patron, worshipped here along his mother Ahmose-Nefertari. Its abundant domestic and written remains (thousands of ostraca) make it the very best-studied Ancient Egypt community to date.
The burial place of Servant in the Place of Truth Sennedjem and his family. It was found undisturbed in 1886.