It has been pointed out that Amenhotep I enjoyed at least a dozen years of peaceful rule during which he was able to revive traditional activities associated with monument building: the opening of the Sinai turquoise mines (and consequent expansion of the Middle Kingdom Hathor temple at the Serabit el-BChadim mines), the quarrying of Egyptian alabaster at Bosra (in the name of Ahmose-Nefertari) and at Hatnub, and the opening of work at the sandstone quarries of Gebel el-Silsila, providing most of the stone necessary to rebuild Karnak temple.
Amenhotep I built at several of the sites where his father had been active: at Abydos, for example, he erected a chapel that commemorated Ahmose himself. Following successes in Upper Nubia, Amenhotep dedicated monuments on Sai Island, including a statue similar to that of his father and perhaps some type of building, judging from the survival of blocks inscribed in his name and that of his mother, Ahmose-Nefertari.
Amenhotep I’s interest in Delta sites and at Memphis remains unverified, but Karnak figured prominently in his designs. A large limestone gateway at Karnak, now reconstructed, was decorated with jubilee festival decoration. According to its inscription, this was a ‘great gate of 20 cubits’ and a ‘double fagade of the temple’. It may once have been the main south entrance that was later replaced by the Seventh Pylon. To the east the king built a stone enclosure around the Middle Kingdom court, with chapels on the interior of the wall. These chapels contained scenes depicting the king, the god’s wife, Ahmose-Nefertari, and other temple personnel performing the ritual for Amun, and dedications on behalf of the iith-Dynasty rulers. Thutmose III dismantled all these chapels and rebuilt them in sandstone some forty or fifty years later, but blocks and lintels with offering texts were found in several locations within Karnak. A jubilee peripteral chapel for Amenhotep I probably stood along the southern alleyway and was of a type similar to that of Senusret I (1956-1911 bc) from the 12th Dynasty. Indeed, the style of Amenhotep I’s relief carving on the limestone monuments at Karnak so consciously emulated that of Senusret Ts artisans that some blocks have been difficult to assign to the proper ruler.
Clearly Karnak’s function as a site for venerating the kingship was central to Amenhotep I’s construction plans. Whether that emulation included celebrating a royal jubilee prior to thirty years of reign (the ideal time a king waited before his first sed-festival), or whether he erected the monuments in anticipation of ruling three full decades, is unknown. Several of Amenhotep Ts buildings, none the less, mention the jubilee, such that it is certain the king intended to claim the honour, just as did the great Middle Kingdom rulers.
Limestone jambs unearthed from the foundations of the Third Pylon at Karnak provide a list of religious festivals and their dates of celebration. Anthony Spalinger’s study of these blocks has indicated that in his festal calendar, as in most things at Karnak, Amenhotep I was heavily influenced by i2th-Dynasty calendars. Amenhotep I also had a bark shrine built for the god Amun and erected (most likely) in the west front court of the temple.
Across the river from Karnak, Amenhotep I left funerary monuments in the bay of Deir el-Bahri and to the north and east along the edge of the cultivation. Built from mud brick, the Deir el-Bahri monument has been reconstructed with a pyramid, but only a few bricks naming Amenhotep I and Ahmose-Nefertari were found there in situ. No tomb has been certainly identified for either.
The building sites of Amenhotep I and his successors may relate to the question of where and how astronomical observations for calen-drical purposes were carried out (see Chapter i). Some discussions have argued that Elephantine may have housed an observatory for Sothic sightings, and recently a graffito from the Hierakonpolis region has suggested that some sightings took place in desert locations. Renewed interest in the cult sites between Aswan and Thebes during the i8th Dynasty does indicate a similar concern with the natural phenomena associated with these cults, such as the rise of the dog-star Sirius (Sopdet/Sothis), the beginning of the rise of the Nile, and attendant lunar cycles. The existence of a festival calendar recorded on papyrus for the reign of Amenhotep 1 (Papyrus Ebers verso), raises the possibility that the king wished to rework earlier calendars.
World History
