Egyptian Top Ten Gallery
By Michael Wood
Last updated 2011-02-17
Mortuary temple of Pharaoh Ramesses III at Medinet Habu ©
Medinet Habu
Medinet Habu
A Coptic Christian village in the Middle Ages, this giant mortuary complex of Ramesses III was originally built and decorated by the people of Deir el-Medina. It is surrounded by a huge mud-brick enclosure wall and set in emerald green fields in the lee of the Western cliffs. On the huge entrance pylons there are dramatic images of battles with the so-called Sea peoples (who may have included Bronze Age Greeks), including depictions of heaps of severed hands and genitalia. Palm trees sway near the sacred tank, where up until quite recent times Muslim women would go to pray, as the ancients did, for children.
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