The Great Karnak Inscription is an ancient Egyptian

hieroglyphic Egyptian hieroglyphs (, ) were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt, used for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters.There were about 1,00 ...

inscription belonging to the 19th Dynasty Pharaoh

Merneptah Merneptah or Merenptah (reigned July or August 1213 BC – May 2, 1203 BC) was the fourth pharaoh of the Nineteenth Dynasty of Ancient Egypt. He ruled Egypt for almost ten years, from late July or early August 1213 BC until his death on May 2, ...

. A long epigraph, it was discovered at

Karnak The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constr ...

in 1828–1829. According to

Wilhelm Max Müller Wilhelm Max Müller (15 May 1862 – 12 July 1919) was a German-born American orientalist. Biography Müller was born at Gleißenberg, Germany. He received his higher education in Erlangen, Berlin, Munich, and Leipzig, where he received his ...

, it is "one of the famous standard texts of Egyptology... nd has been... one of the greatest desiderata of scholars for many years."Muller, p.25 The Great Karnak Inscription is located on the west (inside) of the east wall of the Cachette Court, in the

Precinct of Amun-Re The Precinct of Amun-Re, located near Luxor, Egypt, is one of the four main temple enclosures that make up the immense Karnak Temple Complex. The precinct is by far the largest of these and the only one that is open to the general public. The te ...

of the

Karnak temple complex The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak (, which was originally derived from ar, خورنق ''Khurnaq'' "fortified village"), comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, pylons, chapels, and other buildings near Luxor, Egypt. Constru ...

, in modern

Luxor Luxor ( ar, الأقصر, al-ʾuqṣur, lit=the palaces) is a modern city in Upper (southern) Egypt which includes the site of the Ancient Egyptian city of ''Thebes''. Luxor has frequently been characterized as the "world's greatest open-a ...

. It runs from the fourth pylon of the great sanctuary to the eighth pylon. It was first identified by Champollion, and later partly published by Karl Richard Lepsius. It includes a record of the campaigns of this king against the

Sea Peoples The Sea Peoples are a hypothesized seafaring confederation that attacked ancient Egypt and other regions in the East Mediterranean prior to and during the Late Bronze Age collapse (1200–900 BCE).. Quote: "First coined in 1881 by the Fren ...

. The 79-line inscription (which has now lost about a third of its content) shows the king's campaigns and eventual return with booty and prisoners. It is the longest surviving continuous monumental text from Egypt. It has been designated KIU 4246 by the Centre Franco-Égyptien d'Étude des Temples de Karnak.

Bibliography

* Muller
Egyptological Researches

References

Karnak temple complex Sea Peoples Egyptian inscriptions {{AncientEgypt-stub