Suppose I time-travel to New Kingdom Egypt

Factual Questions
1

I see all around me New Kingdom monuments, temples, tombs and palaces – of course, I also see all around me Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom monuments, temples, tombs and palaces, many of them still in ruinous existence in 2014.

These Old and Middle Kingdom structures – are they now, in the New Kingdom (anywhere from c. 1550 B.C. to c. 1077 B.C.), ruins? Like in 2014, only slightly less ruinous? With broken roofs and weathered, sand-scoured, paintless stone surfaces? Or, are all these works from older dynasties well-maintained, with fresh paint jobs, with all the original (or replacement) limestone facing on the pyramids and all the gilding on the statues? That is, did Egyptian dynasties preserve and maintain the works of older dynasties, or neglect them?

2

UFO’s still depended on them for landings until 950 B.C., so I’m sure maintenance was still up-kept.

3

The Giza pyramids remained plaster covered till Arab times, when a lot was taken for new projects in Cairo. The Sphinx is covered uptil its neck in Sand.

The Suez is still around, the earlier one that is.

4

Kahfre’s pyramid was mostly cased as late as the 1640’s. The south side (IIRC) was gone, but the rest mostly intact.

5

Moderator Note

While I am certain that you could find several documentaries from the History Channel to support this, let’s hold off on the joke answers until after the OP has been factually addressed.

No warning issued.

6

:smack:

Sorry, I thought this was IMHO at the time.

7

I’ve seen some quotations from explorers up to the Middle Ages who mentioned that the casing stones on one or more of the pyramids were intact or largely so. Of course, what constitutes intact is a question of opinion, maybe they were actually heavily worn but the observers didn’t know any better. I’ll try to find some cites later.

8

Plaster?!

9

The early Old Kingdom pyramids weathered much better than the later Old Kingdom and Middle Kingdom pyramids - due to construction methods.

The Old Kingdom pyramids were solid stone all the way - until the fifth dynasty, when designers discovered it was much, much cheaper and faster to build using rubble infill or mud brick (with solid stone only used to stiffen the strructure and as an outer casing).

The results, though, were pyramids that did not last - they were more likely to turn into big piles of rubble.

10

It worked better than drywall. Speaking of which, I’m still waiting for the Eiffel Tower to be finished.

11

Well, since the Eiffel Tower was supposed to be temporary and originally scheduled to be dismantled in 1909, they probably would have never gotten around to finishing the drywall anyway…

12

Here’s a collection of historical anecdotes regarding the pyramids and mostly the Great Pyramid. Seems that the casing stones were still there as recently as 2500 years ago.

13

There isn’t a lot of middle-kingdom stuff. Much of the spectacular stuff we see isn’t so much New Kingdom as Ptolemaic rebuilds and embellishments.

The pyramids were sheathed in smooth limestone, but to be fair, yes a lot of the wall reliefs, especially indoors, were shaped into wet plaster rather than carved in stone.

Note that Akhenaten’s Brazilia clone capital city was dismantled, along with much else he had built, after he died, by the priests of the traditional religion and their minions. During the interregnums between high points in Egyptian society, priests would have fled the temples and the sand might have covered them. At Karnak in Luxor, there is still remains of a mud ramp leading up to the top of one of the major “pylons” (front walls) where the blocks were hauled up, and the wall is somewhat unfinished. (For a bonus, beside that two of the columns are still rough blocks, so you can see how they made nice neat columns - they piled and mortared the squared blocks and then carved the final round shape.

Google David Roberts paintings for what things looked like 200-plus years ago. Sand covered everything. Some of the most spectacular sites still have paint on the columns and reliefs, because the sand covered them up.

Consider that just like the Roman emperors, the Greek tyrants, and just about everyone else even to present day - the prestige lay in building something new, not in routine maintenance. With scarce money, rulers were inclined to either severely rebuild or build from scratch. the priests maybe stayed as long as they got offerings and support from the local community. If for some reason a site was abandoned, likely it stayed that way unless a new monarch decided to turn it into his spectacular new temple.

After all, when the statues at the temple to Ramses II fall over or are pulled down by marauding armies - 200 years later, why would some other pharaoh spend his hard-earned taxation money or restoring and putting back together Ramses’ statue instead of making one of his own?

It’s funny too, you see some of the external blocks with the reliefs and hieroglyphics carved very deeply. Apparently, this was to discourage “recycling” of old building material - what good is a stone block if you have to spend all that effort to shave 6 inches or more off it to get a smooth face for your carvings?

14

You must construct additional pylons!

15

All your pylons are belong to us!

16

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
‘Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

– Percy Bysshe Shelley

17

Limestone.

18

Here is a copy of John Greave’s book

19

:smiley:

Pylons is the name for the larger and very thick front walls of the temple, with the gap or gate in the middle leading into the outer courtyard.

Karnak is spectacular in that there are a dozen sets of pylons, each leading to new courtyard, where most temples have only one pylon wall set.

(Here’s Edfu temple pylons and gate: Temple of Edfu - Wikipedia )

Edfu, too, the Ptolemy clan added to the temple; you can still see the “birth house” outside the main entrance, a little side chapel where the carvings showed the Ptolemy pharaoh of the day born from and weaned by the goddesses of the Egyptian religion. By such works the rulers (especially foreign usurpers like the Ptolemys) tried to prove their divine credentials.

you see much of this - what we see today is embellishments by the Ptolemys on New Kingdom construction. For real spectacular New Kingdom, go to Valley of the Kings. The paint is still amazingly fresh on these tunnel tombs’ wall reliefs, even if the priceless contents were looted by thieves and local warlords when the New Kingdom fell into chaos. Of course, our time traveller would not be allowed to visit these tombs in the time of the New Kingdom, because until chaos ensued the tunnels were sealed and guarded, as befit the resting places of gods.

Note too that we find mainly temples and tombs. There is a singular lack of other buildings; probably either fully recycled or built of mud brick, plus their singular obsession was with the afterlife. The most spectacular every-day life spot is the village of the workers, a spot where Valley of the Kings workmen lived (and died, and are entombed). The remains of a large village complex, walls still up to chest level in places; their local little temple turned into a walled monastery in the middle ages.

Other than that, there are a little of the remains of the dwellings beside the Luxor temple of Rameses III if I recall; you can see the royal toilet-hole in one closet in the knee-high wall stubs there.