The Gardens of the Temple of Hatshepsut

Hatshepsut herself records on its walls that she built the temple “as a garden for my father Amun”.

In its heyday, visitors would have entered into shaded garden areas with exotic plants, trees and ponds and the limestone temple itself, three ascending terraces set back against the Theban cliff, would have gleamed softly in the light.

Following the example of other Egyptian gardens, we can also assume that exotic animals lived here. Birds of various kinds sang their songs and insects hummed through the air.

On the ponds swam ducks, which were hunted with the ritual wooden throwing stick, as we know it from many murals from that time. And we found these woods in the mud of the ponds well preserved even today.

It must have been an absolutely breathtaking sight, a feast for all the senses. In the midst of this barren lifeless desert valley to experience such a magnificently blooming garden, with all its colours, lovely scents and sounds could only mean one thing: real gods worked and lived here.

Because, this was a truly divine garden. A garden more than worthy of the supreme god of Karnak and father of the female king of the two lands on earth. “A garden for my father Amun!

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