ABSTRACT
Karnak is usually associated in people’s minds with the great city of Thebes when it was the capital of the mighty Egyptian Empire, from Dynasty XVIII onwards. But the history of Karnak goes back long before that period to a time when Thebes itself was no more than a small and relatively obscure provincial township on the east bank of the Nile in Upper Egypt. It is not in fact known when the town itself was founded, but very large quantities of palaeolithic flint tools point to an early occupation of this richly cultivatable area. Certainly by the time of the Old Kingdom, evidence is found of tombs on the West Bank opposite Thebes of some very important officials of Dynasties V and VI, indicating a fairly large and well-established settlement area. Even earlier, in Dynasty IV, a deity personifying the Theban nome is represented standing beside the pharaoh Menkaure in one of the famous triad statue-groups from that king’s mortuary temple at Giza (Reisner 1931: pls 41-2). Such a representation indicates clearly the considerable importance of Thebes at this early stage.
