Carpe Diem #791 Karnak

Dear Haijin, visitors and travelers,

My interview for a new job as an Advanced Nurse Practitioner Oncology has gone great. Next to me there were three other nurses who did apply for this new job. So I have a chance of 1 : 4 (25%) to get the job. Of course I hope to the one they choose, but that's not up to me. I have given my best performance and it felt great .... so keep your fingers crossed. I will hear more after the weekend ... very exciting. Thank you all for your kind words and thoughts ... I really hope to tell you all after the weekend if I have the job.

Ok ... back to our journey over The Nile. We are sailing towards Karnak, The Karnak Temple Complex, commonly known as Karnak, comprises a vast mix of decayed temples, chapels, pylons, and other buildings. Building at the complex began during the reign of Senusret I in the Middle Kingdom and continued into the Ptolemaic period, although most of the extant buildings date from the New Kingdom. The area around Karnak was the ancient Egyptian Ipet-isut ("The Most Selected of Places") and the main place of worship of the eighteenth dynasty Theban Triad with the god Amun as its head. It is part of the monumental city of Thebes. The Karnak complex gives its name to the nearby, and partly surrounded, modern village of El-Karnak, 2.5 kilometres (1.6 miles) north of Luxor. (Source: Wikipedia)

Credits: Karnak

This temple complex holds the Sacred Lake of Precinct of Amun-Re, that's by the way what you see on our CDHK logo this month. Karnak was a "dynamic" temple complex, because several pharaohs built their temples there. As for example Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV) did in the Eighteenth dynasty of Egypt. Akhenaten was the pharaoh from whom there is not much recovered, because of his "revolte" against the priests of Egypt (the most powerful group of Egyptians in ancient Egypt) who were polytheistic and Akhenaten introduced monotheism with his religion of The Aten (or Aton), the only god to worship, the Sun, to Egypt. There are even scientists who say that Akhenaten created this Atenism, to become the only and most powerful ruler of Egypt, because he saw his self as The Sun. Other scientists says that Akhenaten created his religion from the example of Judaism, the religion of Israel.
Because of the powerful (polytheistic) priests, Akhenaten built his temple for the sun in a place known as Amarna (or El-Amarna) about 400 km North of Luxor. After Akhenaten's death Amarna and it's complexes were destroyed as was the part of Karnak built by him.
Akhenaten (and his monotheistic religion Atenism) by the way was my model for creating a religion in my first fantasy novel which was published in 2007.

only the sun
high above Karnak
seems to know

© Chèvrefeuille

Not as strong as I had hoped, but I think it's a haiku in which is described in just a few words what I wrote above.

This episode is NOW OPEN for your submissions and will remain open until August 10th at noon (CET). I will try to publish our new episode, Akhenaten, later on. For now .... have fun!

!! PS. There will be no Tan Renga episode this week !!