The first thing you want to say when the car turns around a corner and you come in front of Medinet Habu is - Magnificent. As it stands today, it´s the most well preserved of temples from the New Kingdom, and it´s very strange that they don´t promote it to more visitors. It´s not on the lists of "must see´s" at all.

That is a pity, though while it´s not really beautiful in the way that Philae is for example, it´s so big and so full of interesting frescoes with paint still on them, that it should take hours to go through it in order to get something out of it. Running through just doesn´t make justice to it. It´s overwhelming and I quickly realized the futility of trying to take photos of it all.

We did our best to not miss any of the special stuff but still did. It was just too much to cover! To one side of the Hypostyle Hall, our guide showed us a small room which was rather hidden, where you could see reliefs depicting the King plowing and sowing, and in the Second Court the reliefs of the King in front of different deities seemed almost to be in the same condition as the had been in the ancient days.

Interestingly enough, there doesn´t seem to be a newer guidebook than William J. Murnane´s "United With Eternity - A Concise Guide to the Monuments of Medinet Habu" (The American University in Cai ro Press). That one is out of print, but the bookstore at the Mercure Hotel on the Corniche has got a stock of it which they sell for 90 LE each. Pure robbery, of course!