IT IS A PROJECT THAT HAS BROUGHT INTERNATIONAL FAME TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS FOR MORE THAN TWO DECADES, ONE CLOAKED IN THE MYSTERIES OF AN ANCIENT CULTURE FILLED WITH HIEROGLYPHICS, TOMBS AND PYRAMIDS.
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t’s barely 11 a.m., but beads of sweat are already popping up on Erika Feleg’s forehead. Plumes of dust spirited by hot, arid conditions swirl in the distance. Not that the third-year University of Memphis doctoral candidate really minds: Feleg is intently laboring under the biting Egyptian sun as she and other U of M researchers unravel secrets locked in centuries-old inscriptions found on the walls of the Karnak Great Hypostyle Hall of the Temple of Amun in Luxor, Egypt. “It is hotter than Memphis in the summer,” says Feleg, who has made three trips to Egypt to study the mysteries of the largest temple in Egypt and one of the most massive religious complexes ever built. “It goes up to 115 degrees, but we usually stop checking the thermometer since it is better not to know the exact temperature.” Feleg assures that the harsh elements don’t matter: “I love doing what I do, so it never seems slow moving, and it is definitely very rewarding on many levels. Interesting discoveries happen all the time — I always notice something new while in the field or processing photographs. They may not be as spectacular as finding Tut’s tomb, but are just as fun and interesting. Trying to figure out erased signs or traces of original decoration is the best kind of detective work.”
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NOT SUCH ANCIENT HISTORY Twenty-two years after U of M professor William Murnane made a bold prediction, history continues to play out to his thinking: “One of the things we’ve had to resign ourselves to is that we’re not going to get out of the Hypostyle Hall without a major commitment of time and effort.” The year was 1992, and Murnane, the beloved former professor of history/Egyptology, who unexpectedly passed away in 2000, had just begun a project in Egypt that has become one of the U of M’s most enduring and beneficial research initiatives, the Karnak Great Hypostyle Hall Project. With a mix of steadfast determination and patience, Murnane — and now U of M professor Dr. Peter J. Brand — have worked for years to decipher the Temple of Amun’s mysterious inscriptions, which offer a glimpse into the life of the people who once lived along the Nile River. U of M researchers say the inscriptions tell what the Egyptians expected of their world on one level and about the liturgy — the religious life of the Egyptians — on another level. Occasionally they show what was going on in the political life of the kingdom at that time. The Temple of Amun holds great historical significance. Sety I, the father of Ramesses the Great, began its construction about 1290 B.C. But even though the Hypostyle Hall is one of the most popular tourist THE UNIVERSITY OF MEMPHIS