Our guide told us that she was going to give us a super special treat while we were at Karnak (not that Karnak needed one). Our special treat was a visit to the Temple of Ptah. It was way at the back next to the northern enclosure wall of Karnak and there were no other tourists within several hundred yards of this temple. It had its own guards and the temple was locked. Our guide spoke to the guards and they unlocked it for us. I suspect that her talk with the guards included a bribe as well. Access to the inner chambers was through a series of doorways. The temple still has a couple of its original statues.

In the first photo, Vicky is standing in a courtyard within this temple. If you look at the stone stairway that is next to her, you can see how worn the stone stairs are from many centuries of use. To her left is probably a small tomb room.

The next photo was in a very dark inner chamber. This was in the middle chapel. This statue is the headless figure of Ptah, the creator god of Memphis.

The last photo was in the last chapel, also very dark and behind yet another locked door. This chapel did have a skylight however, which made it much more difficult to get a good picture. This is the black granite statue of Ptah’s goddess-wife, Sekhmet. She was the spreader of terror. In this statue, she is bare-breasted and lioness-headed – quite a combination. By the way, I was not intimidated.