“The Castle of the Million Years”
Medinet Habu, is the most impressive monument of Western Tebe. In its great surrounding walls there is a group of monuments very well kept: the “Castle of the Million Years” by Ramses III. It was built as a place to worship Amon in the XVIII Dynasty, then it became a funeral temple for Ramses III, and later a city, the heart of the government and of the economical life in Tebe for various centuries, called lat-tjamet, shortened in Djeme. It had a great development in the Coptic epoch, it was the Episcopal site and then abandoned at the arrival of the Arabic conquerors; the community escaped to Esna. The name Medinet Habu is Arabic and it refers to the Christian city that was in the temple walls by Ramses III, his funeral temple is the greatest known. The main entrance is called “the royal pavilion” and it includes the square tower decorated with relief, that raises up with two windows above the door and on the top it’s battled. Actually it’s a fortified door or migdol, that imitates the asian cities: Ramses III, warrior king, wanted to give a military imprint to the surrounding walls of his funeral temple.
 

Ramses’s III complex: roman court and Tolomeic pier.

Of remarkable importance is the little temple of the “Amon’s divine brides” dedicated to Amenardis I (XXV dynasty), to Shapenupet II, king’s Piye daughter and to Psammetico’s I wife and daughter.
149. Kamose, Seqenenra Ta’o’s son, was a warrior pharaoh who rebelled against the king’s of Avaris domination and defeated some vassalle Hyksos cities. But the final victory against the foreigners will come with his brother Ahmose, the founder of the XVIII dynasty.