Editing Karnak (section)

===European knowledge of Karnak===
Thebes' exact placement was unknown in medieval Europe, though both [[Herodotus]] and [[Strabo]] give the exact location of Thebes and how long up the [[Nile]] one must travel to reach it. Maps of Egypt, based on the 2nd century [[Ptolemy|Claudius Ptolemaeus]]' mammoth work ''[[Geography (Ptolemy)|Geographia]]'', had been circulating in Europe since the late 14th century, all of them showing Thebes' (Diospolis) location. Despite this, several European authors of the 15th and 16th centuries who visited only [[Lower Egypt]] and published their travel accounts, such as [[Joos van Ghistele]] and [[André Thévet]], put Thebes in or close to [[Memphis, Egypt|Memphis]].
[[File:Monumenti dell'Egitto e della Nubia-plate-0032.jpg|thumbnail|upright=1.3|right|Hieroglyphs from the great obelisk of Karnak, transcribed by [[Ippolito Rosellini]] in 1828]]

The first European description of the Karnak temple complex was by unknown Venetian in 1589 and is housed in the [[Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale di Firenze]], although his account gives no name for the complex.

Karnak ("Carnac") as a village name, and name of the complex, is first attested in 1668, when two [[Order of Friars Minor Capuchin|capuchin]] missionary brothers, Protais and Charles François d'Orléans, travelled though the area. Protais' writing about their travel was published by [[Melchisédech Thévenot]] (''Relations de divers voyages curieux'', 1670s–1696 editions) and [[Johann Michael Vansleb]] (''The Present State of Egypt'', 1678).
[[File:Temple Complex at Karnak.jpg|thumb|upright=1.3|Photograph of the temple complex taken in 1914, Cornell University Library]]
The first drawing of Karnak is found in [[Paul Lucas (traveller)|Paul Lucas]]' travel account of 1704, (''Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas au Levant''). It is rather inaccurate, and can be quite confusing to modern eyes. Lucas travelled in Egypt during 1699–1703. The drawing shows a mixture of the Precinct of Amun-Re and the Precinct of Montu, based on a complex confined by the three huge Ptolemaic gateways of [[Ptolemy&nbsp;III Euergetes]] / [[Ptolemy&nbsp;IV Philopator]], and the massive {{Nowrap|113 m}} long, {{Nowrap|43 m}} high and {{Nowrap|15 m}} thick, First Pylon of the Precinct of Amun-Re.

Karnak was visited and described in succession by [[Claude Sicard]] and his travel companion Pierre Laurent Pincia (1718 and 1720–21), [[Granger (Tourtechot)|Granger]] (1731), [[Frederick Louis Norden]] (1737–38), [[Richard Pococke]] (1738), [[James Bruce]] (1769), [[Charles-Nicolas-Sigisbert Sonnini de Manoncourt]] (1777), [[William George Browne]] (1792–93), and finally by a number of scientists of the Napoleon expedition, including [[Vivant Denon]], during 1798–1799. [[Claude-Étienne Savary]] describes the complex in rather great detail in his work of 1785; especially in light of the fact that it is a fictional account of a pretend journey to Upper Egypt, composed out of information from other travellers. Savary did visit [[Lower Egypt]] in 1777–78, and published a work about that too.