William Durand-Poole

As lovely as I do.

No, no, not quite.

Yes, indeed.

Yes, indeed.

So the Temple of Amun at Karnak in particular, I mean, a vast, vast structure, acres upon acres.

It's an overawing experience to be there.

And right at the heart of it is this tiny little holy of holies, which had at the centre a little gilded wooden box with little doors to it.

And inside, a little gold statue of Amun.

And he was responsible for this huge cosmic creation.

I mean, and his priesthood,

were the wealthiest and most powerful priesthood in the whole of Egypt.

And the temple itself was not just a place of worship, it was a farm, it was a textile industry, it was the center of education, it was the center of artistic production.

So its economy

It's unfathomable, really.

I mean, it was so wealthy.

And many of the gods had this, you know, the Temple of Ptah in Memphis, for instance, or the Temple of Sobek in Upper Egypt, but nothing equals the Temple of Amun at Karnak, the superstructure.

This is an interesting question because...

Since the Old Kingdom, the Pyramid Age, which, as you said in your introduction, Willie, is already 3,000 years old by the New Kingdom period.

Since then, pharaohs had been accepted and indeed promoted themselves as living gods.

This is a kind of hard concept for us to get our heads around, of course.