Against Apion and Luxor's cachette

We do not want to be monotonous or in any case always go back to talking about that "mother-in-law" of Josephus, but so much so that also in this case the similarity between what he tells us and the reality of the facts, leaves little room for doubts, if anything it puts us other questions. But let's go in order.

January 22, 1989
During maintenance work, on the western side of the colonnaded court of Amenhotep III in the Luxor temple, archaeologists and workers of the Egyptian Organization for Antiquities under the authority of Dr. Mohammed Al-Saghir discovered a deep pit containing a considerable amount of statues, now known as "Luxor Temple Cachette".

Against Apion. Book 1 Ver 244
"First he gathered the Egyptian people, consulted with their leaders, sent for the most revered sacred animals in the temples, and ordered the priests of each district to hide the images of the gods as safely as possible."

The subject of the speech is the pharaoh, and in particular Amenhotep III. It is in fact in the courtyard of Amenhotep III that in 1989 many statues were found today preserved in the museum of Luxor, depicting divinities and Amenhotep III himself.

One of the most interesting details is the fact that the cartouche containing the name of Amon has been systematically removed, right on the wonderful statue of Amenhotep III, as can be seen in the photos taken this year at the Luxor museum. It would be interesting to know who was the author of the damnatio memoriae performed on the statue of Amenhotep III ... the main suspect could be Horemheb, so much so that some of his statues were found in the cachette, it is possible that for some reason Horemheb used the pit to hide his statues and at the same time to remove the onomastics on the cartouches of Amenhotep III. Millennia later, archaeologists would therefore have found the groups of statues of both pharaohs, but only that of Amenhotep III without the name of Amon.

Cover: Photos published in "The discovery of the hiding place of the statues of the Luxor temple", Mohamed el-Saghir, Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1991 Images owned by the author.