In Egyptian temple architecture a pylon is a monumental, usually trapezoidal, stone gateway composed of two tapering towers flanking an entrance. Term Pylon comes from the Greek "πυλών", and is used for a monumental gateway consisting of two tapering towers of an Egyptian temple.

Situated at orienting axials and functioning as stratified architectural palimpsests that record successive phases of royal programing, ritual circulation and deliberate reuse.

Starting in the New Kingdom, and continuing in the centuries after, Egyptian rulers gradually created a series of 10 “pylons” at Karnak. Functioning as gateways of sorts, these pylons were connected to each other through a network of walls.

They were often decorated with scenes depicting the ruler who built them and many of them also had flag-staffs from which colorful banners would be flown.

At Karnak the pylons start near the main sanctuary and go in two directions. One set of six pylons faces west towards the Nile River and ends in an entrance lined with an avenue of small sphinxes. Another set of four pylons faces south along a processional route used for ceremonies.

circa 360 BCE

First Pylon
The first pylon, the facade of the Amun-Re precinct with avenue of the sphinxes leading up to the entrance. Construction of the current pylon began in 30th dynasty, but was never totally completed. There are large numbers of mud bricks piled up against the inside of the 113 meters wide and 15 meters thick pylon. It was built by Nectanebo I (380-362 BCE) who also built the huge enclosure wall surrounding Karnak and some scholars believe that an earlier pylon may have stood on this same spot.

The structure now identified as the First Pylon belongs to the Late Period rebuilding of the precinct and is generally attributed to Nectanebo I of the 30th Dynasty, circa 380–362 BCE. Its massiveness and unfinished elements reflect the Late Period programme to enclose and formalize the precinct with a new outer face; earlier approaches—such as the criosphinx avenue that once led to an older gateway—were displaced when this pylon and its forecourt were raised. The First Pylon therefore must be read as both a Late Period statement of control over the sacred landscape and as an enclosure that subsumed older lines of circulation; internal evidence (piled mudbrick, reused blocks and an irregular finish) indicates that it was constructed around pre-existing precinct features rather than replacing them cleanly. Evidence for the First Pylon’s dating and its relationship to the enclosure wall derives from architectural description and nineteenth-century excavation records consolidated in modern site syntheses.

circa 1300 BCE

Second Pylon
The Second Pylon with entrance to the great hypostyle hall was built by Horemheb near the end of his reign and only partly decorated by him. Several modifications to the reliefs and inscriptions were made by Rameses I and Rameses II. Pylon's roof collapsed in late antiquity and was later restored in Ptolemaic times. It was built by Horemheb (1323-1295 BCE) who filled the interior of the pylon with thousands of stone blocks from demolished monuments built by the Heretic king, Akhenaten.

The Second Pylon stands where the approach meets the Great Hypostyle Hall. Its visible decoration and the documentary sequence of usurpation show a complex history: built under Horemheb at the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty and only partly finished by him, the pylon’s surfaces were subsequently reworked by Ramesses I and Ramesses II. When Seti I constructed the Hypostyle Hall he used the east face of the Second Pylon as the west wall of the new hall, and this physical intervention produced deliberate iconographic compromises—Seti I added honorary images to mitigate the erasure of a predecessor’s reliefs. Archaeological and epigraphic study of the pylon towers has shown that Horemheb filled their interiors with thousands of recycled blocks—chiefly talatat from the Akhenaten period—and that the pylon functions as a deliberate architectural palimpsest: the core preserves documentation of the post-Amarna reordering of the Theban religious program.

circa 1386 BCE

Third Pylon
The remains of third pylon, though much ruined, in antiquity it was quite splendid and parts of it were even plated in gold by pharaoh Amenhotep III. In building the Third Pylon, Amenhotep dismantled a number of older monuments, including a small gateway he himself built earlier in the reign.

The Third Pylon is closely associated with Amenhotep III’s large-scale enhancement campaigns. In Amenhotep III’s phase many faces of the Third Pylon were richly finished and, according to the surviving record, part of the pylon was plated in precious metals and stones in antiquity. The pylon also preserves evidence for the short, disruptive interventions of Akhenaten (Amenhotep IV): blocks and partially executed scenes linked to the Amarna reforms were left incomplete or later “corrected” by subsequent rulers. Crucially, the architectural fill of the Third Pylon contained hundreds of blocks from dismantled monuments, and those blocks—when recovered by modern excavators—allowed the reconstruction of smaller monuments now displayed in Karnak’s Open-Air Museum (for example the White Chapel of Senusret I and Hatshepsut’s Red Chapel). The Third Pylon therefore is a focal point for understanding how royal presentation and later iconoclasm intersected with practical reuse.

circa 1386 BCE

Fourth and Fifth Pylons
Both the Fourth and Fifth Pylons are attributed to Thutmose I and belong to an 18th Dynasty phase in which the precinct’s east–west monumental sequence was consolidated. Thutmose I’s campaign established a deeper, more articulated east–west approach and set up the spatial relationships that later kings would adapt. The surviving fabric of these pylons is fragmentary because later additions and the insertion of obelisks and subsidiary chapels altered the visual lines from the exterior; nevertheless epigraphic ties and the architectural patterning of masonry bonding identify the Thutmosid provenance for these two gateways. Their construction must be read against a program that enlarged the inner sanctuary complex and introduced durable axiality to processional ritual.

circa 1386 BCE

Sixth Pylon
The Sixth Pylon is associated with Thutmose III and encloses access to a Hall of Records where the king recorded divine tributes. The pylon’s façades preserve a mixture of iconographic programmes: original New Kingdom reliefs that celebrate the king’s campaigns, later retouching by post-Amarna restorers—most notably Tutankhamen—and further reworking by Horemheb. Its interior fills again preserve displaced blocks and inscriptions that illuminate the fiscal and diplomatic rhetoric of the Thutmosid empire; the pylon therefore functions as both a gateway and a repository for documentary masonry.

circa 1386 BCE

Seventh Pylon
The Seventh Pylon and its immediate environs capture a cluster of smaller shrine constructions and lists of conquered towns. On the southern face the surviving imagery includes a pronounced representation of Thutmose III in pharaonic triumph, beneath which is a toponymic series of named towns and peoples—an explicitly imperial projection of royal victory into temple space. The precinct element adjacent to the Seventh Pylon also produced the famous cachette of statues discovered by Georges Legrain in the early twentieth century CE; that deposit demonstrates both the ritual practice of decommissioning cult images and the pylon area’s role in controlled clearances during later periodic rebuildings.

circa 1386 BCE

Eighth Pylon
The Eighth Pylon is generally assigned to Hatshepsut’s building program and was subsequently embellished by Thutmose III and later restorers. It stands as the visual terminus of the publicly accessible east–west sequence for most modern visitors and its façades present ritual scenes that link Hatshepsut’s offerings to Amun with later kings’ commemorations. Because the area east of the Eighth Pylon is archaeologically active and partially closed to tourists, the pylon also marks the transition from the principal public approach into restricted cultic zones and later excavation sectors.

circa 1386 BCE

Ninth and Tenth Pylons
The Ninth and Tenth Pylons belong to the late Eighteenth Dynasty restorations and reconstructions under Horemheb, who—reacting to the Amarna disruption—mobilised large quantities of material from the dismantled Atenic monuments. Both pylons incorporate talatat-sized blocks and other reused masonry in their cores; the Tenth Pylon in particular is frequently described in the excavation record as having been constructed from compacted fragments of earlier monuments. The Ninth Pylon is badly damaged, but its hollow towers and internal stairways attest to complex internal circulation; the sequence of reuse in these late pylons embodies the deliberate architectural policy of erasure and re-inscription that followed the Amarna crisis.