The function of these chapels is indicated in their frescoes: perfumes used during sacred rituals were kept in the laboratory and across the hall in the temple’s treasury. The second hypostyle hall gives way to the Hall of Offerings where the daily rites were performed. In the kiosk in the southwest corner of the roof priests performed the ceremony of “touching the disk,” in which the soul of the sun god Ra appeared in the form of light. If you look to the right you will notice a gently sloping staircase which leads up to the roof, where you can survey the scene below. Unless you have a fantastic fear of bats, it’s worth the climb.

The Hall of the Ennead immediately precedes the inner sanctuary. The chamber on the left is the wardrobe, and opposite a doorway leads through a small treasury into the Court of the New Year where sacrifices were performed during the festival of the New Year. On the ceiling of the colorful portico the goddess Nut gives birth to the sun, whose rays shine upon the head of Hathor.

The Mysterious Corridor surrounds the Sanctuary on three sides, and 11 chapels, each with a distinct religious function, open off of it, A small chamber known as the Throne of Ra sits behind the northernmost of the three doorways which open up behind the sanctuary. A minuscule opening in its floor leads to the crypt, a subterranean hallway embellished with reliefs, some of inlaid alabaster. Climb to the upper floors, where many rooms cany ceiling paintings of the goddess Nut swallowing the sun at sundown and giving birth to it at dawn. On the roof of the temple is graffiti left by French soldiers in 1799.