The “DecoProg” project has revisited specific aspects of the monuments known as temples of “millions of years” by focusing on the interconnections between these temples and other monuments built in Thebes. The core objective has been to analyse their function and specificity by studying their iconographic program and also considering architectural, archaeological, and religious aspects. These monuments developed at the beginning of the 18th dynasty (ca. 1539-1292 BC), a time of ideological rebirth and political stability. They were, above all, a reflection of novel religious and ideological concepts connected to kingship. The project has essentially examined 18th-dynasty monuments. However, it has also compared them with the posterior Ramesside period (ca. 1292-1069 BC). This has provided new insights into how kingship conceived itself and with society in this crucial period and how decorative programs reflected it.
The two-year fellowship has focused on exploring how the king’s cult in life and after death in the temples of millions of years, particularly those situated in Western Thebes (Luxor, Egypt), interacted with that performed in other temples of that area and beyond, as well as with the royal and private tombs. It has re-examined the decorative programs of this period from a broader perspective, deconstructing often fixed and too restrictive categories between monuments by diachronic comparison through different reigns, synchronic analysis between monuments, and analysing the scenes within their contexts. It becomes more apparent that temples of "millions of years" should be understood as context-specific. They were also answers to specific needs and part of a broad context where tradition and innovation interplayed.
Furthermore, a new model of tomb and temple developed during the New Kingdom, which performed different but complementary functions. This project has shed more light on how these theoretically separated contexts shared many commonalities regarding function and decoration inherited from previous periods. Furthermore, a corpus of texts and motifs was also used for multiple contexts. Each structure had its place in the conceptual, ritual and sacred landscape. Monuments and society were interrelated through religious, economic, and ideological landscapes, where the perception of monumentality and stone monuments played an important role.
